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Country music has its beginnings in music styles brought over by the first European settlers. In medieval times, storytelling was a tradition that allowed history to be recorded when few were able to read and write. When the first British settlers came to America, they brought this tradition with them, along with songs they had learned in Europe. The people who settled in the Appalachian mountains and the West did not have an easy life and their music gave them an outlet to express their hardships.
While country music began with the ballads and songs of the British Isles, it changed in content and personality as it grew in America. The British songs were objective, often relating gruesome stories matter-of-factly. They had many themes of the supernatural, avenging spirits, loves found and lost, and violent happenings. In America, the songs became very subjective and personal, downplayed the supernatural, and, in songs of crimes, emphasized the evil acts while minimizing the gore. When the songs had to do with love gone bad, the Americanized ballad removed the violence and vulgarity altogether. The change may have been due to the rise of the Victorian Age, but it might also have been because it suited the philosophy of the Southern lifestyle better. Another characteristic of the Americanized ballad is the addition of moral statements at the ends of songs. This was in reaction to the Puritan belief that art must be functional or else it is frivolous. Ballads were often written to convey current events, but in America these ballads became more journalistic than the British ones. They became a fairly accurate way for the more isolated town-folk to hear about happenings in the rest of the world.
This is a good example of a story-telling song (and one of my favorites!), but not the best sound: