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. 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 townfolk to hear about happenings in the rest of the world.
Many people wonder how country music was able to develop so differently from northern music.
The short answer is that the South was an entirely different world from the North. The climate was more suited for agriculture and encouraged a more rural existence. Their livelihoods depended on the fruits of the land and many people experienced great hardships when the land did not produce enough. To both preserve and justify this lifestyle, those who lived down South began to emphasize the importance of values and pure country living over material things. Soon, the North and South grew into very different, isolated cultures, which enabled the music of the South to develop without major Northern influence into what we have come to know as country music.