Assassin/Murder Songs

I was having a conversation with someone about this topic the other day, and the list I came up with was surprisingly short. All I got was this:

Murder By Numbers - The Police
Mack The Knife - Sinatra
The Thunder Rolls - Garth Brooks

Now, I know there has to be more than that. I saw an interesting article on the topic when researching:

http://www.furious.com/perfect/countrymurdersongs.html

But I'm running out of ideas. Anyone have anything to contribute?

-CB

One More Murder - Better Than Ezra
Black Cactus Killers - Neon Blonde
Psycho Killer - Talking Heads

About Fred West, one of the most fucked up serial killers I've ever heard of.



It sounds like a slow, romantic song, but it's actually from the point of view of a slasher movie-esque villain stalking his prey and sacrificing her to Lovecraftian gods.

Nine Bullets - Drive-By Truckers
Deanna - Nick Cave
Stagger Lee - Nick Cave
Johnny Took a Knife to Jeanette - Drive By Truckers
All for You, Sophia - Franz Ferdinand
Dame With a Rod - Juliana Hatfield


and only about a bazillion songs by Johnny Cash, as well......

Well, the entire album Murder Ballads really...

Hey Joe is probably the most famous modern murder song.

Stagger Lee is, like a couple of the songs on Cave's Murder Ballads, a traditional song, handed down from generation to generation. Mack the Knife is by Kurt Weill and Berthold Brecht and is now a standard. Sinatra didn't record it until the 80s.

There is a long history ofMurder Ballads in western music.

1963/New Order

The Rolling Stones - "Midnight Rambler"

U2 - "Exit"

Alice In Chains - "Dam That River"

DevilDriver - "Die (And Die Now)"

Helmet - "See You Dead"

Johnny Cash - "Cocaine Blues"

Kisses & Kerosene - Otep

Shoot You Down and Elizabeth My Dear, both by the Stone Roses. And that one by the Dixie Chicks.

Which one? "George Bush, You Lying Cunt, We're Gonna Cut Ya Like A Bitch"...? That one?

I'd say pretty much all of Nick Cave's catalogue.

Johnny Cash has a CD entitled Murder. Draw your own conclusions about that.

Death Valley '69 by Sonic Youth.

bluegrass is 25% jesus, 25% getting drunk, and 75% murder. the same could be said for old celtic and british folk tunes, too. and who could forget "delilah" by tom jones! classic.

the only one that matters right now

RATM - Killing In The Name

He took it to an entirely different level though. I took this girl with me to a Nick Cave show last year and she wasn't familiar with his stuff at all, but figured she'd check it out since I'm always going on about Nick Cave's music. Anyway, they finish the set with "Stagger Lee" and she was a bit stunned.

Yeah and it's nice to see he's the one name that's coming up most here. His murder anthems are all over the place, respectfully not limited to Murder Ballads.

I looked it up and the one I mean was Goodbye Earl.

Knuckles - the Hold Steady
Bonnie & Clyde - Eminem
Whiskey in the Jar - Taditional/Dubliners/Thin Lizzy/Metallica
Trouble - Material Issue

I was coming in here to post one of my favorites... "where the wild roses grow"

check out music by these three:

1. Dissection
2. Death
3. At the Gates



All of em are older stuff. Death and at the gates are more thrash death metal.
Dissection on the other hand is straight death / satanic metal. they all are pretty good. or to my ears they are ha.

That song is the bee's knees.

This is one that Nick covered.

I used to date a girl that said Nick Cave scared the shit out of her and that song was the main reason.

Have you read his new book The Death of Bunny Munro? There's quite a few Kylie Minogue references in it. I don't normally like audiobooks, but I actually preferred the audiobook version of that because it has an original soundtrack/score to it and Cave reads it.

OoOoh that's lovely to know about Bunny! I've never had interest in an audio book but do now. Wow.