The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #143474   Message #3311766
Posted By: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
22-Feb-12 - 06:36 AM
Thread Name: Incest ballads (songs)
Subject: RE: Incest ballads
That's father-daughter incest, though - a bit different.

Aren't some of them fathered by her brother too?

In any case, there's the sort of knowing loving incest (implied in Lucy Wan) and the unwitting incest consequent on sexual violence (graphically portrayed in Lady Jean) - as such it seems closer in spirit to the Bonny Banks o' Airdrie / Fordie. Looking at Lucy Wan I think it's more of a matter of a step-sibling relationship gone rather awry, which echoes less explicitly elsewhere (Edward) on account of its gravity, no doubt, but the real dramatic meat of the thing lies in the creepy Oedipal dialogue between the protagonist and his mother, who seems more bothered about what will happen to her son when her husband finds out he's just offed poor Lucy.


What larks, eh Pip?

And anything by Tim Erikson is bound to be amazing. Is that the one he field-recorded in an old water tower or am I getting mixed up with something else??