Run, Joey Run: or I Was a Teenage Death Song

Cafe Society
21

This isn’t precisely a teenage death song, but in the grand tradition of Love Story and other beloveds-who-die, I nominate “Rocky (I’ve Never Been In Love Before)” by Austin Roberts (who, I learn, collaborated on the '70s cartoon
series “Scooby Doo” and “Josie & the Pussycats.”)

Story: Shy guy meets girl of dreams at the age of 18. They marry, fix up old house, have hippie good times, have a baby … and then [death knell] …

*I was proud and satisfied,
Life had so much to give.
'Til the day they told me
That she didn’t have long to live!

She said,
“Rocky, I’ve never had to die before
Don’t know if I can do it…”*

A real three-hanky’er. I have the MP3.

22

Monster’s post reminded me of another: “I Don’t Like Mondays” by the Boomtown Rats. Containing that immortal line, “I want to shoot the whole day down,” the girl of the song does more than that–she shoots up her high school.

Certainly it qualifies as a teen song (the girl is described as “Sweet 16, ain’t that peachy keen”), and as for the death part, here’s a verse:

All the playing’s stopped in the playground now
She wants to play with her toys awhile
And school’s out early and soon we’ll be learning
And the lesson today is how to die…

I guess it’s another that won’t see much airplay any more.

23

And then there’s the Headstones “Pretty Little Death Song” off of their CD “Smile and Wave”.

24

“Janie’s Got a Gun” by Aerosmith - where the teen kills her Dad because he is perving on her.

And I barely remember a song from way back, I think it was called “Timothy”, where some guys are trapped in a mine and end up eating one of their friends. Cannibalism should count for bonus points.

25

Does * American Pie* count?

26

good grief ellen, i’m so glad someone else knows that song. from the blank stares i get you’d think that i made it up.

a dj had “death and dying” friday once a year. you would write in your pick for the show. they would play all of them they could in 4 hours time. what a show that was.

didn’t abba do a death song?

27

Give us your blessing by the Shangri-Las. Teen couple wants to get married, but her parents won’t allow it. Couple drives away with tears in their eyes, so they don’t see the sign that says “DETOUR”.

7-11 by The Ramones:

Oncoming car went out of control -
It crushed my baby and it crushed my soul.

28

Jeremy by Pearl Jam, based on a real suicide.

29

A Lifetime, by Better Than Ezra.

A girl is killed in a car crash on her graduation day. The rest of the song explains how the friends dealt with it. Probably the fist ‘teen death’ song that actually made me feel sad.

30

Then I’m dying at the bottom of a pit in the blazing sun.
Torn and twisted at the foot of a burning bike.
And I think somebody somewhere must be tolling a bell.
And the last thing I see is my heart.
Still beating, still beating,
Breaking out of my body and flying away,
Like a Bat Out of Hell.

Written by Steinman to be the ultimate teenage death song.

31

There is also ‘Honey’ by Bobby Goldsboro. Not a teen death song, probably, but that song always puzzled me, the dippy protaganist of the song and his dippy bride, weeping over puppies and tree planting, then in the last verse, she oh-so-predictably dies! What does she die of? Influenza? Getting run over by a bus? We are never told!

That always annoyed me. What an atrocious song!

32

Oh, and I guess STan by Eminem is the new millenium’s way if saying they’re not going away either.

33

I don’t know the original author, but the Get Up Kids covered a song called “On With The Show”.

*Frankie died just the other night.
Some say it was suicide,
But we know
How the story goes.

With his six string knife
And his street wise pride
The boy was a man before his time,
And she knew
All their dreams would come true.

But ya see, Frankie was fast,
Too fast to know.
He wouldn’t go slow
Until his lethal dose.
And she knows
He’ll finally come too close.*

34

Damn it xizor, that was gonna be my contribution. “Timothy” by a band call The Buoys. The lyrics go:

*Trapped in a mine that had caved in
And everyone knows the only ones left
Were Joe and me and Tim
When they broke through to pull us free
The only ones left to tell the tale
Were Joe and me

Timothy, Timothy, where on earth did you go?
Timothy, Timothy, God why don’t I know?

Hungry as hell no food to eat
And Joe said that he would sell his soul
For just a piece of meat
Water enough to drink for two
And Joe said to me, “I’ll have a swig
And then there’s some for you.”

Timothy, Timothy, Joe was looking at you
Timothy, Timothy, God what did we do?

I must have blacked out just around then
'Cause the very next thing that I could see
Was the light of the day again
My stomach was full as it could be
And nobody ever got around
To finding Timothy
Timothy…*

Strangely enough, this song wass written by Rupert Holmes. I suppose it’s a good thing he got it out of his system, or we might have been treated to a lyric like:

  • If you like Pina Coladas,
    and chowing down on some brains…*
35

Actually, the accident was with a motorcycle. And not just any motorcyclist either – it was the out-of-control Leader of the Pack himself who took out the singer’s girlfriend.

In addition, throughout most of the song he sings “I want my baby back”, but after the successful excavation it becomes “I’ve got my baby back”.

If we can expand this discussion to pets, there’s the untimely demise of Shannon, a big hit in 1976 by Harry Gross. However, contrary to popular opinion the song is symbolic and not about a real event – no dogs were hurt in the making of that song.

36

Thank you whitetho, I stand corrected. I only heard I Want… in passing. I don’t own the record…a friend has it dubbed on tape.

It may be tongue-in-cheek, but it’s the ultimate teen death record, IMHO.

What a sig line that would be… “And there was my baby/And over there was my baby/And over there was my baby…”

37

Last Kiss I think was redone by Pearl Jam. An utterly crappy version of a crappy song redone by a crappy band.

38

R. Dean Taylor went one step further into death with “Back Street”: boy meets girl, boy & girl fall in love, girl goes off and gets herself knocked up and becomes a whore only to die cold and alone old in the streets after leaving bastard at boy’s doorstep, boy realizes “my love could have saved her”.

Jerk.

39

Excitable Boy by Warren Zevon.

40

I think that Honey died of cancer.

“I came home unexpectedly / And caught her crying needlesly”

I always assumed that she was crying because she had just learned that she was terminally ill, and she didn’t wan’t to tell him.