Oh, yeah!
Is Frankie and Johnny a folk song?
Kevin Barry
Roddy McCorley
Fine Flowers in the Valley
Johnnie Cope
The Bonnie Earl of Moray
Oooh, I have a whole collection of Disaster Songs, from about 1880–1925. They were very popular, based on real-life murders and tragedies: In the Baggage Coach Ahead, Little Mary Phagan, The Death of Floyd Collins, The Wreck of the 97, The Letter Edged in Black, Little Marion Parker, many, many more.
90% of the folk songs that have come out of Scotland and Ireland.
Yeah, Kilkelly has the old man and his wife die. That is a hauntingly beautiful ™ ballad.
I thougth of another that is pretty nice. Omie Wise. It waas supposedly a ballad about John Louis murdering Omie. “Oh listen to my story, I’ll tell you no lies. How John Louis did murder poor Omie Wise…”
St. James Hospital also is pretty nice. “As I looked through the window and saw my dear cowboy as cold as the grave…” “…get 16 pretty maidens to come and carry my coffin…”
If you are looking for performers, the latter can be found sung by Doc Watson, among others. The first I am not sure but I found it in a book.
El Paso - Marty Robbins (a classic!)
Isn’t “Ring Around the Rosy” about the plague?
And has anybody else here ever heard the kids’ song about Eddie Kutchakatchacanatosanaratosanokasamelcamelwacky Brown? (he dies at the end)
Also, Johnny Cash’s “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town”
The Wind That Shakes The Corn (keeping with the Roddy McCorley theme)
Puff The Magic Dragon
Below The Gallows Tree
Everglades
Howard’s Dead And Gone (Po’ Howard)
Blue Tail Fly
Will The Circle Be Unbroken
Deportee
Evangeline
Save The Life Of My Child (OK, a bit of a stretch)
Where Have All The Flowers Gone?
Joe Hill
Stuck Inside Of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again
and, not to forget:
Life Is A Toil
There were Roses… can’t think of who it’s by right now, but very very sad and beautiful song about the fighting in Ireland.
Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley
Didn’t someone die in “O Danny Boy”?
Whiskey in the jar.
I think “Joe Hill” misses on a metaphorical technicality:
Here are some that spring to mind:
Pretty Polly
Step It Up, Mary (or the variant Step It Out, Nancy)
Irish Rover
The Unquiet Grave
The Ballad of Glen Coe
Roddy McCorley
Fair Margaret and Sweet William
The Great Selkie o’ Suleskerry
The Mermaid
I should probably stop before I depress the hamsters.
Old Joe Clark
Whoah! Sorry happyheathen, I don’t think anyone died in Puff the Magic Dragon. The little kid grew up, is all. 'S a metaphor, see?
A dragon lives forever,
But not so little boys…
(what do they teach in schools these days?)
Finagle -
picky, picky, picky
just for that:
‘Greenland Whale Fisheries’
take that!
No, Tangent it’s not.
Eve my maternal grandmother saw the overturned train of the Wreck of the Old '97 the day after it happened. I was born in Danville. Know just where it occured.
Knoxville Girl If you don’t know this country ballad, you oughta’ listen to it. Especially as played by the Stanley Bros. who were some of the inspirations for the music from “Oh! Brother…”
[lyrics]I dragged her by her golden curls, I swung her round and round. I threw her into the river that flows through Knoxville town.[/lyrics]
You’ll just have to go read the rest.
Man Who Shot Liberty Valence
Jesse James