# 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:** 14
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2025, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/61 "2025-01-06T18:01:37Z")
> [@Treppenwitz](#):
>
> 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.
Good one, but I asked myself if victims of injustice count as heroes, so if yes, I’ll add “The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll” and “Only A Pawn In Their Game” by Bob Dylan to the list. Though according to my last post, it’s also debatable if those are rock and roll songs.
ETA: it might be controversial, but in this context a song from an indisputable rock band came to my mind, “Sweet Black Angel” by the Rolling Stones. it’s about Angela Davis, a hero (or should I say herione?) in my book.
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### Author:  [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2025, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/62 "2025-01-06T18:45:34Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#):
>
> …I asked myself if victims of injustice count as heroes…
You know what? Nobody has mentioned Nelson Mandela (as in Free Nelson Mandela, a well meaning but somewhat ropy effort by The Special AKA; and, I would like to think, some rather better efforts).
For that matter, I suspect that reggae lionizes many black heroes. Marcus Garvey and Haile Selassie (Ras Tafari) spring to mind.
j
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### Author:  [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2025, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/63 "2025-01-06T22:04:39Z")
Indeed, that one. For all I know her “hero” could be fictional - guess we’ll never know?
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### Author:  [@Capn\_Carl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capn_Carl)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2025, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/64 "2025-01-07T01:05:37Z")
Paul Kelly did a song about Aboriginal civil rights protester Vincent Lingiari.
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### Author:  [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2025, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/65 "2025-01-07T02:49:10Z")
“Cold Missouri Waters” tells of the devastation of the Mann Gulch fire of 1949 through the point of view of a survivor named Wag Dodge.
Fourteen firejumpers got caught and instead of listening to Dodge, they panicked and ran for the river. He watched them burn to death, only to be reviled for being the only survivor.
Read the comments, one is by a friend of a firejumper who got to go back and “tidy up the grave markers”.
Richard Shindell’s voice is perfect for this (here, with Lucy Kaplansky and Dar Williams). I have a playlist of “Story Songs”, but this is by far the most poignant.
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgQNeGPJdcQ)
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### Author:  [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2025, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/66 "2025-01-07T03:46:07Z")
Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, (Martin) Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Socrates, (Richard) Milhous Nixon, Plato, Rin Tin Tin.
[[The Magnificent Seven – The Clash]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD5N0rTsulQ)
I know, that’s eight…maybe Nixon was a joke.
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### Author:  [@WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUBv.2)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2025, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/67 "2025-01-07T04:23:33Z")
From _We Didn’t Start the Fire_:
John Glenn
Dwight Eisenhower
Gamal Nasser
Charles de Gaulle
JFK
Menachem Begin
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### Author:  [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2025, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/68 "2025-01-07T19:16:45Z")
Iron Maiden’s _Run to the Hills_ doesn’t refer to any specific individual hero, but it does describe Native Americans as a group heroically resisting European settlement in the New World.
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### Author:  [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2025, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/69 "2025-01-07T20:07:42Z")
Peter Frampton’s “Thank You, Mr. Churchill” sort of qualifies, at least in the first stanza.
> _I want to thank you, Mr. Churchill_
> _For making sure that I was born_
> _Thanks for the innocence that made us feel secure_
But the rest of the song isn’t about Winston at all.
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### Author:  [@saucywench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saucywench)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2025, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/70 "2025-01-08T01:51:19Z")
To iiandyiii -
Does it have to be a human?
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2025, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/71 "2025-01-08T12:02:42Z")
Not necessarily!
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2025, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/72 "2025-01-08T14:32:47Z")
These aren’t rock and roll, but they are about real life heroines: “Grace Darling” (who helped save people from a shipwreck) by Felix McGlennon and “The Ballad of Kate Shelley” (who risked her life to stop a train wreck) by Nancy Stewart.
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### Author:  [@saucywench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saucywench)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2025, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/73 "2025-01-08T18:36:38Z")
Great! Then I’ll go with the great white buffalo, a symbol of hope to many Native American tribes.
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38RdjSQDN4o)
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### Author:  [@Bbbb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bbbb)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2025, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heroes-from-rock-and-roll-songs/1012532/74 "2025-01-08T18:55:57Z")
Knuckles the Dog (Who Helps People) is a hero in my book. Visiiting the elderly, he was a very good dog.
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