# Murder Ballads **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 25, 2020, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-ballads/848471 "2020-02-25T03:46:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-ballads/848471/21 "2020-02-25T15:55:22Z")
First murder ballad that pops into my head is always [El Paso](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7UVVS5-9HvA) by old time cowboy crooner Marty Robbins. ---
**Author:** ![MadTheSwine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MadTheSwine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MadTheSwine)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-ballads/848471/22 "2020-02-25T15:59:42Z")
Excitable Boy-Warren Zevon Cocaine Blues ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-ballads/848471/23 "2020-02-25T17:24:38Z")
“You’re All I Need” by Mötley Crüe _You’re all I need make you only mine I love you so I set you free I had to take your life You’re all I need, you’re all I need And I loved you but you didn’t love me_ ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-ballads/848471/24 "2020-02-25T18:04:15Z")
“Run For Your Life” - Beatles [Ain’t That Love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au3Euwi0U5g) - Scratch Acid [Lay Screaming](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciAarbKndlw) - SA [Fish Fry](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNKciTGdJLU) - Big Black Cher’s distinctly execrable [Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2mBCVejzSM) “Brutally Morbid Axe of Satan” - AxCx ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-ballads/848471/25 "2020-02-25T18:28:46Z")
“Delia’s Gone” by Johnny Cash is a good one. _First time I shot her I shot her in the side Hard to watch her suffer But with the second shot she died Delia’s gone, one more round Delia’s gone_ ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-ballads/848471/26 "2020-02-25T19:10:00Z")
Guns and Roses “I Used to Love Her” is a bit on the nose I think. > [@Treppenwitz](#): > > You know, I really wonder if this is a gun-culture country vs non-gun-country culture thing. I was virtually queuing at 9AM waiting for the record shop to open in order to buy the album, so I’ve known the song well for more than 40 years, and this is the first time that the thought that this might possibly be about murder had crossed my mind. Or been pushed across my mind. > > FWIW, my interpretation - the narrator musing on meeting an ex whose subsequent choices of men have gone badly wrong. It’s painful to see her as she is now, to the point that he wonders if she would be better off dead (or perhaps, that it would be easier for him to take if she were dead). The narrator would have been her best choice because of his decency - “My aim is true”. > > Now, in light of this discussion, I grant that the line may have a double meaning - artist’s prerogative - but a murder ballad? No, I don’t get that at all - I’m with the writer on that one. > > j Although I never touched a gun until I joined the Army I am from that gun-culture country. It never occurred to me until this thread that some thought it was about murder. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-ballads/848471/27 "2020-02-25T19:23:23Z")
[Bessie Smith, Send me to the Electric Chair.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ6w5IlqhSk) ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-ballads/848471/28 "2020-02-25T19:30:46Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > First murder ballad that pops into my head is always [El Paso](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7UVVS5-9HvA) by old time cowboy crooner Marty Robbins. ‘Big Iron’ by Marty Robbins. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-ballads/848471/29 "2020-02-25T19:45:47Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > First murder ballad that pops into my head is always [El Paso](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7UVVS5-9HvA) by old time cowboy crooner Marty Robbins. I always thought it sounded like self-defence: “Down went his hand for the gun that he wore…” ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-ballads/848471/30 "2020-02-25T19:59:47Z")
[Knoxville Girl:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knoxville_Girl) [Louvin Brothers’ version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhMiKeSffns) [Lemonhead’s version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10XFxu9Vdmo) ---
**Author:** ![Backwater\_Under\_Duck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ba8739/32.png) [@Backwater\_Under\_Duck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Backwater_Under_Duck)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-ballads/848471/31 "2020-02-26T02:27:50Z")
_I met her on the mountain. There I took her life. Met her on the mountain. Stabbed her with my knife._ If you have to ask, _Tom Dooley_, Kingston Trio version. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-ballads/848471/32 "2020-02-26T03:08:52Z")
_Take the Money and Run_ - Steve Miller _Tweeter and the Monkey Man_ - Bob Dylan ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-ballads/848471/33 "2020-02-26T03:20:47Z")
> [@Kyrie\_Eleison](#): > > Nick Cave’s got an entire album of 'em: [Murder Ballads](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_Ballads). I quite like it. [Kristin Hersh too](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr9Ta9QAIcg&list=OLAK5uy_l4C3oVGnNBM6fWMG4focFAmGziVMHcSEE) ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-ballads/848471/34 "2020-02-26T03:51:09Z")
Because I see examples of murder ballads with no lovers, then I point at _[I Don’t Like Mondays](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz8d4qnmEnQ)_ by The Boomtown Rats. “Written by Bob Geldof and Johnnie Fingers, the piano ballad[5] was the band’s second single to reach number one on the UK chart.” > **[I Don't Like Mondays](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Don%27t_Like_Mondays)** > > "I Don't Like Mondays" is a song by Irish new wave group the Boomtown Rats about the Cleveland Elementary School shooting in San Diego. It was released in 1979 as the lead single from their third album, The Fine Art of Surfacing. The song was a number-one single in the UK Singles Chart for four weeks during the summer of 1979, and ranks as the sixth-biggest hit of the UK in 1979. Written by Bob Geldof and Johnnie Fingers, the piano ballad was the band's second single to reach number one Accord... > [@](#): > > According to Geldof, he wrote the song after reading a telex report[6] at Georgia State University’s campus radio station, WRAS, on the shooting spree of 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer, who fired at children in a school playground at Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, California, on 29 January 1979 ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-ballads/848471/35 "2020-02-26T03:58:03Z")
[Buenos Noches From a Lonely Room](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm8yTcgY-bE), Dwight Yoakam [Long Black Veil](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50k18gL76AU), Lefty Frizell (and Johnny Cash, and The Chieftans (with Mick Jagger singing, of all people)). ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-ballads/848471/36 "2020-02-26T04:18:22Z")
_The Road Goes on Forever_ - Robert Earl Keen ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-ballads/848471/37 "2020-02-26T04:23:46Z")
Black Jack David. The Carter Family Bob Dylan And some one else. ---
**Author:** ![MadTheSwine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MadTheSwine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MadTheSwine)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-ballads/848471/38 "2020-02-26T05:10:35Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > _Tweeter and the Monkey Man_ - Bob Dylan Traveling Wilburys ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-ballads/848471/39 "2020-02-26T05:23:55Z")
> [@MadTheSwine](#): > > Traveling Wilburys (Nitpicking the nitpick) But written and sung by Bob Dylan. ---
**Author:** ![MadTheSwine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MadTheSwine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MadTheSwine)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-ballads/848471/40 "2020-02-26T07:48:38Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > (Nitpicking the nitpick) But written and sung by Bob Dylan. So it is A Bob Dylan song? What album was it on? Tweeter and the Monkey Man" was really [written by] Tom Petty and Bob [Dylan]. Well, Jeff [Lynne] and I were there too, but we were just sitting there around in the kitchen, and he was for some reason talking about all this stuff that didn’t make much sense to me, you know, it was that Americana kinda stuff and we got a tape cassette and put it on and then transcribed everything they were saying. George Harrison [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-ballads/848471.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murder-ballads/848471.md?page=3)