Who was the Henry Lee of the Nick Cave and PJ Harvey song?

Prisoner for Nick Cave And PJ Harvey was shooting the video for the 1996 single “Henry Lee”, dressed in black with a white shirt, the two, working on that clip, started their love story which, however, did not last long. The song is included in the Australian musician's ninth album together with his Bad Seeds “Murder Ballads”which also includes another very successful duet, the one with Kylie Minogue on the notes of “Where the Wild Roses Grow”.

Among the murder ballads included on the album,
“Henry Lee”
of all it was the oldest. In fact, it dates back to at least the 18th century, a period during which ballads depicting stories of grisly murders, typically between lovers, became a subgenre of the popular ballad, especially in Northern Europe.

“Henry Lee”
It appears to have Scottish origins as its lyrics were first recorded in the Anglo-Scottish ballad anthology 'Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border' in 1812. The song is recorded under the title,
“Earl Richard”
. Although there are many differences between the lyrics of
“Earl Richard”
And
“Henry Lee”
, the story they tell is essentially the same. A man meets a woman in the wilderness who draws him to her, bewitches him, before slitting his throat with a penknife.

There
“Henry Lee”
by Nick Cave, however, is an American version of the ballad which was cataloged by the historian Francis James Child of Harvard University in the second half of the 19th century as “Young Hunting”.

Nick Cave
And
PJ Harvey
they took inspiration for their version from the 1929 recording of the titled ballad
“Henry Lee”
by the West Virginia storyteller
Dick Justice
. The verses are taken directly from Justice's version, but the addition of “La-la-la-la-lee” in the song is, as FarOut Magazine reports, Nick and Polly Jean's own work.

As regards the name Henry Lee, as often happens when it comes to traditional ballads that come from far away over the centuries, there is no certain historical evidence as to who he was. There were many Henry Lees in Virginia and the United States in the 19th century, the best known of whom was a general in George Washington's army who fought in the American Revolutionary War. Even better known than Henry Lee is his son, Robert Lee, who was the commander of the Southern army in the Civil War between the Northern and Southern states in the 1960s.