# Heroes from rock and roll songs
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** music
**Created:** [January 3, 2025, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532 "2025-01-03T18:23:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2025, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/41 "2025-01-04T22:57:11Z")
I don’t know if piloting a car at 407 mph is an act of heroism, but The Beach Boys laud Craig Breedlove in “Spirit of America”.
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### Author:  [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2025, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/42 "2025-01-04T23:55:40Z")
**Moderating:**
Greatly exceeded fair use.
DO NOT POST full lyrics.
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### Author:  [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2025, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/43 "2025-01-05T01:59:57Z")
“Along Came Jones” is apparently about Jones being the hero, although it’s oddly silent about any of his actual heroics.
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### Author:  [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2025, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/44 "2025-01-05T02:10:41Z")
Plus, Major Tom became a junkie in later life.
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2025, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/45 "2025-01-05T03:28:37Z")
Drug and alcohol use are contraindicated during critical space missions. His relics were religiously venerated by a cult of cat people, though, in spite of his failings.
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### Author:  [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2025, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/46 "2025-01-05T03:46:40Z")
He was a leper messiah who fell to earth.
RIP, David, we miss you.
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### Author:  [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2025, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/47 "2025-01-05T03:51:42Z")
What about the guy in Rush’s 2112? IIRC he tried to reintroduce the guitar to the common folks, but was thwarted by the Priests. Or perhaps “martyr” would be a better term.
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### Author:  [@cieskokid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cieskokid)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2025, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/48 "2025-01-05T04:08:09Z")
While the Celtic epic of Zep’s “No Quarter” has the exact right mood & atmosphere, the heroes are nameless. However, the 1st track of Zep’s 7th studio album “Presence” offers this vaguely “real” legendary hero …‘‘Achilles Last Stand’’
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t4KLOm7pO0)
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### Author:  [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2025, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/49 "2025-01-05T04:08:31Z")
Leon Trotsky, Lenny Bruce, Elmyr de Hory, Sancho Panza, Shakespeare and Nero.
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2025, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/50 "2025-01-05T07:41:05Z")
Does John Barleycorn count as a hero?
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### Author:  [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2025, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/51 "2025-01-05T21:13:28Z")
Whoever Bette Midler was addressing?
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### Author:  [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2025, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/52 "2025-01-05T21:19:37Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> Does John Barleycorn count as a hero?
If grain can be a hero. Or a martyr. He does prove the strongest man at last, although through one could say devious means.
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### Author:  [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2025, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/53 "2025-01-05T21:27:27Z")
Couple numbers by AxCx (NSFW) mentioning Mother Teresa.
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### Author:  [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2025, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/54 "2025-01-06T12:44:05Z")
You could basically take the entire catalog of [Sabaton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabaton_(band)) and be done. The vast majority of their songs are about war heroes.
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### Author:  [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2025, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/55 "2025-01-06T16:09:09Z")
No one’s mentioned [Ira Hayes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_Hayes), memorialized in _The Ballad of Ira Hayes_, sung by Johnny Cash
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### Author:  [@veryfrank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/veryfrank)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2025, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/56 "2025-01-06T16:26:07Z")
Does Lee Shelton count at least as an anti-hero? (Lloyd Price, Grateful Dead, Nick Cave, The Clash, Amy Winehouse…“Stagger Lee” has been covered dozens of times.
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### Author:  [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2025, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/57 "2025-01-06T16:27:20Z")
> [@peccavi](#):
>
> No one’s mentioned [Ira Hayes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_Hayes), memorialized in _The Ballad of Ira Hayes_, sung by Johnny Cash
I thought of similar folk songs, like the many versions of “Joe Hill”, but I think you can’t call them rock and roll songs.
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### Author:  [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2025, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/58 "2025-01-06T17:05:15Z")
Not sure about “hero”, but they were certainly welcomed home as heroes - the nine of them who survived (one man died during incarceration). Not named but unambiguously identified.
> There were six men in Birmingham
> In Guildford there’s four
> That were picked up and tortured
> And framed by the law
> And the filth got promotion
> But they’re still doing time
> For being Irish in the wrong place and at the wrong time
The Birmingham Six and The Guildford Four, all wrongly convicted (after - shall we say “flawed” - police investigations) of IRA pub bombings, all eventually exonerated.
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlmOliCPMZ8)
j
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### Author:  [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2025, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/59 "2025-01-06T17:16:26Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#):
>
> but I think you can’t call them rock and roll songs.
Likewise, my first thought was Black 47’s “James Connolly” about the 1916 Easter Rising but I don’t think it really qualifies as “rock & roll” even in a pretty flexible sense of the genre.
> We fought them to a standstill while the flames lit up the sky
> 'Til a bullet pierced our leader and we gave up the fight
> They shot him in Kilmainham Gaol but they’ll never stop his cry
> “My name is James Connolly, I didn’t come here to die…”
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### Author:  [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2025, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/60 "2025-01-06T17:57:17Z")
Which of The Divine Miss M’s songs are you referring to? I’m thinking it might be _Wind Beneath My Wings_, but there may be another.
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