Non-Fiction songs. Examples?

Cafe Society
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The Pogues sang this song on Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash. If i could be bothered going downstairs to find my copy, i’d be able to tell you who actually wrote it.

The Pogues also adapted a bunch of other folk songs that had non-fiction origins, and wrote some of their own. Some of them include:

“And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda,” originally written by (i think) a guy named Eric Bogle. It’s historical in its description of Gallipoli, and of the place of that battle in Australian memory, although i’m not sure the story is about anyone in particular.

“Navigator,” about railway builders in the British Empire.

“Thousands are Sailing” is sort of about immigration, and starts with a reference to Ellis Island (although it would be stretching to call it a non-fiction song).

“Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six” is about the British justice system and alleged IRA terrorists the Birmingham Six.

I’m sure there are more, but that’s all i can think of off the top of my head.

An Australia band by the name of Spy v. Spy did a song in the late 1980s called “Sallie-Anne,” about the murder of prostitute Sallie-Anne Huckstep by underworld crime figures (with possible police involvement) in Sydney.

Boney-M, “Rasputin” and “Ma Baker.” :slight_smile:

I was going to mention “I Don’t Like Mondays,” but got beaten to it by Peter Morris.

Midnight Oil, “Jimmy Sharman’s Boxers,” about tent-boxing circuses that travelled from place to place in Australia, usually using aboriginal fighters. Jimmy Sharman was a real person, and some of Australia’s best-known boxers, like Lionel Rose, came out the tent-boxing tradition.

Midnight Oil have other songs that qualify, like “Maralinga,” about British nuclear testing in the Australian outback, and “Harrisburg,” about Three Mile Island.

British folk rock group The Men They Couldn’t Hang have a number of non-fiction osngs, including “Midnight Train,” about the train that ferries (or used to; not sure if it still does) nuclear waste from the Sellafield nuclear power plant in Cumbria. And “The Colours,” about the Nore naval mutiny, on the Thames in 1797.

And who could forget “Oliver Cromwell,” by Monty Python. :smiley: (on preview: beaten to it by cbawlmer.)

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For a real mining disaster, though, there’s “The Ballad of Spring Hill,” by Peter, Paul and Mary.

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The Manhattan Project by Rush, and *Countdown * might also apply.

Garden Party by Ricky Nelson is about an experience he had at Madison Square Garden.

How about Maxwell’s Silver Hammer by the Beatles?

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Nick Lowe’s “Marie Provost”, though Nick apparently made up or changed some of the details (besides getting her name wrong).

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:eek:

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30,000 Pounds of Bananas! by Harry Chapin.

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also from Iron Maiden, Alexander the Great, an now I am drawing a blank…they have done some strange ass songs (at least the source material) but much was based historicaly or on some work of fiction or another.

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Would “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel qualify?

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“Let Him Dangle” by Elvis Costello

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Why wouldn’t it?

I would like to know what events this one refers to.

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Ben Folds writes alot about real experiences.

“Brick” by Ben Folds Five is Ben’s account of when he and his girlfriend went through an abortion (when they were young)

“Not the Same” by Ben Folds is about a guy who really did go up a tree “at Robert Sledge’s party” and found God.

“Steven’s Last Night In Town” by Ben Folds Five is about a real guy who was either a foreign exchange student or a foreign visitor names Qwami who said some of the things in that song. Kept telling everyone he was leaving and they couldn’t wait, but it took longer than expected.

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Gee, never heard of them. :wink:

This song falls into the category of being more of a commentary than “about” the event itself.

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Folksinger Tom Paxton has a bunch of them, my favorite being Born on the 4th of July:

Now I wheel myself down
To the crossroads of town
To watch the young girls and their lovers.
And my mind is afire
It’s alive with desire.
Christ, I’ve barely begun, now it’s over.
In my wheelchair for life
My mechanical wife.
I’m suppose to be cheerful and stoic.
I’m your old tried-and-true
Yankee Doodly to you.
Clean cut, paralyzed and heroic.

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I, too, want to know what Maxwell’s Silver Hammer commemorates, please.

Cold Missouri Waters, by Cry, Cry, Cry is another good depressing song of this nature.

I’m Changing My Name to Chrysler was written by Tom Paxton, IIRC, in response to the gov’t bailout of Chrysler.

Alice’s Restaurant Massacre by Arlo Guthrie

The Snows of France & Holland by Battlefield Band

I don’t know if the “Rasputin” mentioned by mhendo is the same score/lyrics as that used by Boiled in Lead for their “Rasputin,” but theirs is certainly based on the real Mad Monk.

John Gorka’s Brown Shirts is commentary on the propaganda around the first Gulf War.

Several songs by Schooner Fare describe real events: Molasses has a description of the Great Molasses Flood, and The Mary L. McKay is about a record-setting speed run. I don’t know whether anything else in the song is accurate, though. “We made that run on Portland rum.”

BTW, The Battle of New Orleans was a hit for Johnny Horton.

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To answer Thudlow Boink’s question: Elvis Costello’s “Let Him Dangle” refers to the hanging of Derek Bentley for the murder of a British policeman. The cop was actually shot by Bentley’s friend, who was underage and couldn’t be hanged; Bentley had shouted “Let him have it”, and this was considered sufficient participation in the crime to justify his execution.

There are an awful lot of traditional folk songs about real people and events; “Jesse James”, already mentioned, is only one. Of course they aren’t always factually accurate, especially the ones composed with political motives, so listening to folk music shouldn’t be considered a good way to learn history. It can be a good way to learn how people felt about events, though.

From the 1745 uprising in Scotland we have “The Skye Boat Song”, “Charlie is My Darling” and “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean”, among other tunes. “Scots Wha Hae” is based on a Robert Burns poem about the battle of Bannockburn, and the traditional Scottish funeral music “The Flowers of the Forest” is the tune of an old ballad about the battle of Flodden.

Irish music is loaded with rebel songs more or less loosely based on real events, from “The Rising of the Moon” inspired by the 1798 rebellion to “The Foggy Dew” from the Easter uprising of 1916. Whole albums can be and are filled with nothing else.

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Here are two railroad related songs about real events.

The Ballad of Casey Jones

The Wreck of Old 97

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Woody Guthrie’s The Grand Coulee Dam is a nice one. You just don’t hear too many poems that rhyme ‘factories hum’ with chrome and manganese and ‘white aluminum.’

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“Sunday, Bloody Sunday” by John Lennon. Also “Attica State,” “John Sinclair,” and “New York City.”

“Only a Pawn in Their Game,” “George Jackson,” and “Joey” by Bob Dylan.

“Birmingham Sunday” (the only song ever written by novelist Richard Fariña).

“Zimbabwe” by Bob Marley.

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About Brenda Spencer, a 16-year-old who shot at an elementary school one day, killing two adults and wounding several students. Reportedly said “I never did like Mondays” when asked why she’d done it. Additionally, Bob Geldof has said he was giving an interview (on the radio, I think) when the story came over the wire on the Telex machine (another detail in the song).

“Blue Sky Mine” (asbestos-riddled mine in Wittenoom)
“If Ned Kelly Was King” (famous Australian outlaw Ned Kelly)
“Mountains of Burma” (British involvement in SE Asia)

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And U2’s Springhill Mining Disaster