It’s hard to spend much time online these days without bumping into true crime of one form or another. Countless podcasts examine murders and trials, and television offers an overwhelming array of both docuseries and fictional reenactments. Meanwhile on social media, influencers create content about sensational crimes in almost real-time, as investigations are unfolding. Even if you’re not currently ingesting true crime media, perhaps you’re reading all about the true crime backlash or engaging in true crime debate. Are investigative documentaries interrogating the justice system or exploiting victims? Do murder podcasts help us face our fears or spread them? Is all this true crime good for us?
Well, at least we can rest assured that the public interest in personal violence is nothing new. Long before Stitcher, Netflix, and TikTok, stories of young women being killed were shared through folksongs that were often inspired by real events—just like Lifetime movies. Murder ballads are folksongs that tell the story of a violent crime, usually the murder of a young woman, most often by a lover. These songs were popular throughout the United States in the nineteenth century, though they have become particularly associated with southern Appalachia, where they are an essential part of the region’s musical traditions. Earlier versions of many of the popular Appalachian murder ballads, such as “Pretty Polly” or “Silver Dagger,” can be traced back hundreds of years to England and Scotland, though in their heyday, plenty of homegrown American ballads, like “The Banks of the Ohio” or “Tom Dooley,” made their way around the country, telling the stories of real-life murders in a time before people could tune into Dateline to hear them. In the twentieth century, musicians such as Johnny Cash, Judy Collins, and Nick Cave have recorded murder ballads, and Sharyn McCrumb based many of the books in her ballad series on the songs.
I was lucky to grow up in the Smoky Mountains of Appalachia where musicians and folklorists have kept traditional music alive. When I heard these songs as a child, I was fascinated. In a conservative culture that often seemed to hide or deny the baser facts of life, these songs stood out as practically reveling in violence. I was drawn to that darkness, though as I grew older, I began to question my interest, in much the same way as the media critiques true crime as a genre. How many decades had to pass before singing about a murdered girl lost its whiff of exploitation? Or is it ever possible to stomp your foot to a bluegrass jam about murder, however long ago, without feeling a little queasy?
Another aspect that murder ballads share with contemporary true crime is that the stories about female victimhood were often sung by women for an audience of women. Historically, folklore has always been a way for women, as well as all poor and marginalized people, to share stories when they were unable to access more formal means of expression. The meaning of a ballad such as “The Knoxville Girl,” which is told from the point of view of a murderer, changes when the singer is a woman instead of a man. Lines like, “She never spoke another word, I only beat her more, Until the ground around me within her blood did flow,” can go from menacing to cautionary. Many reasons have been given for why women in particular are attracted to true crime, but surely one of them is the combination of comfort and terror that comes from facing the natural fear that comes from living in a world full of violence against women.
Patriarchal systems are deeply entrenched, which leads to woman being especially vulnerable to violence. Perhaps that was what those songs had been saying all along and why the women of Appalachia chose to sing them.I left Appalachia to go to college, though I remained interested in the region’s folklore and music. After being away for years, I heard new stories about people I’d gone to school with who had been involved in violence. One elementary school classmate murdered another. A high school acquaintance was involved in another murder. The stories were shocking. Though neither fit the clear-cut gender roles of the traditional murder ballad narrative, they did put me in mind of these old stories of violence. Was the place I came from more violent than other places? The region has suffered from systemic poverty and exploitation for generations, and certainly poverty leads to violence, as well as addiction, which leads to more violence. The hunting and gun culture is old and rooted, and guns lead to particularly catastrophic violence. Patriarchal systems are deeply entrenched, which leads to woman being especially vulnerable to violence. Perhaps that was what those songs had been saying all along and why the women of Appalachia chose to sing them.
All of these ideas were in my mind when I began to write my novel The Ballad of Laurel Springs. The book tells the story of eight generations of women in the Smoky Mountains, who pass these songs down, along with a history of secrets and violence. Each chapter is named after a different Appalachian folksong, but the murder ballad “Pretty Polly” is particularly omnipresent. Long ago, a woman in the family named Polly was murdered at a place called Laurel Springs, and some claim the song is about her, though others realize that’s impossible because versions of it have been around for hundreds of years.
The songs change through time. Every singer interprets them differently. Verses are discarded, details added, musical styles switched. A man sings a murder ballad to appear dark and tortured; a woman to express fear and sorrow. Or maybe not. Depending on the singer, the genders could be reversed. Some women murder. Some men beg for mercy. The transmission of folklore and in particular, traditional music is like a long game of Telephone, in which each generation passes on a slightly different version of a song to suit the current moment. Each telling changes the story, and in turn, the changes in the stories change the tellers. Just as each singer will have a different interpretation, each listener will derive a different meaning. Sometimes we learn as much from what is left out and what we get wrong as we do from the lyrics as written on Wikipedia or in liner notes.
“There will always be a few who murder, and many who want to hear about it,” thinks one of the women in my novel, echoing my own conclusion. An interest in violence is natural and understandable. Exploitation of victims or the accused is detestable. Figuring out where to draw the line between the two is often complicated. And that is a problem as old as the murder ballads folks have been singing for hundreds of years.
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Janet Beard is the author of The Ballad of Laurel Springs, available now from Gallery Books. She created a Spotify playlist to accompany the book. It includes her favorite recordings of folksongs and murder ballads by Dolly Parton, Ray Charles, Emmylou Harris, Johnny Cash, Fats Domino and other notable artists. You can listen here.
