The Murder of Maria Marten

February 25, 2010 1:12 PM

An old murder ballad that's always intrigued me, for some reason.

This is one of at least five murder ballads written in the late 1820s about the Red Barn Murder. No, we're not related. Yes, I've checked. My branch of the Corder family came over in the early 1700s, so we're at least not directly related.

I transcribed the melody from Shirley Collins' version, and finished the whole thing in about two and a half hours.

Instrumentation:

Vocals
Drone (Korg DS-10 with a little bit of phaser added in post)
Bowed Cymbal (Samples from the Berklee database in the OLPC Wiki, Reversed, and GVerb'd)

posted by askmeaboutLOOM (2 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite

That is indeed a great drone.

Murder ballads are a creepy sub-sub-sub genre, and you've definitely captured the correct degree of creepiness with this arrangement.
posted by man vs sun at 10:05 PM on February 25, 2010


any song that kicks off with a reference to ipswich is bound to end in tears. this is brilliant. i remember the version on 'no roses' (i'm guessing this is the one you copped the tune from).
posted by peterkins at 3:46 AM on June 5, 2010


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