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Rebecca: I think that’s kind of a running thread for all of the songs we’re doing from this collection. It’s probably the reason these versions aren’t more fully known—they’re mostly fragments. It’s clear when you read John Jacob Niles’s notes, that people forget things and jumble them up. Most of the songs we’ve done have these weird omissions.

Jonathan: Usually in the song there’s some sort of gray area, open to interpretation. It’s interesting how the slightest change in voice can change how the song is interpreted.

Rebecca: I think we ran into that specifically in “King William’s Son.” In that one, Niles may have made a mistake in transcribing it, not understanding who was singing what, when.

Jonathan: It’s an incredible example of the folk process, how it changes so much, orally, as it’s passed down. We’re becoming part of the process through this project.

That’s an interesting theme about this collection. I noticed in your comments about murder ballads in your blog that you mention their resemblance to fairy tales, but you also note that “The Little Drownded Girl” omits any reference to the supernatural. Are there other common themes you’ve noticed about these songs as Niles found them.

Rebecca: Niles comments on the supernatural issue a time or two in his notes. In a lot of North American versions of these songs, the supernatural elements that exist in the European versions have been stripped out. There’s also an example in “King William’s Son” the fourth ballad for our project Isabel pushes a human prince by his “slender hips,” likely a reference to the fact that in older versions of the ballad he’s an elf.

Jonathan: “The Shirt of Lace,” a variant of Child’s Elfin Knight, was the first example we encountered  The elf was obviously a supernatural element, but he’s not in Niles’ version

Rebecca: Another example is in “William and Ellen.” In older versions, a talking horse is featured, but in the one Niles learned from Solomon Holcomb, the horse is mentioned but stripped of his lines. Niles quotes Holcomb as saying “Nowadays, people hain’t got no interest in talkin’ animals of any kind, and particularly, talking horses.”

Jonathan: It’s a great example of how the folk process changes things based on what people are interested in at that point in time.

Rebecca: Because there was such an interest in religion in culture at this point of time, that might contribute to the diminished role of the supernatural.

What’s the next murder ballad on the horizon?

Rebecca: There are quite a few. We are definitely going to do “Willie McGee McGaw.” The one I’m most nervous about doing is “The Lady of York.” Throughout this process, it’s almost been unbearable to take on all the darkness of these songs. For example, with “The Lady of York,” where she’s killing her babies. I have a baby, and it’s very hard to confront.

Jonathan: We didn’t really consider that when choosing the songs.

Rebecca: When I wrote about murder ballads in our blog post, it was also a kind of apology, a defense of them, because I think there’s a lot of merit to murder ballads. You can’t ignore them when you’re looking at Appalachian folk music. They’re kind of inevitable. There are some happy songs we do, too. They’ll kind of balance it out. Given when these ballads were sung for Niles, people were around death a lot more. It was something they couldn’t escape, as much as we’re now able.

Jonathan: Most people singing these had some immediate personal experience.

Rebecca: Yeah. Not just death, but tragic death. They were around the fragility of their existence. They were confronted with that fragility a lot more often. These songs were a way to come to terms with that, certainly.

One thing that’s special about this project, especially considering the people that John Jacob Niles talked to, is that it feels like a miniature resurrection is taking place. We’re getting to be in community with people who have been dead for 100 years. It was something that I didn’t think about going in. We’re encountering people who lived and died in relative obscurity.

Special thanks to Jonathan and Rebecca Moody for their thoughts this week. Going forward, we’ll be sharing their related content from the Dear Balladeer project on Murder Ballad Monday’s Facebook page. Also, you may want to check out Forest Mountain Hymnal’s web site for other recordings of some of our favorites. Thanks also to Julyan Davis for supplying the “Two Sisters” image from his Murder Ballad Paintings.