Although it is the same song, the two versions of “By the Banks of the Ohio”, sung by Bill Monroe and Johnny Cash, differ in various ways. The Bill Monroe version is a great example of folk music because it illustrates a lot of tension between the melody and the lyrics being sung. The instruments being played and the pace they are played at gives the song an upbeat mood, which is ironic because he is singing about killing his love after she refuses his proposal. The rendition of “By the Banks of the Ohio” by Johnny Cash carries a somber and dark tone, through the slow melody and the drawn out notes, which fits more appropriately with the bitter and sorrowful lyrics.

Also, Johnny Cash adds to the more melancholy performance by going into greater detail in his lyrics of how he stabs his lady in the chest, most likely symbolic of what he feels she has done to his own heart by rejecting his advances. Bill Monroe, on the other hand, sings that he simply drowns his love, depicting a much more removed sense of the way he murders her. While Johnny Cash sounds more involved in his actions, it is almost more eerie that Bill Monroe is telling such a gruesome story with no connection to the mood he is setting through the instruments and melody being played, so that a listener may not realize while listening to the song what the lyrics are actually describing.