Whew! What a thread title - my academic mind went to Michel Foucault and I had visions of some remarkable discussion of murder ballads as interpreted in the post modern school of thought. But even without the French philosopher influence, murder ballads are still a lot of fun. My father (John Dwyer) had quite a few in his repertoire. He used to sing to us each in our rooms at bedtime, often running through what he was learning at the time. Unfettered by guitar chords, we just learned the words along with him. We must have seemed like particularly blood-thirsty tykes as school with our knowledge of and vocabulary to do with murder and mayhem.

SRS