MORE ON MURDER BALLADS

Some modern composed murder ballads in the discussion at Australian Folk and Roots Music Forum:

https://m.facebook.com/groups/1972175932921018?view=permalink&id=2173658006106142&src=email_notif

but I’m after the more traditional street ballads and the like, generated through the mysterious processes of oral tradition. No one seems to have come up with any of these yet, other than a possible on the Gatton murders, though this seems more like a poem recently set to music. We certainly come across poems on old murders, not always in ballad form, but still looking for Australian examples of the type of thing at http://www.planetslade.com/murder.html.

On the evidence to date - or its absence - I’m sticking with my original observation that we haven’t traditionally, at least, been much interested in such narrative songs.

WHERE ARE OUR MURDER BALLADS?

Why are there no murder ballads in Australian folksong? 

Is it because Australians seem to have killed each other much less frequently than many other nationalities, so there’s not much demand for heart-rending songs about it? We have bushranger ballads, convict ballads, disaster ballads and some about jockeys dying in racecourse mishaps, as well as other joyful ditties. But what about songs like ‘The Red Barn’, the British ballad on the murder of Maria Marten in 1827. What about something like those classic American ‘down in some lone valley’ numbers?

While some imported British and American murder ballads have been collected here (though not many), it seems we’d prefer to make light of criminal demises in local compositions. The notorious ‘Pyjama Girl’ murder of 1934 is commemorated in our tradition in a light-hearted parody of the accused murderer to the jolly tune of ‘Funiculi Funicula’.

There is also a parody of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ relating to the death of Azaria Chamberlain.

Can’t we do better than this? 

Or have we? 

Maybe you know of a great Aussie murder ballad that has missed the attention of folksong collectors. Send it in, we’d love to include it in our collections.