There was an excellent episode of In the Heat of the Night in 1991 called "Sweet Sweet Blues", which was a murder-mystery about a murder ballad. The crime happened 40 years earlier, and they solved it by tracking down the composer of the song.<p>The answer to the question "whodunnit" was a lyric in the song that the composer had kept out of all performances since soon after the crime. It's awesome how they work the music and performance into the act - a really fun episode!<p><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0610671/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_4" rel="nofollow">https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0610671/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_4</a><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet%2C_Sweet_Blues" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet%2C_Sweet_Blues</a>
All of men who decided their desire or even just convenience was more important than a woman's life. The songs dwell on the murderer's emotion, and pretty much skip over the innocent facing death. Because men matter, and women are property I guess.<p>'Great American' my ass. Strange anybody today would want to repeat these stories.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_ballad" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_ballad</a><p>"Murder ballads make up a notable portion of traditional ballads, many of which originated in Scandinavia, England, and lowland Scotland in the premodern era (suggesting an ultimate Germanic cultural origin)."
Makes me want to listen to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds "Murder Ballads" again... but i find it hard to work with good lyrics in my music. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_Ballads" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_Ballads</a>
I was going to say "Long Black Veil" but I realized that one's about a man who's hanged for a murder he didn't commit (he was in bed with his best friend's wife, and refused to use that as an alibi at the trial).