The whole album is one long narrative. The Rakes song is told from the perspective of one of the villains.

Taken from wiki:

The Hazards of Love is a rock opera, with all songs contributing to a unified narrative, similar to the use of recurring stories in The Crane Wife. The plot is a love story: a woman named Margaret (voiced by Stark) falls in love with a shape-shifting boreal forest dweller named William (voiced by Meloy). William's mother, a jealous fairy queen (voiced by Worden) and the villainous Rake (also voiced by Meloy) bring conflict to the album's story arc.[2]
>> ^bareboards2:

I just spent 15 minutes trying to discover if this song was a traditional folk ballad -- "murder ballad" is the type of song, I discovered.
Nope. Just a masterful modern evocation of an old tradition.
Chilling.

I just spent 15 minutes trying to discover if this song was a traditional folk ballad -- "murder ballad" is the type of song, I discovered.

Nope. Just a masterful modern evocation of an old tradition.

Chilling.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'nick cave, bad seeds, stagger lee, murder ballads' to 'nick cave, bad seeds, stagger lee, murder ballads, 1996, 90s' - edited by schmawy

An alternative–rock song written by Australian singer-songwriter Nick Cave for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds's ninth album Murder Ballads (1996).

Cave was inspired to write "Where the Wild Roses Grow" after listening to the traditional song, "The Willow Garden", a tale of a man courting a woman and killing her while they are out together.