The Knoxville Girl

"The Knoxville Girl" is an Appalachian murder ballad.

Origins

It is derived from the 19th-century Irish ballad "The Wexford Girl", itself derived from the earlier English ballad "The Bloody Miller or Hanged I Shall Be" (Roud 263, Laws P35) about a murder, in 1683, at Hogstow Mill, south of Shrewsbury. This ballad was collected by Samuel Pepys, who wrote about the murder of Anne Nichols by the Mill's apprentice Francis Cooper. Other versions are known as the "Waxweed Girl", "The Wexford Murder". These are in turn derived from an Elizabethan era poem or broadside ballad, "The Cruel Miller".

Possibly modelled on the 17th-century broadside William Grismond's Downfall, or A Lamentable Murther by him Committed at Lainterdine in the county of Hereford on March 12, 1650: Together with his lamentation., sometimes known as The Bloody Miller.

Lyrics

Recordings

Samples

• Plan B in the bootleg mash-up "Paint It Blacker" (2007) as a reference to violent music existing before modern rap.

Parodies

• Patrick Sky on his album Songs That Made America Famous, as "Yonkers Girl".
• GG Allin on his album Carnival of Excess, as "Watch Me Kill".

Uses in other media

The song features prominently in If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O, the first book in the Ballad mystery series by Sharyn McCrumb.

Bibliography

• Collin Escott. Roadkill on the Three-chord Highway: Art and Trash in American Popular Music. New York: Routledge, 2002.

References

External links

• Essay on the historical roots of "knoxville Girl."