There’s nothing I love more than a good old fashioned murder ballad.  Maybe it’s the juicy juxtaposition of the details of a grisly crime uttered sotto voce style over a plaintive dirge.  Or maybe I’m just sick.  But this isn’t about me.  This week TDB brings you modern day murder ballads from some of today’s hottest new artists!  You get hangings, stabbings, scorned lovers and much much more.  This very special collection is only available through TDB and is not sold in any stores.  And if you act now, we’ll include matricide as a bonus gift! 

I’m sure there are entire doctoral theses on the distant origins of murder ballads but more recent history almost universally cites Johnny Cash and Nick Cave as pioneers of the modern genre.  Cave’s haunting duet with Kylie Minogue, “Where the Wild Roses Grow”, ends an obsessive love affair Crispin Glover style with a stoning by the river.  Cash is a different breed of cat and in “Delia’s Gone” exemplifies an Appalachian fetish for firearms and the ‘wife as chattel’ meme where you take them out in back of the barn and shoot them for misbehavin’.

Both are brilliant examples of the genre and the quintessential murder ballad paints a vivid portrait of the killer and his crime.  Okkervil River’s “Westfall” is the prison diary of a small-town boy grown up and grown bored enough to kill.  With creepy details like “One was named Lori.  That’s what the story said next week in The Guardian…”, it’s the dispassionate chronicle of a psychopath.  In classic murder ballad style, the song builds to the eventual capture of the killer who, paraded out of the jailhouse, tells the inquisitive crowd that, “evil don’t look like anything.”  Take that, Nancy Grace.

Former Palace Brother, Will Oldham, dons his Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy moniker and reaches back to 18th century Ireland with an update of the traditional “Molly Bawn.”  In an episode that makes Dick Cheney look like Annie Oakley, poor Molly Bawn is mistaken for a swan and shot by her fiancé in a tragic hunting accident.  I’m serious.  This is probably more accurately called a manslaughter ballad with the possibility of time served and probation.

And in what starts out as a childhood game but presumably ends in tragedy, Sonny Bono’s “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)” is given guitar god treatment by Terry Reid circa 1968.  More metaphoric than literal, it’s representative of an era of artful phrases in music.  Thirty years ago euphemisms like ’squeeze my lemon’ garnered a knowing wink from the hipsters while today we get 20 year old Hillary Duff cooing “touch me boy don’t you make me wait.”  Ah, good times.

- Xavier Van Zandt

MP3 :::
Terry Reid – Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)
Bonnie Prince Billy -  Molly Bawn
Okkervil River – Westfall

Any discussion of white boys playing the blues generally has to involve a purist going on about how “derivative” or “inauthentic” it is with frequent references to long-dead always obscure bluesmen with claims that they were the originals.

But, once you face the reality that everything and everyone is somehow a product of influences and predecessors, the argument fizzles. Just bring up the fact that Wallace Willis, a Native American, wrote Swing Low, Sweet Chariot back in the mid 19^th century and then walk away from the blank stares.  In reality it was the adaptation of that tune by the Jubilee Singers that made it a timeless classic. I’ve made my point so let me put the lid back on this can of worms before it turns into a Ken Burns project.

The lesson my friends is to appreciate the music for what it is rather than trying to DNA test it for lineage. It’s the serendipitous melding of experiences and influences that keeps music fresh. While I like Mozart and all, I’d be pretty disappointed if we hadn’t moved on to other things in the last 300 or so years.

By this time you’re all thinking, ok I’m with you but… who is Dr. Hoffmann and where does Bo fit into this?

Dr. Albert Hoffmann, aside from being a loving husband and father, was the inventor and first consumer of LSD back in 1943. It was the same year a teenaged Bo Diddley was playing Chicago street corners for tips. These two seemingly unrelated events would turn out to combine in one of the greatest accidental unions since chocolate met peanut butter.

Some 20 years later, pasty-faced suburban teens in England would stumble onto Dr. Hoffmann’s miracle drug, the advent of which was heralded by the 1966 single, £SD, by The Pretty Things. While you may not have heard of them, you may know guitarist Dick Taylor’s previous gig – the Rolling Stones. Taking their name – and influence – from Bo Diddley and his 1956 hit, Pretty Thing, the band wore the blues on their shirt sleeves (and a blotter on their tongues). The late ‘60s was exploding with soulful crooners backed by 12 bars of guitar, a Hammond B3 and a heavy drug habit.

Joining Dick Taylor in the Bad Timing Hall of Fame is Terry Reid who turned down an offer to be the vocalist in Jimmy Page’s post-Yardbirds project. Having already committed to go on tour as the opening act for the Stones in ‘69, Reid recommended a guy by the name of Robert Plant and the rest is history. Reid did go on to put out some amazing work but only he knows whether it’s sufficient solace for missing out on being a part of rock’s supergods. Check out his cover of Donovan’s Superlungs My Supergirl.

On this side of the pond, bands like Captain Beefheart were reinventing the delta sound on tracks like Sure ‘Nuff ‘N Yes I Do and Diddley’s own Diddy Wah Diddy. Austin’s 13^th Floor Elevators were pioneering the garage psych sound before going true psychedelic with Roky Erickson’s hospitalization. Van Vliet seemed to escape with his sanity and went on to call acid, “overrated aspirin and very similar to old people’s Disneyland.”

With the 1970’s came the golden age of progressive rock where musical genres melted together like your collection of old LPs in the attic. The movement ultimately imploded under the pretentious weight of such bloated arena monsters as Rush and ELP and the onslaught of concept albums and rock operas. Inevitably this is the part of the conversation where someone brings up The Wall or Tommy. Which is also the point at which I respond with Kilroy Was Here and Bob Dylan’s Saved. There is always that moment when a movement becomes too big, overextends itself (think Madonna’s acting career), and ultimately gets smacked down in a merciful act of musical Darwinism.

Later bands would eschew (love that word) the falsettos and string sections like Claw Hammer – named after the Beefheart tune – stripping things down to the basics with blues harmonica and a hardcore edge. Beck’s landmark album, Odelay, opens Hotwax with slide guitar and a blues shuffle while reaching back to sample Them’s version of It’s All Over Now Baby Blue for Jack-ass. Jon Spencer Blues Explosion went so far as to collaborate with R.L. Burnside on A Ass Pocket of Whisky and The Black Keys put out an entire album’s worth of Junior Kimbrough covers with Chulahoma. The white boy blues were back.

Even something like the folky guitar intro and Robert Pollard’s faux-Brit lilt in Boston Spaceships’ Go For the Exit conjure up hallucinations of 1968. The only disappointment of having so deeply incorporated past influences into the current vibe is the tendency to sometimes overlook the origins of the sound.

I happened to turn on the television the other day to hear the unmistakable riff from Depeche Mode’s Personal Jesus being kidnapped by some vapid fluff bunny who turned out to be Hillary Duff. If I have one pet peeve with respect to influences, it’s the neither fish nor fowl approach where the song isn’t exact enough to be a cover but not deviant enough to be considered original work. Duff completes the trifecta of creating a shit song by adding a gratuitous rap for crossover appeal and then releasing umpteen remixes of a song which is already essentially a remix.

Let me redirect before I get all depressed about the current state of music. It’s not entirely true that every song has been written. Someone at some time has done something similar, but the measure of true artistry is in synthesizing past talents in a unique way. It’s not much different than cooking. How many recipes include flour, sugar and butter as the main ingredients? But would you flog a chef for relying on such a foundation? I prefer my dessert delicious rather than completely original at the expense of taste. Likewise with my music.

As an aside, I’m not Ken Burns and the above wasn’t at all intended to be comprehensive in the least. One of these days I’ll get around to the 14 hour PBS mini-series but for now this is what you get. Enjoy.

MP3 :::
The Pretty Things – LSD
Terry Reid – Superlungs My Super Girl
13th Floor Elevators – Levitation
Captain Beefheart – Sure ‘Nuff ‘N Yes I Do
Beck – Hotwax
Boston Spaceships – Go For the Exit