#Ballad Music

[cashmeresglimmer]

The survivors of District 12 singing and dancing at Finnick and Annie's wedding hits so different after reading/watching tbosas. Can you imagine Snow's reaction to that propo? No matter how hard he tried to erase Lucy Gray and to obliterate District 12, she lived on in her music, music which is kept alive by the people of the place she once called home.

[holyblanchett]

To the person that isolated Agatha and Rio's vocals during Lorna's ballad I fucking love you and I'm also sobbing so thanks for that

[intheholler]

the appalachian murder ballad <3 one of the most interesting elements of americana and american folk, imo!

my wife recently gave me A Look when i had one playing in the car and she was like, "why do all of these old folk songs talk about killing people lmao" and i realized i wanted to Talk About It at length.

nerd shit under the cut, and it's long. y'all been warned

so, as y'all probably know, a lot of appalachian folk music grew its roots in scottish folk (and then was heavily influenced by Black folks once it arrived here, but that's a post for another time).

they existed, as most folk music does, to deliver a narrative--to pass on a story orally, especially in communities where literacy was not widespread. their whole purpose was to get the news out there about current events, and everyone loves a good murder mystery!

as an aside, i saw someone liken the murder ballad to a ye olde true crime podcast and tbh, yeah lol.

the "original" murder ballads started back across the pond as news stories printed on broadsheets and penned in such a way that it was easy to put to melody.

they were meant to be passed on and keep the people informed about the goings-on in town. i imagine that because these songs were left up to their original orators to get them going, this would be why we have sooo many variations of old folk songs.

naturally then, almost always, they were based on real events, either sung from an outside perspective, from the killer's perspective and in some cases, from the victim's. of course, like most things from days of yore, they reek of social dogshit. the particular flavor of dogshit of the OG murder ballad was misogyny.

so, the murder ballad came over when the english and scots-irish settlers did. in fact, a lot of the current murder ballads are still telling stories from centuries ago, and, as is the way of folk, getting rewritten and given new names and melodies and evolving into the modern recordings we hear today.

305 such scottish and english ballads were noted and collected into what is famously known as the Child Ballads collected by a professor named francis james child in the 19th century. they have been reshaped and covered and recorded a million and one times, as is the folk way.

while newer ones continued to largely fit the formula of retelling real events and murder trials (such as one of my favorite ones, little sadie, about a murderer getting chased through the carolinas to have justice handed down), they also evolved into sometimes fictional, (often unfortunately misogynistic) cautionary tales.

perhaps the most famous examples of these are omie wise and pretty polly where the woman's death almost feels justified as if it's her fault (big shocker).

but i digress. in this way, the evolution of the murder ballad came to serve a similar purpose as the spooky legends of appalachia did/do now.

(why do we have those urban legends and oral traditions warning yall out of the woods? to keep babies from gettin lost n dying in them. i know it's a fun tiktok trend rn to tell tale of spooky scary woods like there's really more haints out here than there are anywhere else, but that's a rant for another time too ain't it)

so, the aforementioned little sadie (also known as "bad lee brown" in some cases) was first recorded in the 1920s. i'm also plugging my favorite female-vocaist cover of it there because it's superior when a woman does it, sorry.

it is a pretty straightforward murder ballad in its content--in the original version, the guy kills a woman, a stranger or his girlfriend sometimes depending on who is covering it.

but instead of it being a cautionary 'be careful and don't get pregnant or it's your fault' tale like omie wise and pretty polly, the guy doesn't get away with it, and he's not portrayed as sympathetic like the murderer is in so many ballads.

a few decades after, women started saying fuck you and writing their own murder ballads.

in the 40s, the femme fatale trope was in full swing with women flipping the script and killing their male lovers for slights against them instead.

men began to enter the "find out" phase in these songs and paid up for being abusive partners. women regained their agency and humanity by actually giving themselves an active voice instead of just being essentially 'fridged in the ballads of old.

her majesty dolly parton even covered plenty of old ballads herself but then went on to write the bridge, telling the pregnant-woman-in-the-murder-ballad's side of things for once. love her.

as a listener, i realized that i personally prefer these modern covers of appalachian murder ballads sung by women-led acts like dolly and gillian welch and even the super-recent crooked still especially, because there is a sense of reclamation, subverting its roots by giving it a woman's voice instead.

meaning that, like a lot else from the problematic past, the appalachian murder ballad is something to be enjoyed with critical ears. violence against women is an evergreen issue, of course, and you're going to encounter a lot of that in this branch of historical music.

but with folk songs, and especially the murder ballad, being such a foundational element of appalachian history and culture and fitting squarely into the appalachian gothic, i still find them important and so, so interesting

i do feel it's worth mentioning that there are "tamer" ones. with traditional and modern murder ballads alike, some of them are just for "fun," like a murder mystery novel is enjoyable to read; not all have a message or retell a historical trial.

(for instance, i'd even argue ultra-modern, popular americana songs like hell's comin' with me is a contemporary americana murder ballad--being sung by a male vocalist and having evolved from being at the expense of a woman to instead being directed at a harmful and corrupt church. that kind of thing)

in short: it continues to evolve, and i continue to eat that shit up.

anyway, to leave off, lemme share with yall my personal favorite murder ballad which fits squarely into murder mystery/horror novel territory imo.

it's the 10th child ballad and was originally known as "the twa sisters." it's been covered to hell n back and named and renamed.

but! if you listen to any flavor of americana, chances are high you already know it; popular names are "the dreadful wind and rain" and sometimes just "wind and rain."

in it, a jealous older sister pushes her other sister into a river (or stream, or sea, depending on who's covering it) over a dumbass man. the little sister's body floats away and a fiddle maker come upon her and took parts of her body to make a fiddle of his own. the only song the new fiddle plays is the tale about how it came to be, and it is the same song you have been listening to until then.

how's that for genuinely spooky-scary appalachia, y'all?

[feralheadphones]

and i'm asking,

WHYYYYYYYYY LOOOOOOORD

if this is how I

DIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEE LOOOOOOOORD

why be left with no family and no friends?

[fictionadventurer]

Suzanne Collins: I will write a YA dystopian novel that explores the depravity that humanity is capable of, digs deep into Enlightenment philosophies about the social contract and the best ways to govern people who are capable of great cruelty, shows the horrendous slaughter of children who are deemed less than human by their enemies because of a war they were barely alive for, and shows the character arc of a young man with a sense of superiority who refuses to take the risks of selfless behavior and betrays every friend who comes his way and thus descends from simple selfishness to become a ruthless authoritarian dictator.

Suzanne Collins: And I will also make it

Suzanne Collins: a musical

Suzanne Collins: :)

[watermel0ns-dumb-cringe]

I'm a little late to this but CHAT WAKE UP EMILY ROHM DROPPED THE FULL VERSION OF TBOJD FROM THE CHICAGO PRODUCTION

[yourstrulyray]

"im gay" "im straight" okay?? but we all know the worms must be fed??? theres just one lingering fear ???? oh my soul is it here ????? or is it rotting somewhere with my head???

[lavendarneverlands]

put 5 songs you listen to, post it, then send this ask to 10 of your favorite followers <333

Thank you so much lovely🫶🫶🫶

Oh goodness this is a hard question because I like way too many songs😂 though I am a huge Swiftie & since I’ve on my TOG binge have been listening to a lot of fan playlists so let’s let my history decide🤣 these have been in a heavy rotation:

“Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” by Taylor Swift

“Red Wine Supernova” by Chappell Roan

“Please Please Please” by Sabrina Carpenter

“Blonde” by Maisie Peters

“Can’t Catch Me Now” by Olivia Rodrigo

@impossibelle @iwantavaldezinator @idfendyr @shadowhunters77 @archerons-elain @cheap-spirits @maevecrom @endlessdaydream @somethingsomewhereanywhere @korepio

p.s. as always, no pressure tags :-) 💕

(Heads up for some tags: this is my main account, the side-blog ur probably used to seeing (as I’m more active) is @acourtofquestions I have a terrible habit of mixing up pages/conversations; so if ur going “who tagged me?” it’s just me lol)

[i-don-t-know-what-im-doing]

Snow about Lucy Gray: I can't get her out of my head and every time I look at her I have these pains in my chest and just know it's her fault that bitch

[theatrekidsstuff]

I could really use a space age bachelor right now😔😔😔😔😔

[solstrix]

Yeah, you could say I’m pretty amped about this design lmao- (gets sniped)

[mikkeneko]

If we're all pretty much on board by now with "media consumption is not activism," are we ready to move on yet to the necessary corollary of "failure to consume media is not failure of activism?"

[gods-favorite-autistic]

Track list for Fig and the Cig Figs independently published Junior Year album (officially named “Infaethable”)

Teenage Rebellion

Night Yorb (a heavy metal banger)

Summer Scaries

Devils Nectar

Time Quangle (a love song about Ayda)

Multiclass (Gorgug sings on this!)

The Ballad Of Lucy Frostblade (Kristen was the one who convinced Fig to write this)

So Late, So Tactical

Do You Have A Fucking Warrant

Cassandra (Can You Hear Me)

Hall Of Mirrors

President Applebees (written entirely in the night after Kristen gets elected by a drunk Fig with extremely drunk notes by Kristen)

Raging For Love (inspired by Gorgug, of course)

The Elven Oracle (Has A Day Job) (So Stop Bothering Her)

Maximum Legend

Fury Of The Ball

Cursed

Infaethable

The Bad Kids

[fictionadventurer]

The way that Coryo makes my stomach heave so many times in the first chapter alone.

The way that his Reaping Day experience involves his cousin working herself to the bone for him while Katniss spent hers providing for her family and sacrificing for her sister.

The way he thinks of his ill grandmother mostly as an embarrassment and spends more time worrying about how she affects their image than about her well-being.

The way he's literally starving and still obsesses over image and prestige and social position so that living in a crumbling penthouse is seen as preferable to a (gasp) lower-class existence.

The way every single social interaction is transactional and is calculated to maintain or improve his status.

The way he hears that Sejanus has to mentor a former friend and his only response is to sneer that Sejanus still thinks of himself as District.

The way that the first chapter of The Hunger Games ends with the announcement of Prim's name and the first chapter here ends with, "The District 12 girl belongs to Coriolanus Snow."

[genderfluidcrowley]

Not the critics criticising tbosas for being a “Disney musical”. Like, first of all, read the damn book. Second of all, there weren’t even that many songs. And like, of course there’s gonna be songs in a movie about a singer.

[imogen-fae]

Rozzi Crane - Creep

Creep by Radiohead is a darkly beautiful song and very few cover artists do it justice. Rozzi's version pays homage to Radiohead and then catapults the song into the stratosphere. She IS fu**** special.