Who Killed Cock Robin?

British Folk Songs of Crime and Punishment

Stephen Sedley & Martin Carthy

Reaktion & EFDSS 2021

Hb, 278pp, £14.99, ISBN 9781789145038

Part cultural history, part song resource, this is a challenging book. The authors are legendary British folk singer and guitarist Martin Carthy, and retired High Court Judge and law professor Stephen Sedley.

Folk singers often use song collections for creating repertoire; this one is very interesting because of how much context has been given to the songs. They have been arranged by crime type and by punishment, so there are songs about poaching, rioting, murder, arson, false accusation, piracy, infanticide, fratricide, abduction, sexual assault, transportation and prison.

If this sounds stark, it is because it is. I commend the honesty of approach but will qualify this by saying I was shocked by some of the subject matter discussed. That said, the writing is accurate and incredibly useful for providing context to the songs – a combination of familiar folk club songs and some real finds – to help a singer understand what they are singing about. This is a very well put together work that will reward the reader, accepting that the subject matter can be disturbing.

George Hoyle

★★★