Other murder ballads tell the tale of the crime from the point of view of the victim, such as "Lord Randall", in which the narrator becomes ill and discovers that he has been poisoned.

Daniel A. Cohen comments that the murder ballads should be distinguished from a related genre, "dying verses", intended for reading rather than singing, a New England tradition from the 18th century.

Within the context of the British isles, murder ballads are only found in English and Scots-speaking regions (broadly, England, lowland Scotland, and northeastern Ireland), and are not a feature of Gaelic or Welsh-language music.

In contrast, the Kentucky version, "Pretty Polly", is a stark and blood-soaked murder ballad with the victim being betrayed by the man she loves, stabbed in the heart, and buried in a shallow grave.

As a result, true western ballads of murder—except those about such famous outlaws as Jesse James, Cole Younger, Sam Bass, and their ilk—have been entirely lost, or are known only to the children of those who knew and sang them.

One of them is the very popular song from the 18th century called "Oi Ne Khody Hrytsiu" ("Don't Go to Party") written by a semi-legendary poet and singer Marusia Churai.

[7] Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games Trilogy of books, and the films based upon them, make much of Katniss Everdeen's ability to sing.

[9] Welsh guitarist Ren Gill's Story of Jenny and Screech (2019)[10] draws upon folk music, hip-hop and spoken word to tell the melodramatic story of a teenage robber named James alias Screech who murdered his own sister with an illegal rambo knife, was rejected by his friends, attacked a policeman, and was shot dead by armed police.

[11][12] This was followed in 2022 with a prequel murder ballad about Jenny and Screech's mother Violet, a victim of fatal domestic abuse in "London City, far from pretty, 2005.