Law and Justice in Song: Murder Ballads and Popular Music

By Daniel Newman

This book examines the murder ballad form, songs about death and killing, from a legal history perspective. It is held that taking on the long history of the murder ballad is a way that we can understand how death and killing in song has a function in dealing with the world around us. The book integrates law and humanities scholarship with diverse musical case studies to construct a typology of murder ballads and thus conceptualise the central messages of how murder ballads have treated death and killing. Drawing on a cultural form in which assessment and consideration of death and killing are so vigorously and richly enacted gives lawyers a guide to how those who do not see these matters through a primarily legal lens might understand this part of their world. The study will be of interest to academics and researchers working in the areas of Criminal Law, Legal History, Socio-Legal Studies, Criminology and Musicology.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1032964839
• ISBN13: 9781032964836
• Release Date: February 2026
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 346 Pages