Total Pageviews


Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Murder Ballads


Busy day in work and I've been painting my bedroom, second coat tonight and it will need another, it's harder to go from green to cream than I thought.  I've also been writing a murder ballad -

daDUM da DUM daDUM daDUM
              daDUM  daDUM daDUM
daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM
              daDUM daDUM daDUM

- but it is unfinished and I will work on it again tomorrow.  It's also harder to write than I thought but it is a good way of telling a story in a shorter form than a novel.  That's not a cop out by me, just a thought!  Some examples of murder ballads in song form that I like are Where the Wild Roses Grow by Nick Cave and The Pines/Where Did You Sleep Last Night by Leadbelly, and covered by Nirvana. 

Jake Adam York, an American poet, writes In the murder ballad, the singer undertakes to narrate a horrific crime, at times in the first person, but does so in a melody so sweet, that though at first it seems perversely insensitive to the horror comes to act as a kind of consolation for the terror of the narrative and thus functions as a measure of remorse or loss. So, the poems of Murder Ballads seek to find a music in language that can act as a melodic consolation for all the poems must relate. 

Some of his work here

 http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v3n2/poetry/york_ja/index.htm

Hmm it's a lot to think about.  The funniest part of my day was hearing a four and a half year old break out into the chorus from The Wanted's song Glad you came -

The sun goes down
The stars come out
And all that counts
Is here and now
My universe will never be the same
I’m glad you came

1 comment:

  1. Murder Ballads! "The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia" Reba McEntire. "The Devil's Right Hand" The Highwaymen. Many great C/W ones and then there's Dylan and Springsteen....
    FM.

    ReplyDelete