100 posts and nobody mentioned “Breaking The Law” by Judas Priest?
Arlo Guthrie - Coming into Los Angeles.
Indeterminate Crime: “Me and Julio Down by the School Yard” Paul Simon
(“It was against the law” but Og knows what they did)
Underage drinking, maybe 42fish?
“Goodbye to Rosie, the queen of Corona”?
Quasio
Did You Steal My Money - The Who
Schoolyard shooting/mass murder:
“I Don’t Like Mondays” – Boomtown Rats
“The Homecoming Queen’s Got a Gun” – Julie Brown
Cultivation of marijuana
“Wildwood Flower” – Jim Stafford
Statutory rape
The entire oeuvre of Paul Revere and the Raiders
Nevermind.
In reality, this song is about murders during a robbery. It should have been renamed.
Not many Ella Fitzgerald fans here, are there?
I married many men,
A ton of them,
And yet I was untrue to none of them
because I bumped off ev’ry one of them
to keep my love alive.
– “To Keep My Love Alive”, Rodgers & Hart
Ella goes on to describe her string of black widow murders she commits. Great song.
Stranger
Various nefarious deeds and sordid crimes:
“Tweeter and the Monkey Man” by the Traveling Wilburys.
Oh! “Stone Cold Dead in the Market” (murder) by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan!
Child abuse:
Hell is for Children by Pat Benatar
(“They cry in the dark
So you can’t see their tears
They hide in the light
So you can’t see their fears
Forgive and forget
All the while
Love and pain
Become one and the same
In the eyes of a wounded child”)
Another list of songs about crime:
Run, Joey, Run (I forget the name of the person who sings this one): teenaagers’ plans to elope, murder
White Wedding: “Shotgun” weddings.
“Gonna Wetcha” Murder by gunning down
All’s Quiet on West 23rd, popularized by the group “Jet Stream”, in 1967.
This particular song is about the murder of Kitty Genovese by a serial killer while returning from work at around 3 a. m., back in 1964, and how people conveniently refused to help out in any way, even by calling the cops, although her screams for help were heard throughout the Queens neighborhood where Kitty Genovese resided.
Yeah… about that:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11767651&postcount=8
Murder, Infidelity, and… well, you’ll have to ask the Milkman
Carolina Drama by the Raconteurs
Child murder:
In Germany Before the War, Randy Newman
Plenty of them in musicals, including:
A Rumblin’ and a Rollin’, PARADE (Tween-aged rape/murder)
How the Money Changes Hands, TENDERLOIN (corruption, money laundering)
When Our Ship Comes Sailing In, LADY BE GOOD! (bootlegging/smuggling during Prohibition)
(In Our Little) Den of Iniquity, PAL JOEY (adulterous affair)
Ladies of the Evening, THE BOYS FROM SYRACUSE (prostitution)
Moonshine Lullaby, ANNIE GET YOUR GUN (bootlegging/tax evasion before Prohibition)
…and of course, pretty much the whole score of ASSASSINS.
I think you misspelled “Gary Puckett and the Union Gap”.
I’m too lazy to go through the thread… has anybody mentioned “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” yet?
I think you’re the first.