murder ballad

Have you ever heard a mur­der bal­lad? It’s a song that nar­rates, as the name sug­gests, a mur­der. Grue­some, yes, but it’s a long musi­cal tra­di­tion. Mur­der bal­lads pre­date stan­dard music nota­tion and date back to the Mid­dle Ages; 17th…