Happy Halloween!

For Halloween this year I thought I would share some of my favorite "haunting" music!

Ballads, songs that tell a narrative story, are a cornerstone of folk music and there are lots of subgenres of ballad narrative types. One of my favorite subgenres is "return of the dead" which is pretty self-explanatory... a dead person returns from the beyond the grave (usually for a set period of time) to reunite with a living person. Here are some of my favorite examples of this subgenre:

-Sweet William's Ghost by Cara
-The Lover's Ghost by Pauline Scanlon
-The Unquiet Grave by Gryphon
-Lady Margaret by Buffy Sainte-Marie

A sometimes-related subgenre is murder ballads. This genre is also self-explanatory. They're songs about someone (or multiple someones) getting murdered. In this version of The Twa Sisters (titled Cruel Sister by Pentangle) the harp made out of the body of the murdered sister "began to play alone" the story of the sister's murder at her killer's wedding! THE DRAMA! JUSTICE FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE! I hope the groom can get an annulment...

Here are some other favorite murder ballads of mine:

-Young Emily by Alasdair Roberts
-Little Omie Wise by Doc Watson

Another favorite murder ballad of mine is a variation of "Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight", May Colvin, by Sìleas on their album Play on Light. (Sadly, I can't find any digital versions of this album/song to link).

Aaand that's about it! Happy Halloween, everyone!!