First you get on my case about “I Dreamed I Saw Mighty Joe Young” and now this. Pick, pick, pick!
Quite a few about 9-11: “Where Were You when the World Stopped Turning?” and “Let’s Move” come to mind.
The Kinks’ “Give the People What They Want”–JFK assassination
“Goodbye England’s Rose,” Elton John
“Song of the South,” Alabama, about Black Sunday and the Depression as the South experienced it.
“Winds of Change” by The Scorpions (Fall of the Berlin Wall)
“Enola Gay” by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
“Oxford Town” by Bob Dylan
“Spanish Bombs” by The Clash
“Starry Starry Night” by Don McLean (Hey, it’s ART history!)
“Werner Von Braun” and “Alma” by Tom Lehrer
“Sailing to Philadelphia” by Mark Knopfler is about the arrival (sorta) of Jeremiah Dixon and Charles Mason, the men who surveyed the Mason-Dixon line. And it’s a pretty catchy tune, too.
Chris Wood’s Hollow Point is about the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005 (if that’s not too recent).
Yep. Many of these songs happened around my part of the world. I have had neighbors who are kin to both Freda Bolt and her killer.
Also the Camel album “Nude” is about the Japanese soldier that they found on an island in the Pacific about thirty years after WWII ended, who still thought the war was going on.
by Deep Purple?
also Smoke on the Water by Red Foley Red Foley: Smoke on the Water
Rush - Manhattan Project
Christmas in the Trenches by John McCutcheon
Joe Hill by John McCutcheon
Black Donnelly’s Massacre and Reesor Crossing Tragedy by Stompin’ Tom Connors.
I do too! Got it for my birthday! So . . . festive!
A couple more Johnny Horton songs for the list:
[ul]
[li]Commanche - About the horse that was the sole survivor of Custer’s division at the Little Bighorn[/li][li]Johnny Reb - You Confederate boys might’ve lost the war, but you put up a helluva fight.[/li][li]Johnny Freedom - You redcoats lost the war, because we put up a helluva fight.[/ul][/li]
Having been raised on my dad’s Kingston Trio records, here are a few more:
[ul]
[li]Tom Dooley - According to the liner notes on a boxed CD set, the lyrics were supposedly written by the confessed murderer himself shortly before his execution.[/li][li]Jesse James - Not the same as the Woody Guthrie song. “But that dirty little coward who shot Mr. Howard has laid poor Jesse in his grave.”[/li][li]Some Fool Made A Soldier of Me - “Hey General Custer, I think I see an Indian over there.” “Yeah! Ask her if she’s got a friend for me.”[/li][/ul]
I used to live near the cave where Floyd Collins bought it.
That looked so interesting that I looked online for it and found it at a place called “ack ack ack”: Ack Ack Ack
Feel free to check it out.
Battle of the Beanfield by the Levellers, about clashes between new age travellers and police in the early 1980s.
We Were All Wounded at Wounded Knee by Redbone. Two of the original members of the group appear to have died in the past 4 months…