Comments on: Murder Ballads Top 10

By: LightupCat

LightupCat — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 03:33:25 +0000

for those of you who still stumble across this despite it having died over a year ago i would strongly recommend the song “Westfall” by Okkervil River

By: Elleword

Elleword — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 10:22:57 +0000

Hiho Patrick Bernauw..an excellent write..and impressive choices too..Not many people would know this but The Doors’ “Riders on the Storm” is a song about the serial killer Billy Cook who posed as a hitchhiker and then killed an entire family..it’s not really a traditional murder ballad..but I still love hearing it

By: richard wing

richard wing — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:10:54 +0000

Great article. Always a Dylan and Springsteen fan. Pete seeger, another fine american folk legend true to his roots. Interesting piece regarding ‘murder ballads’.

By: Lucas Dié

Lucas Dié — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:03:55 +0000

Fascinating and full of blood, as usual.

By: historigal

historigal — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:45:55 +0000

Great list you have here. Such a unique concept for an article and timely, too. I love it.

By: C Jordan

C Jordan — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:43:57 +0000

Great choice Patrick. I have always loved the atmospheric Riders on the Storm by the Doors. “More mature” readers in the UK will probably know the Pete Seeger song as a Skiffle version by Lonnie Donnegan: hang down your Head Tom Dooley, from the late 50s early 60s
Dylans Hurricane co-written with Jacques Levy, about the imprisonment of the boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter is fascinating in that after being sentenced to 4 life sentences, all murder charges were dropped in 1988 against him (on the grounds of the original trials being racist), due mainly to the attention and publicity from the song.
Trivia fact – Dylan has not played this live since 1976 ( the time of a first retrial when Carter was again found guilty).

By: ken bultman

ken bultman — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:05:20 +0000

Can’t argue with your list.

By: Teves

Teves — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:29:46 +0000

Nice one…