"Earl Had to Die: The 20 Greatest Country Songs About Taking the Life of Your Partner"
Traditional country music often includes murder ballads as a significant theme. Although they are not as common in today's country music, there is still a collection of exceptional songs about men killing their female romantic partners. However, songs portraying women killing their partners are less frequent. Nevertheless, country music does have a fair share of such songs, and we have compiled a list to showcase them.
We had to exclude certain contenders based on a few specific criteria. Our main focus was to choose only one song per artist, which meant that popular country singers Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert, who have multiple songs centered around murder, were only given one slot each. Songs like "Before He Cheats," "Church Bells," "White Liar," and "Kerosene" are all excellent revenge anthems, but in the end, they were overshadowed by even more impactful songs and didn't make it onto the final list.
The criteria for making it onto this list of murder songs was quite specific. Only murders that involved a male victim were considered, which unfortunately meant that Ashley McBryde's "Martha Divine," despite being an excellent modern murder song in the genre, did not qualify. We would also like to give honorable mentions to Willie Nelson's "Red Headed Stranger" and The SteelDrivers' "If It Hadn't Been for Love," but they did not meet the criteria for this list either.
The remaining content is extremely impressive and wicked, comprising a collection of the most impactful songs in country music that revolve around killing someone. Take a look at the images below to discover our top choices for revengeful and lesser-known songs centered on the idea of murdering the man in your life (or persuading someone else to do it on your behalf). Continue reading and don't forget to share your favorite song about eliminating your man in the comments section if we haven't included it.
Earl Had to Die: 20 Exceptional Country Songs Portraying the Act of Killing Your Partner
Credit for Gallery: Carena Liptak
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