The Stomping Ground: The Importance of Revenge Songs and Murder Ballads
The Stomping Ground: The Importance of Revenge Songs and Murder Ballads
Revenge Songs and Murder Ballads are fresh, feminist, and functional. Get in losers. We're getting even.
Hypothetically, if you’re looking for ideas to get hypothetical revenge on your ex, you’ve got an entire back catalog of country songs for inspiration.
My new favorite ways actually come from a recent SNL skit called “Get that Boy Back” with Chloe Troast, Chloe Fineman, Ego Nwodim, Chris Stapleton, AND Ryan Gosling (the dinner party of dreams). Decked out in fringe-on-fringe and a cowboy hat, Troast suggests:
haunting your ex’s parents by living in their walls
replacing his shoes with bigger and bigger shoes until he goes crazy
start speaking exclusively in Romanian after six months of dating
Troast should start a relationship advice column for agents of chaos. Your scummy ex loves Connections? Make him puzzles that can’t be solved. Your partner doesn’t want to pay for dinner? Fake his citizenship and report him to the IRS.
The satirical skit plays on a well-known trope in country music: Revenge Songs and Murder Ballads. From a musical perspective, these songs exemplify what country music does best: narrative storytelling.
From the first stanza, the song drops the listener squarely into the action. In “Gunpowder and Lead,” Miranda Lambert has “two miles” until she gets revenge on an abusive ex-boyfriend with a shotgun. In “Church Bells” by Carrie Underwood, church bells anchor the life, abuse, and death of a marriage between a drunkard asshole husband and a young woman. The most effective revenge songs chug along like a runaway train and pick us up along the way—the ride might be bumpy, but it’s always moving.
More broadly, Revenge Songs and Murder Ballads reflect the genre’s well-known don’t-tread-on-me libertarianism. By its very nature and name, country music defends and exalts the oldest American values: the rights to life, liberty, and property. Wrapped up in banjos and the twangy accents of a bygone cowboy era, Revenge Songs further tell us that the ends justify the means. To secure her rights to life and liberty, Women in Country will do whatever it takes to escape a bad or abusive relationship.
The fire and conviction with which Women in Country sing Revenge Songs and Murder Ballads are significant for two reasons.
First, through this trope, Women in Country actively reinvent their place in American folklore. In the 1800s, only men could actualize the vigilantism depicted in Revenge Songs. While cowboys were smashing bottles and twirling pistols in the dusty saloons of the Wild West, women were taught to stay subservient and wait for their reckless husbands. These stereotypical relationships are a microcosm of the patriarchy that’s been romanticized to hell and back in the American canon: the rugged cowboy rides off into the sunset while his pioneer wife waits with endless patience on the porch. But the stereotypes were true—women were almost always on the sidelines. With no political or proprietary autonomy until the 20th century, there were few avenues for women to express their independence at home or in society.
Enter the Revenge Song and the Murder Ballad. In these action-packed songs, women reclaim their agency against the patriarchy with lethal aim and, well, kerosene.* In assuming the persona of the vigilante American cowboy, Women in Country get revenge not just for themselves, but for generations of women who were taught or resigned to suffer in silence. In their introductory, haunting ballad of the same name, The Highwomen declare in unison that they are “the daughters of the silent generations.” In more than a few songs, Miranda Lambert starts some fires and loads a shotgun in the dirty pursuit of getting even. Women in Country represent a new generation of raucous outlaws, pyromaniacs, and confident women—this ain’t their mama’s broken heart.
Beyond the trope’s confident spokeswomen and anachronistic ethos, these songs critically examine contemporary gender issues. This brings me to my second point: the trope—especially Murder Ballads—raises important awareness about domestic violence and demonstrates a remarkable allyship towards victims of abuse. By openly talking about infidelity, domestic violence, and alcoholism, Murder Ballads open a window into the physical and emotional trauma that women face in unsafe relationships. In speaking so plainly about bruises, restraining orders, and the harsh realities of gender-based violence, Murder Ballads bring much-needed awareness about the signs and prevalence of domestic abuse.
Many songs enlist accomplices to exact revenge for the abuse. In “no body, no crime,” Taylor Swift teamed up with the HAIM sisters to avenge Este’s murder. In a poignant display of solidarity, best friends Mary Anne and Wanda “held…hands” as they hatched a plan to kill Wanda’s violent husband Earl (“Goodbye Earl” by The Chicks). The “If you go down, I’m goin’ down too” brand of loyalty seen in the Murder Ballad cannot be overstated. These women are willing to lie, kill, and bury to protect or avenge a friend in need. In their loyalty, the Murder Ballad becomes a critical lesson in both awareness and allyship regarding gender-based violence.
Although Revenge Songs/Murder Ballads are a dime-a-dozen, these songs remain fresh, feminist, and functional because they make a statement. In a three-minute tale of love, hurt, and murder, women assert a rugged physicality and determination as they reclaim their agency and their place in history. Now, tell me, what’s more American than that?
You can listen to a playlist with my favorite Revenge Songs and Murder Ballads—including the songs mentioned in the article—here.
*Just in case it needs to be said: I do not condone violence or any sort of illegal activity. Revenge Songs and Murder Ballads are hyperbolic for dramatic effect; it’s their underlying messages of strength and resilience that I’m interested in here. Please do not take relationship advice from fictional songs, which are fictional.