MBM: Let’s talk about some other elements of your current repertoire. You’ve re-written “Omie Wise” a bit. BP: “Omie Wise” was the first one that I listened to that really stopped me in my tracks, because it was so simple and pared down—just a woman singing in her kitchen, singing a song about a woman being murdered. I find it’s easier for me to focus and write when I have a boundary, and I chose “Omie Wise” because it showed up.
There were different versions—either he confesses, he gets caught, or he gets away, but she’s always dead. This was the first time I had come across it so clearly. And I thought, if it’s a myth, why can’t history give the woman a voice? Why can’t we have a woman “win” once?
“Frankie and Johnny” doesn’t move me as much. There are other ones where women “win.” I want to steer clear of clear love stories. The idea of somebody getting upset and shooting someone is less interesting to me than the more complicated ones.
The song we’re currently working on, “Let You Go” [see Coda below] is about a woman who drowns her children in a bathtub. It’s based on a true story. That one made me cry when I wrote it because I felt so weird. Now I love it.
CS: She claimed that God told her to do it. It’s a tragic story. The song is a lullaby. We’re able to write in an awareness that the people in the story might not have. I think it’s complex in that way. But, if someone truly believed that this was God’s word, how did her brain get there?
BP: Post-partum depression.
CS: I don’t think that that factors into the song.
BP: It does in a way, but it’s not immediately present. I feel like I’ve matured in my thinking about murder ballads and in switching the voice. There’s been a progression from re-writing the end part of “Omie Wise” to what we’re working on now.
MBM: “Angel of Mercy” sounds like a rather light-hearted take on euthanasia.
BP: It is. I have actually played that song in comedy venues. It was a character piece for a while in comedy shows and in a play that I wrote. That’s the comedy coming out in me. I think it’s a way better song with Christine as part of it.
MBM: How have audiences responded to your work? What do you think they connect with the most?
CS: We’ve had a few different experiences by virtue of the venues. We learned that we do really well at storytelling events. Chicago has a great storytelling community—“This Much Is True,” for example. People that are there to listen to the stories really listen well. We feed off of their energy because we’re theater artists, so we take on personas, and I think that just makes the performances richer.
BP: We’re not really a background noise, event band. If they’re not there to listen…
Still from Poole’s show “murder, hope” where she debuted “I’ll Lay You Down,” “Angel of Mercy,” and “Omie Homage.” Photo by David Baum
CS: For a genre and a subject matter as risky as this, people have responded so positively. I’m probably too self-deprecating or non-confident, but I was really surprised. They’ve been really positive. I was concerned about the simplicity of our sound, but people have really responded to it. One time, we played a busy place, but the audience really focused on us.
BP: The bar quieted down and listened.
CS: It made us realize that what we’re doing was a little bit deeper, and maybe we’re charged with a little bit bigger of a task.
MBM: What do you think they’re responding to?
CS: I think they’re responding to what we’ve done with the stories, and they’re responding to us.
BP: We’ll often start with an a cappella song, and having these two stark voices, and maybe a saw, draws their attention. They definitely respond to the saw. Sometimes doing something a cappella will really focus people. Then it’s the stories. They’re creepy.
MBM: How do you feel after singing a set of murder ballads?
CS: I think we do enough different stuff, that this [the murder ballad material] is the “different.” Becky and I were performing in The Mikado, which was uber-bright and fun and engaging with the audience. But, it’s also draining and exhausting. If we can come back to this, the murder ballads, it’s meditative and cathartic.
BP: That catharsis. I don’t know if it’s mine to have, because…I don’t know why, but I have it.
Christine Stulik
CS: I think it is ours to have. As humans, either first hand or however many degrees removed, we’ve had these experiences in some ways, and being able to process them for ourselves and for an audience is important. I had a female neighbor who was being abused by her boyfriend. One night, after he had beaten her pretty badly, I ended up taking her in to my apartment until the police arrived. While I tried to write a song about that… I tried to process it through writing a song, but I couldn’t get there. But, I feel lately that it’s sort of worked its way into other stuff we do. I don’t need to write about it specifically in order to process it. These kinds of events give a sense of urgency to our experience of singing these songs.
BP: I think that’s part of why it lasts.
I want to say, and I think I speak for Christine too, that I appreciate being asked these questions, because we want to come at it from a heady place. We might cover something just because we think it’s pretty, but we like to dive into it intellectually, too.
MBM: How do you balance the tension between the intellectual or the political and the art?
CS: I think we really just enjoy playing together. We have fun, and it keeps us from being too heavy-handed.
BP: When we’re writing or performing, we sort of feel our way through it. We realize that we might be forcing it too much. We can keep each other in check.
CS: We’re not afraid to challenge each other.
Eileen
BP: We take each other’s challenges.
CS: Part of it is just saying “yes” to stuff, to remain open. We also have a repertoire of old-timey clawhammer music that we break out if things get too serious or people are just too noisy to hear us. That breaks the tension sometimes.
MBM: I’d be interested to know from each of you your personal favorites among murder ballads—old or modern.
BP: I had Nick Cave’s Murder Ballads album. I love Nick Cave. I really enjoyed that, and probably entered murder ballads with that. I also put a call out to some of my friends in Seattle, and they came back to me with a whole library of murder ballads and songs I had never heard from all kinds of musical genres.
CS: I had never heard that cd. My dad played a lot of Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention, and they tap into a lot of Child Ballads and Scottish Border ballads. I think my familiarity with “Wind and the Rain” came from music like that. My gateway would probably be old world folk balladry and how it transformed into Appalachian folk song.
MBM: Thanks so much for talking with us about your work.
CS: Before we go, I wanted to mention that we have decided to pool our multi-faceted backgrounds into one project. We’re in the process of developing a long-form musical production of the story of the Papin Sisters. So that will be a collection of songs, not all of which will be murder ballads themselves, but the whole piece will make up a kind of murder ballad. Tremendous thanks to Becky Poole and Christine Stulik for investing their time and giving their thoughts for this interview. Thanks also to Logan Futej for the photography and others who assisted with some of the technical aspects, including the video recordings of the performances at “This Much is True” at the Hopleaf in Chicago.
Coda: Let You Go I didn’t want to include “Let You Go” in the middle of the interview above, because I think it really deserves some sustained attention. I’m including Eileen’s performance below, as well as the lyrics, provided by Becky Poole. There’s a lot too it, and it creates a whole new layer at how we may look at various “Cruel Mother” ballads. It is based on the story of Andrea Yates. The song is not currently available on Eileen’s Soundcloud or Bandcamp sites. This recording was made at the Hopleaf in Chicago. It’s a little jumpy at the start, but everything settles down in the end. The lyrics are below the clip. [Update 19 April 2013: You can also listen to a Soundcloud recording of the song here.] Let You Go (from Eileen)
There wasn’t much here for you Dry landscape, barren it seems So flat you could see forever my dear No place for my baby’s big dreams Nowhere to go born into disgrace A diamond in spite of the dust So pure in the light, couldn’t spare you the fight I had to let you go. Let you go, so long Let you go, so long So long you’re never coming back. Drown out my demons, tiny soul in their snare Little boy don’t be scared Talking out loud to ghosts, oh heavenly host It’s so quiet in this old house There’s nothing left for me to do Bathwater splashed on my blouse. It’s dry on the bed, kiss you on the head There’s a calling far deeper than home. I’ll make the call sit with you on the bed. Look at you in your Sunday best. A vessel devoid, lips smiling and blue Your angels will know what to do. I’ll see you again, washed clean of my sin Dispensation for saving young bones. A mother knows best and I put you to rest With a calling far deeper than home. Let you go, so long Let you go, so long Little one you’re never coming back.
