Going to Hell in a Handbasket

I got me some new Johnny Cash - Unearthed and am listening to "Banks of the Ohio", a nice little murder ballad. People get all up in arms when someone like Eminem talks about killing his beotches yet they fail to recognize that we Americans have a rich tradition of song about men killing their beotches. Take "Banks of the Ohio":

LOCATION OF MURDER: River bank
METHOD: Stabbing followed by drowning for good measure
NAME OF KILLER/ RELATION TO VICTIM: Willie, fiancée
MOTIVE: Rejected proposal.
METHOD OF BODY DISPOSAL: Water
JUSTICE DONE? YES

I asked my love to take a walk,
To take a walk, just a little way
An' as we walked, then we would talk
About our golden wedding day.

And only say that you'll be mine;
And in no others' arms entwine.
Down beside where the waters flow,
Down by the banks of the Ohio."

I held a knife against her breast
As into my arms she pressed,
Cryin' "Oh Willie, don't you murder me,
I'm not prepared for eternity."

I took her by her pretty white hand,
I led her down to the water's strand.
I picked her up, I pitched her in,
I watched her as she floated down.

Returnin' home between twelve and one,
I cried "My God, what have I done?
I'd killed only woman I loved,
Because she would not be my bride."

The very next day, at half past four,
The sheriff walked right to my door;
He said, "Young man, come on let's go,
Down to the banks of the Ohio"

Remember those clean-cut Kingston Trio boys and their version of "Tom Dooley"? Don't forget Tom Dooley is in the shitter because he killed Laurie Foster. Any kid in this country can go into a CD shop and buy Unearthed or some crappy Kingston Trio best-of album and hear these songs. Or they can get Cash's American Recordings and hear "Delia's Gone" with lines such as:

First time I shot her I shot her in the side
Hard to watch her suffer
But with the second shot she died
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone

Or (gasp!) kids, no, mere children can purchase a collection of folk songs by Alan Lomax and hear songs such as "Omie Wise" ("He beat her and he banged her until she hardly could speak/And threw her in the river where the water's 20 ft deep."), "Pretty Polly" ("He stabbed her in the heart and the blood it did flow/And in to the grave pretty Polly did go."), or "Poor Ellen Smith" ("Poor Ellen Smith, how was she found/Shot through the heart lyin' dead on the ground").

And, of course, there's always so much s-e-x in music today, isn't there? But the trouble continues. If your sweet, pure, innocent son or daughter goes to their local purveyor of compact discs, they might stumble upon another collection of folk songs, Deep River of Song: Black Appalachia, and find the song "Poontang Little, Poontang Small" by Jimmie Strothers. Perhaps instead they'd find Risque Rhythm: Nasty 50s R&B with titles such as "Big Ten Inch Record" (you didn't think Aerosmith wrote it, did you?), "Lemon Squeezing Daddy", "Rocket 69", and "Keep on Churnin' (Till the Butter Comes)".

Then there's Hollywood. Oh dear! There's all this sex and violence on television and in films these days. (To completely the unholy trio, you can add video games.) Now let's not forget that in the originalSleeping Beauty she was raped. Back in 1697, Little Red Riding Hood was first put to paper by the Frenchman Charles Perault and was quite naughty. Take the line about "what big legs you have and "the better to run with". In French, it reads, "Que vous avez de grandes jambes!/C'est pour mieux courir." All fine and well until you understand that "jambe" or leg was slang for the "middle leg" or penis. Add in "courir", which normally means "run" was also slang for having sex. That wolf had more in mind than LRRH's piceenic basket, Boo Boo. To top things off, the wolf eats her at the end. And there's all that naughty business in Shakespeare in addition to all the violence. Making the beast with two backs, sweet bottom-grass, the prick of noon, etc.

Ever read any ancient literature? Greek tragedy? Remember the Oedipus guy? He fucked his own mother and killed his father! HOLY SHIT! How can we keep this stuff on bookstore shelves?! We teach this as "great literature" to our kids! And then there's the genesis of Western literature, The Iliad. Do you want your kids reading about Odysseus putting a spear into some guy's genitalia? Solomon had, what?, like 700 wives plus concubines. Adam and Eve's kids fucked each other. Cain and Abel didn't exactly promote family values with their sibling relationship. Moses commits genocide. In Ezekiel, God makes his children eat their own shit. Rape, slavery, subjugation of womyn – the list goes on.

People complain about the lack of morals in our media today. I'm not sure our media through the ages ever had them.