Country music’s style isn’t a style that aims to jar or horrify someone. However, every so often, country musicians have done just that, and they’ve done so by telling or retelling some terrifying ...

It is not the first “murder ballad,” a subgenre of the traditional ballad with a crime or a gruesome death as the theme. “L.A. County” by Lyle Lovett and “Red Headed Stranger” by Willie Nelson are a ...