Last Song: A Violet From Mother's Grave

Mary Jane Kelly, Jack The Ripper's final (known) victim was apparently overheard singing this on the night she was murdered.
The video gives a pretty good mini-history lesson, but be warned, there is pretty graphic imagery contained in it.

Ted, Just Admit It

Proof that there was a time when Perry Farrell was actually involved in making good music.   While the album came out in 1988, I associate it with the summer of 2000:  I was working backstage in a production of Wizard of Oz and I had met an awesome new friend.  When not at class or at the theatre, I would spend a lot of time writing bad poetry, drinking and listening to this:*


So why is it here?  "Ted, Just Admit It" contains samples from an interview with serial killer Ted Bundy.

There's going to be people turning up in canyons, there's going to be people being shot in Salt Lake City , because the police there aren't willing to accept what i think they know, and they know that i didn't do these things.

That's Bundy, denying his crimes.  Despite overwhelming evidence, he proclaimed his innocence throughout his trials.  It was only until his appeals were exhausted that he began to give details about the murders.

Despite the song's age, there's a certain relevance to it: blood, violence and crime: it doesn't really bother people in this modern age.








*I also spent a lot of time listening to Summertime Rolls, but you didn't come here for a love story.

NCBS Murder Ballads Project. 2. Stagger Lee pt 2

If you're not a fan of "foul" language you might want to skip today's post.

Sing a Song of Murder, has talked about the lore surrounding "Stagger Lee" before, but Nick Cave's version takes it to a different place entirely.  A forced homosexual act was probably not what the original writer of "Stagger Lee" probably had in mind.  I'm sure these lyrics never popped into his head either:

I'm a bad motherfucker don't ya know
And I'll craw over fifty good pussies 
Just to get to one fat boy's asshole

Love the Take That shirt.

From what I've read Cave took lyrical inspiration from The Life: The Lore and Folk Poetry of the Black Hustler.  I'm currently trying to search out a copy that won't cost me 59.99 (used).

I think that "Stagger Lee", like "Delia's Gone" might have taken some inspiration from gangster rap, which was huge at the time of Murder Ballads.  If you don't remember the glory days of Snoop Dogg, Tupac, and uh . . .others* it involved a little of this . . .

Some of this . . .

 

And a lot of this

A lot of violence,  a lot of "motherfucker/motherfucking/motherfuckers" and the phrase "suck my dick".


Of course Eazy-E wasn't really suggesting that Dr. Dre get down on his knees and unbutton his fly.*1 It was more of an expression of dominance; "I'm the alpha male. You're a woman compared to me."*2


Lyrically, and through Cave's spoken word performance, "Stagger Lee" seems to be poking fun at rap's hyper-masculinity.  When Cave's Stagger Lee says "suck my dick" he really means "suck my dick."  


I stated in the previous post that Stagger Lee is the quintessential American song.  So does a "foreigner" have any right to sing it?  There's something to be said for being outside looking in.  Conservatives ranted and raved about gangster rap, and yet violence is so much at the heart of America, and American music.   It seems that only Americans have yet to accept that.

* Sorry, I'm hopelessly white.

*1 I'm really white.

*2 Lilly White

Another Look: The Ballad of Jesse James

Original post here.

Sherwood Ross apparently took umbrage at the "lies" told in "The Ballad of Jesse James" and decided to write his own version.

Poor Jesse was not poor
That's a lot of horse manure
He stole half a million from the till;
He was 34 years old
And his only god was gold
And nary a single rich man did he kill.

Ouch.  Then again, this Jesse James never cheated on America's Sweetheart.

You can see the entire song here.

NCBS Murder Ballads Project. 2. Stagger Lee pt 1

Stagolee was a bully man, an' ev'y body knowed,
When dey seed Stagolee comin', to give Stagolee de road,
O dat man, bad man, Stagolee done come.


- Stagolee, 1911, Journal of American Folklore



Stagger Lee. AKA Stackolee. Stack O'Lee.  Armed and extremely dangerous.  Shot a man over a Stetson hat.  A bad, bad, man.

Stagger Lee, like many of the songs on Murder Ballads has a wealth of lore and history that predates Nick Cave's gritty, often vulgar version.  There's even an (excellent) website dedicated to it.  For a more detailed history of the song, I recommend you go there.

 Mississippi John Hurt's version, which for some is the definitive Stagger Lee.

Another version recorded by Hurt in 1964

 

Lloyd Price's version, which was the first version of Stagger Lee that I ever heard.  It's a really upbeat version.  Nothing like a dancing the night away to a tune about cold blooded murder.



Even Woody Guthrie gave the tune a go.

 


The website www.staggerlee.com lists 428 versions of Stagger Lee.  428.  To hell with "Take Me Out To The Ballgame."  This is the quintessential American song.  "So, if this is an American song," you might be thinking, "who does that fucking Australian think he is?"
Guess you'll have to wait for pt 2.

TV Set

Campy, gory, horror inspired, psychobilly fun courtesy of the Cramps.  How'd he kill her?  Why did he kill her?  We don't know.  What we do know is that Lux Interior is pretty creative when it comes to a corpse.

Off-Topic: I Spit On Your Grave

The following image is NSFW.  Meaning it's Not Safe For Work.  The following image is also tacky, tasteless and downright immature.

So click at your own risk.

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, Murder Ballads: 1. Song of Joy

After much stalling, nail biting, and procrastinating The Murder Ballads project finally begins!  I plan to cover every song on Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' classic album, Murder Ballads.  Enjoy.


Have mercy on me sir

Allow me to impose on you

I have no place to say

And my bones are cold right through

I'm a big fan of story songs; ballads that tell a tale.  Which is one thing I love about Nick Cave; he's a expert storyteller.  This song, and the album are perfect examples of that.

In "Song of Joy", the lyrics and music come together to create a vivid picture. When I listen to it, I can feel the cold, see the stranger on the porch, his features barely visible in the dim light.  Listen to the stranger's story of love, loss and brutality.  Listen as Nick Cave talk-sings, as the menace in his voice and the music, slowly, painfully build to the last line:

 Do you sir have a room?
Are you beckoning me in?

When I first heard this song, I thought of the case of Jeffrey MacDonald, an Army doctor who was convicted of murdering his pregnant wife and two daughters. Maybe it was because of the line "I was visiting a sick friend/I was a doctor then" and the line about the killer writing on the walls in "the victims' blood". Granted "pig" wasn't exactly "quoting John Milton", but still. (McGinnis, Joe. Fatal Vision)

MacDonald blamed the murders on a "hippie cult", but the jury didn't buy it and convicted him.  He continues to profess his innocence.  (Link)

Nick Cave's killer of course roams free, and might be ready to kill again.  So are ya beckoning him in?

Hit it.

The Ballad of Charles Whitman

On 1 August 1966, around 11:30 a.m., he entered the University of Texas Tower. Once in the elevator, he asked for help from an attendant, who informed him how to turn it on. "Thank you, ma'am," Whitman said. "You don't know how happy that makes me." (From www.popsubculture.com)

In 1966 singer, songwriter, satirist and future gubernatorial candidate Richard "Kinky" Friedman was a senior at The University of Texas At Austin.  On August 1st of that very same year, Charles Joseph Whitman entered the school's administration building.  He took elevator up to the 27th floor. He beat the receptionist, Edna Townsley (who later died), with the butt of his rifle.   He fired at Mark, Mary, Mike Gabour and Marguerite Lampour  who were walking up the stairs, killing Margurerite and Mark and leaving Mike and Mary injured.   He went to the observation deck, loaded his gun, and started shooting at the people below.

Before Officer Houston McCoy fired a fatal shot, Whitman took the lives of 14 people and wounded 32 others.  The bodies of Whitman's mother and wife were discovered later.

Kinky would later sing about these events in "The Ballad of Charles Whitman" which can be found on his 1973 album "Sold American".

Unlike Bruce Springsteen's real life killer inspired "Nebraska", Kinky Friedman's "The Ballad of Charles Whitman" is no somber reflection on the nature of man and evil.  Told with a mixture of dark humor, and cold hard facts, it's a "biting examination of the culture that produced Whitman" (Fillpo, Chet. Nashville Skyline: The Subject Was Murder).

Naturally this song, upset a lot of people in Austin.

 The stark reality of the song affected audiences in Austin like nothing I've seen before or since. There were usually people in the audiences who had had friends or relatives shot in the Whitman massacre, and audience reactions often ranged from tears to screams to anger and fury and occasional attempts to attack Friedman. (Fillpo, Chet. Nashville Skyline: The Subject Was Murder)

While the song is hard to listen to, Kinky Friedman isn't lampooning the murders, he's lampooning the society that cause people like Charles Whitman to happen.   Society, and the Eagle Scouts:

I believe there is something in the mind-set of the Eagle Scout that provides an excellent breeding ground for the future mass murderers of America. Maybe it’s that, while the rest of us are desperately trying to extricate ourselves from a turbulent and troubling adolescence, the Eagle Scout is assiduously applying himself to the narrow, maddening craft of knot tying. It’s my theory that in a universe of Eagle Scouts, you’d find an extremely high proportion of psychopaths. (Friedman, Kinky. "Psycho Paths", Texas Monthly. July 2002) 

In "The Ballad of Charles Whitman" the things America celebrates are the things that also turn Americans into killers.

Other Links:

"The Madman In the Tower". TIme, August 12th, 1966.

Nebraska

Unlike the previous songs I've written about, the inspiration for Bruce Springsteen's ballad Nebraska can be traced to a man named Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend Carli Fugate.

Starkweather, and his girlfriend went on a murder spree across Nebraska and Wyoming that took the lives of 11 people including Fugate's mother, stepfather and baby sister. They were eventually captured in Douglas, Wyoming. At the time of their arrest, he was nineteen and she was fifteen.

Starkweather was sentenced to the electric chair, and Fugate, despite her claims that she was being held hostage was sentenced to life in prison. She was paroled after 17 years.

Many murder songs are sung from a first person perspective, but unlike the fictional tales of Knoxville Girl and 99 to Life, Springsteen is singing from the perspective of someone who actually existed.

The murders in this tale are no crimes of passion, but the violent acts of someone who "loss connection" with his humanity. The song mourns, not for Starkweather, but, like the song says, against the "meanness in this world".

(Info on Charles Starkweather, taken from here)