FEATURED JOBS
Comments (0)Singer-songwriter Ruth Gerson is plumbing the depths of one of American music’s most quirky, morbid genres – the murder ballad, those ancient songs examining the grim stories of the day. Her new CD, “Deceived,” is getting raves and takes on such classics as “The Butcher’s Boy,” “Knoxville Girl,” “Banks Of The Ohio,” “Delilah” and even “Ode To Billie Joe.”
Why such dark stuff? “The contrast of the sweet female voice and the vivid words of a man’s confession of murder is multi-purpose,” Ruth recently told NPR. “There are listeners who might not be able to listen if it wasn’t cheerful—I might lose them if I wasn’t simple and jaunty. I may get somewhere more directly by an indirect approach. I had to find a way in to each of the songs and understand how they would come together on the album. …
“Speaking for myself, the allure of the music has to do with a desire to understand why, when we come face-to-face with another, we can annihilate. I can understand an impulse to want to, but I cannot understand where, once met with the face of another who holds no threat to me and could not defend herself, I would get the ability to do what’s done in these songs. I have grappled with and studied violence since I was in high school. I sing about it because I want to talk about it. Trying to understand it is part of who I am.”
Deep stuff from a girl who grew up on the Upper West Side and studied Jewish existentialism at Princeton.