A strange tradition seems to pop up every December. Right around the holidays, in that familiest of family times, folks either reach for the eggnog or reach for the shotgun. One minute, Dad's asking you to pass the potatoes, the next minute, he's shooting Mom in the face.
The murder-suicide is a hot topic this time of year. No matter the occasion, the motive, or the
location, 'tis the season to take out a couple of family members and then
yourself. Holiday murder-suicides are
older than Peanuts Christmas specials. There's
no need to post any recent tragedies because that would just plain be
rubbernecking. But horrible events this
time of year have
been well documented in both media and song.
Which brings us to today's topic: The Murder
Ballad. Why some murders warrant a song that
transcends time and others don't is beyond me, but back in the day and out in
the hills, there was no better way to communicate the horrors of a good, honest
murder than to sing about it. The worse
the crime, the better the song.
So sit back with someone you love this holiday season and,
rather than club them to death, relax with a cautionary tale murder
ballad or two. Or three. As it turns out, my little village of North
Carolina is chock full of them. For
instance...
At Christmas, 1929, a tobacco farmer named Charlie Lawson in
Germanton, North Carolina, took his wife and seven children to town to get
their pictures taken in their new clothes.
He then took them home and systematically, one by one, killed them
all. After using a shotgun to both shoot
and bludgeon them, he positioned their bodies with their hands crossed against
their chests and heads rested on a rock, as if they were sleeping. Word of the tragedy spread and folks later
found Charlie Lawson had shot himself in the woods with that very same shotgun.
Speculation on why Lawson murdered his entire family ran the
gamut, from shame due to incest to a head injury to other suspicions. No matter the cause, the song has passed
through the ages, and
many North Carolinians have sung it, from the Stanley
Brothers to Doc Watson to Katherine Whalen.
Ahh, romance. The Drowning Lovers demonstrate that
murder ballads aren't just for Dads, but jilted lovers can get in on the
mix. Meredith Sause's haunting vocals
and the eerie instrumentation of John Gillespie and Paul Snow contrast the
shocking lyrics quite well as we hear the story of a woman who found her man in
bed with another girl and had to introduce him to Mr. .38 Caliber. Loving detail is given to his corpse until
she has to run. But what a song...
Brutus, reviled by Dante only to see exoneration and
exaltation by Shakespeare centuries later, shares
a lot in common with Robert Ford. Ford,
known throughout the West as "The Coward," shot Jesse James, a modern-day Robin Hood of Missouri,
in the back as he straightened a picture frame. Ford lived the rest of his life facing the
disgust of the people until a gunman shot him down,
allegedly in retaliation for James. His
infamy continued after his death, as Woody Guthrie and others sang "Jesse James," the song that
chastises the man who "ate of Jesse's bread and slept in Jesse's bed /
then laid poor Jesse in his grave."
Decades later, Patrick Phelan of
Luego takes a different
view. "If the papers get it
right," everyone should now realize that Ford acted in self-defense, because if "I didn't do it,
he'd a-killed me tonight."
So this year, be on the lookout. If you've spent the past few months dodging
Mom's phone calls or haven't laughed at Dad's corny jokes, perhaps it's time to
spend the holiday with friends or, safer yet, by yourself. But no matter where you spend the holidays,
be sure to turn the music to some good old fashioned murder ballads.
It sure beats the hell out of Christmas carols.
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