One of the theories I’ve been mulling over–I haven’t put the research in to test it out fully yet–is that murder ballads, perhaps in general, perhaps especially in American culture, have served their singers and listeners as a kind of Protestant confessional.

Absent the more definite and intense rituals of the Roman Catholic tradition, but still with a dominant religious culture still managing a good bit of the same kind of guilt, perhaps the songs can be for their singers and listeners the opportunity to confess. Not that they have committed such crimes, of course, or even wanted to, but that “confessing” to these things through participating in the music, gets them psychologically/spiritually off the hook for other things they might feel badly about.

In Reinhold Niebuhr’s _Nature and Destiny of Man_, among other places, he argues that Christianity rightly sees sin as pride–willful self-assertion based out of a fundamental existential insecurity. Feminist critiques of Niebuhr have argued, with merit, I think, that this conception of sin fails to recognize that denial of self can also represent a form of sin. Or, in any event, they argue that too much self-assertion is not typically the primary moral peril, or crisis of conscience, women face within our culture.

As mentioned above, it’s pretty clear that the genre does not often give very much voice to the victims, but often does so to the perpetrators–and often in the form of confessions. It’s not difficult to see, either, that there’s not a whole lot of subverting of a male-dominated culture in this genre, at least until recently, perhaps.

In any event, yes, a good deal of sin and repentance going on–but perhaps not always the same kind of sin, and therefore not always the same kind of repentance.

As much as I’d like to take up the interplay of natural and supernatural as witness/forensic tool in “Young Hunting,” I can’t get past “Little Water Song.” I hadn’t heard the piece before this post. It’s incredibly powerful, and I think Cave and Lemper have achieved something pretty amazing.

The song is something of an emotional ordeal in many ways, and I think of deciding to listen to it as something to brace oneself for–like a performance of MacBeth. It’s emotionally vivid, although not visually so. As Pat points out, the strict, first-person account of the victim here is decidedly different from most of the genre–where there are different voices or the voice of the perpetrator. Your point about Cave’s empathy is well taken.

I wonder what it must feel like to sing the song. Unlike the others we’ve discussed so far, it’s very difficult for me to imagine singing it–both for content and stylistic reasons. The other two interpreters I can find on Spotify are both women. It’s hard to imagine Jean Ritchie making a comment about this song akin to her reflections on “Fair Ellender” that Pat shared.

With other murder ballads, there can be an opportunity for catharsis in the remorse expressed by the perpetrator. With this one, I don’t quite have a place to put what goes on. The victim here retains innocence throughout, although the turn to hate at the end is indeed interesting.

To compare it to Costello’s “What Lewis Did Last,” it definitely steps away from folk melody. The melody of the singer and the more orchestral arrangements definitely make it more of an art song. Cave is obviously not as explicit as Costello in linking this song to a particular source ballad; as you mention, the drowning/water theme is altogether common.

So, ironically I suppose, for this song, one may be more likely to witness the song than participate in it. Nevertheless, the witnessing it is completely engrossing, indeed exhausting in some way. The song can’t really be taken in in small pieces.

As an aside, I watched the NSFW version from the film. It’s difficult to interpret that segment out of context, but there are some interesting possibilities about how emotional memories differ from the actual events. More on that later, perhaps.