Cheery indeed, Charley...

Giving it a bit more thought - mostly in order to justify my approach to my wife last night who quizzed me about the ostensible jollity of the thing (though I agree with Paul about the psychotic element) I was thinking very much of the 19th Century street singer performing to a mixed audience in terms of age / social class so the song is merry enough for the dancing tots (whose concentration spans would have given up on the narrative by verse 4) but it carries the darkness at its core for the attentive adults, perhaps being made all the more appalling to the more sensitive Bourgeoisie by the brightness of the tune; beguiled by so subversive a dichotomy (and thus beguiled does the Dodger dip their pockets). You don't have to over egg these things in terms of pathos; the formulaic morphology (both in narrative as well as structure) works as basic reportage in an age when Broadside Ballads were mass media. Of course a more Grand Guignol approach would do just as well, but I've been immersed in Broadsides, Edward Gorey (interviews as well as books) and Poe all year, so maybe that's just where my head is at right now.

I think one thing we've lost these days is that crimes are reported, but we never get the full story, much less a song about them (though there were at least two going the rounds about Raoul Moat). In folklore, you still get stories, gossip, and jokes (in especially extreme cases). I remember barely legible photocopies doing the rounds in factories and offices, though these days it's more likely to be texts. People love crime drama - they revel in the details by way of a very genuine catharthis - they need the MMO to contextualise the horror - which is something the Gallows Ballads give us in spades.

Where's Pip on this one anyway? As our resident Folk Singing Criminologist one would have thought it would have right up his dark back alley...