Papa Loved Mama, penned by Garth Brooks and Kim Williams, adds another tale to the the pantheon of tunes about killing your spouse/wife/partner/lover/obsession. Seems a trucker has discovered that his wife likes to fool around while he's on the road. Naturally he reacts to this in a calm, rational, manner: Well the picture in the paper showed the scene real well Papa's rig was buried in the local motel
Yep, he drives his semi into the motel room where she's holed up with her one night stand. You have to admit, "Papa" was creative. Significant others in other tunes have been stabbed, shot (a popular option) cut with a razor, and beaten with sticks. They've also been tied to chairs, then shot. I'm pretty sure that "Papa Loved Mama" was the first song that involved death by truck.
Ever wanted to hear David Allan Coe cover this song?
(This was originally posted in a different blog. This is one of my favorite entries, so I thought I'd post it here as well. I have made a few changes to the original.)
St. Agatha, Francisco de Zurbaran 1630-33
Dear Virgin and Martyr, whom the Church recalls in her liturgy, you heroically resisted the temptations of a degenerate ruler. Subjected to long and horrible tortures, you remained faithful to your heavenly Spouse. Saint Peter, we are told, gave you some solace and so you are invoked by nurses. Encourage them to see Christ in the sick and to render true service to them. Amen - Prayer to Saint Agatha
As you can probably guess from the prayer. The lovely lady in the painting is Saint Agatha who was born in Catania, Sicily around 231 CE and died around 251 CE.
You might be wondering about that plate she's carrying. You might be even thinking, "are those . . .?"
Those are breasts. Her breasts.
Saint Agatha of Sicily,Orazio Riminaldi, 1625
I first learned about St. Agatha in 6th grade, during Sunday school, during a Catholic sex ed class.
According to legend, Saint Agatha was a beautiful young noble woman, who have devoted her life to Christ. Unfortunately she caught the eye of a Roman prefect. When she turned down his sexual advances, he turned her over to a brothel in hopes they would teach her a thing or two.
But Agatha wasn't having any of it. She was a chaste, servant of God, and that was it. The prefect could go jump in a lake.
Instead of jumping in a lake, the prefect had her tortured. One of the most significant acts was her breasts were cut off.
Now according to Catholic writings St. Peter cured her, and made her breasts grow back. She continued to be tormented in other nasty ways (including being rolled naked in a bed of hot coals), until she died in prison.
She is the patron saint of many things, including bell makers (because her amputated breasts look like bells), rape victims, torture victims, and more recently, breast cancer patients.
In art, St. Agatha is often portrayed carrying her breasts on a platter:
Other depictions choose to show her with simply an instrument of her torture:
There are also depictions of St. Agatha during her torture. Like this one by Sebastiano del Piombo:
The Martyrdom of Saint Agatha, Sebastiano del Piombo. 1519
The leering men. The way that one man (the prefect?) leans back as he watches. And there's the look on her face; it seems to be a mix of pain and rapture. Look at her line of sight; she isn't looking at any of them. There's part of me that wonders if people got off on pictures like this.
Of the images I've seen, my favorite one is probably by Giovanni Tiepolo:
The Martyrdom of Saint Agatha, Giovanni Tiepolo, 1756
I like the rough quality of the painting. I like the way the whiteness of her skin contrasts with the rest of the painting. The look on her face is less about religious ecstasy, then asking "why?"
When I related this story to a friend she asked "so what's the moral? Turn down a guy and have your boobs cut off?"
The moral, is that despite being raped and tortured, Agatha refused to give up her commitment to God. If you read any stories of various Catholic Saints, you'll find that they place a fairly strong emphasis on female chastity. Tale, after tale involves women going through horrible lengths to remain chaste. And while the male saints often have equally gruesome ends, and while many of them took a pledge to remain virgins as well, their chastity is often a side-note, and not a primary reason for their persecution.
One has to remember that these tales emerged from pretty horrible times. Disease was rampant, if you lived past five you were lucky, or perhaps unlucky. You worked until you fell over dead. And it was even worse if you were a woman. Rape law? Non-existent. Father wants you to marry some ugly, diseased troll. Tough luck. But you had one thing, the promise of heaven.
St. Agatha might have been horribly tortured, but God rewarded her. And she had cupcakes named after her.*
From the long proud history of "she broke my heart, so I broke her neck" type songs, comes Dwight Yoakam's Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room (She Wore Red Dresses). It was the fourth single off the album of the same name and the lowest charter (link), which doesn't surprise me. It's a great song, but songs about spousal murder don't always go over that well.
While much detail is paid to the woman, the way she made him suffer, and her oh so lovely red dresses, the description of the murder is short, matter of fact, with a tinge of dark humor.
While Lonnie Johnson disliked the "blues" label, "She's Making Whoopee in Hell Tonight" is a fine example of that genre. Recorded in 1930, the complex guitar playing and it's dark, chilling lyrics, make for a truly wicked little song. The next time someone claims that nobody ever sung about "bad things" before 1965, point them to this little ditty.
You been gone all day, set to make whoopee tonight
I'm gonna take my razor and cut your late hours,
I will be serving you right
The undertaker's been here and gone, I gave him your height and size
Undertaker's been here and gone, I gave him your height and size
You'll be making whoopee with the devil in hell tomorrow night
Of course to claim that this song, is no different than modern murder songs, would be wrong as well. Lonnie Johnson seems to take no real joy in the act. He's become her slave, and the only way to free himself from her cruelty is to kill her. He'll be happy to see her dead, but killing her with his razor seems to be a means to an end. Still the act of using a razor makes me think, he really wants her to suffer, like the way she's made him suffer. Nasty, brutal stuff.
Told you, next time you go out, please carry your black dress along
'Cause a coffin will be your present and hell will be your brand new home
Another way that "Whoopee" differs from songs like "I Used to Love Her", is that in some, albeit, twisted way fear of female power plays into it. She's not simply disposable trash that's killed because her lover has tired of her, she's killed because she holds power over him.
You made me love you, just got me for your slave
He can't simply leave her. The only way he can free himself is to kill her. While the view of a woman as a dangerous enslaver of men, is not exactly feminist, the image brings a complexity to the song, that so many new songs lack.
A song about two lifelong friends dealing with an abusive spouse by killing him and dumping his body in the lake. They end up happy and he ends up "a missing person who nobody missed at all". The song is country pop/bluegrass lite, but it's damn fun to sing along to.
While I don't advocate killing abusers, whenever I hear of somebody beating a partner bloody I feel a little twinge that says "five minutes alone with a baseball bat". I'm sure a lot of people feel the same way. I think this song comes from that "twinge". Besides, hearing about how Earl made a plea bargain and only got 6 months wouldn't be as fun.
Of course there is a question if the song and it's video treat the subject with a little too much levity. Battered women do kill their abusers, and unlike the "Goodbye Earl", they seldom get away with it so easily.
The Ballad of Francine Hughes, is a far darker and realistic take on spousal abuse. Francine Hughes (who's tale was also told in the book The Burning Bed, and in the movie of the same name), was abused by her husband for years. Even after she divorced him, he refused to leave the house and continued beating her. On March 9, 1977, after a particularly brutal beating, Francine set fire to the bedroom that she and her ex-husband shared, while he was asleep in their bed. (Info) (Info). She was later found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity. (Info)
Sung to a traditional melody, it's half murder ballad, and half public service announcement. In the interview, Lyn Hardy brings up an issue that I sometime wrestle with when it comes to my love for traditional murder ballads: most of them are about men killing women. Not just murder ballads; most of the songs I've found are about men killing women. In most cases that I've found, if a man is murdered in the song, it's usually by another man.
What makes the men in murder ballads different than real-life perpetrators of violence, is that they are often presented as "good guys" who were suddenly overcome by rage, fear, love (yes love), or some other type of strong emotion. Real life abuse is systematic, and often escalates. Abusers who kill their spouses have probably abused them in the past. These aren't crimes of passion, they are premeditated acts of violence.
(Info)
So why sing about it? The murder ballad appeals to the darker aspect of human nature. Tossing a abusive spouse in the lake; shooting a cheating spouse with a machine gun; Getting revenge on a racist cop. Would we do it if we could?
Francine Hughes wasn't just a woman in a song. On the night of March 9th in 1977, Francine decided that Mickey had to die.
