Songs About Murder

Ballads about murder pepper British and American history. Sadly, as the blog, Murder Ballad Monday (yes, there is a blog devoted to the subject) notes, many of them have a misogynistic streak – men killing women as often as not, just for the hell of it. The Everly Brothers' Down in the Willow Garden is a prime example.

Many murder ballads tell stories. Nick Cave has an album full of them, one of the more interesting being The Ballad of Robert Moore and Betty Coltrane.

An unusual and compelling twist on the murder song is Icelandic singer Emiliana Torrini's Gun. Told, not from the perspective of killer or victim, but of the gun itself, she is a seductress, "the smoothest thing to touch your skin", luring her owner to kill, and then inviting him to "look me in the barrel and tell me that you love me. Yes, this is a kiss that will blow your mind!"

While people kill for jealousy, anger and profit, perhaps the worst excuse for murder is the one proffered by Paul Kelly. God Told Me To! Religious fanaticism run amok.

There is no excuse for murder, and reggae artist Buju Banton roundly condemns it in Murderer. "Murderer!" he sings, "Your insides must be hollow. How does it feel to take the life of another?"

But sometimes murder seems justified. Dixie Chicks bump off an abusive husband in Goodbye Earl and you come away cheering because, frankly, the bastard deserved it.

With so many songs "celebrating" and sometimes even revelling in murder, thank goodness there are some that recognise the horror of violent death and empathise with the victims.

Billie Holiday's poignant and graphic Strange Fruit condemns the lynchings of the deep south. She sings: "The bulging eyes and twisted mouth/ Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh/ then the sudden smell of burning flesh."

Karine Polwart's Half a Mile follows the path of a real murder victim, a schoolgirl killed half a mile from her home. She traces the path the girl took and asks: "Did you spy the big red barn where the road bends? And were the finches charming you?" The song also recalls the anguished search for the missing girl. Polwart finds the song too painful to sing in live concerts.

Bruce Springsteen remembers a young unarmed black man named Amadou Diallo, targeted by four police officers and killed when 19 of 41 Shots fired at him hit their target. The cops were charged and acquitted of murder.

And if justice failed Amadou Diallo, it also failed Hurricane Carter, as told by Bob Dylan.

If murders by individuals are horrific, how much more so are murders committed deliberately on a large scale? "Your house is waiting for you to walk in but You're Missing," sings the Boss as he feels the pain of the survivors of 9/11.

Even more horrific are the slaughters committed by governments. Crass's Nagasaki Nightmare blends the voices of newscasters in Japanese and English telling of the second atomic bomb blast that wiped out 40,000 souls in a few seconds. The music is an odd mix of tinkling Japanese and discordant western instruments that somehow captures the insanity of such a weapon.

The Police suggest the idea that murder on the large scale is a practice of governments. They make individual killers, even serial killers, look like pikers by comparison. "You can reach the top of your profession," they sing in Murder by Numbers, "if you become the leader of the land/ for murder is the sport of the elected/ and you don't need to lift a finger of your hand."

The Playlist

1. The Everly Brothers – Down in the Willow Garden

2. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Ballad of Robert Moore and Betty Coltrane

3. Emiliana Torrini –Gun

4. Paul Kelly – God Told Me To

5. Buju Banton – Murderer

6. Dixie Chicks – Goodbye Earl

7. Billie Holiday – Strange Fruit

8. Karine Polwart – Half a Mile

9. Bruce Springsteen – American Skin (41 Shots)

10. Bob Dylan – Hurricane

11. Bruce Springsteen – You're Missing

12. Crass – Nagasaki Nightmare

13. The Police – Murder By Numbers

Originally published on The Guardian music blog on June 26, 2014.

For a complete index of my Vocal essays, stories and poems, click INDEX.