Songs about killing

Cafe Society
41

Oingo Boingo: “Only a Lad”

Pink Floyd: “Dogs” (well, that’s more of a metaphor, really…)

I can’t believe nobody has mentioned “Psycho Killer” and “Life During Wartime” by Talking Heads yet – though I can’t quite recall if there any onstage deaths in the latter.

There’s a fair chance somebody dies in Tom Waits’s “16 Shells from a 30-Ought-Six,” but, for the life of me, I can’t figure out who and how. (But can I interest you in some arson in “Frank’s Wild Years?”)

There’s a (semi-accidental) murder in the middle of the plot of Waits’s album The Black Rider, but it seems to happen between songs – “Crossroads” comes the closest.

42

I forgot one of my favorites: Dead by The Pixies.
Uriah hit the crapper!

43

"See the shark
with teeth like razors
and he wears them in his face.
And Mac Heath
Has got a knife but
not in such an obvious place.
…

By the Thames turbid waters
Men abruptly tumble down
Is it plague, or is it cholora
Or because Mac Heath’s in town?

On a shining sky blue Sunday
See a corpse stretched in the Strand
See a man dodge round the corner
Mackies’s friends will understand."
Sounds like murder to me. Of course I can’t speak for the Bobby Darin version.

(I should mention, this particular translation is from a version sung by- you guessed it- Nick Cave.)

44

Well, somebody committed murder in “Goddamn the Sun”. Knives don’t get in peoples’ backs all by themselves.
Damn, all the rest of mine have been taken, even the Pixies.

Wait, I bet nobody else mentioned The Residents’ “Tent Peg in the Temple” (as well as most of the rest of the songs on Wormwood since it’s about the Bible.)

45

I think his hand is red because he’s THE DEVIL!

Although, as my roomie’s girlfriend pointed out, “Wouldn’t his left hand be red too then?”

To which my only response was, “Well, the song doesn’t say his left hand isn’t red too.”

46

I don’t know if this counts, but I always got the impression that somebody was about to die in the Police’s Synchronicity II.
And Moon Over Bourbon Street by Sting is about a vampire…so there is implied killed. “I must love what I destroy and destroy the thing I love”

47

Locked in the Trunk of a Car by The Tragically Hip

Gods, I love that song.

48

Would Stan by Eminem count? Someone dies so I guess it might count. As well as maybe that other song he had with Dre, can’t remember the name of it.

49

"In the Ghetto" by Elvis
"Sunny Came Home" by Shawn Colvin
"Hang Down Your Head (Tom Dooley)" - Old folk song
"Smooth Criminal" by Michael Jackson

50

Eminem–“Kim” and the sequel “Bonnie and Clyde 97”.

51

Please Mr. Gravedigger - David Bowie
Somebody Got Murdered - The Clash
Mack the Knife - Bobby Darin, int.al.
Carseat - Blind Melon (tribute to Susan Smith’s kids)
Cask of Amontillado, Telltale Heart - Alan Parsons Project (based on Poe, natch)

52

Please Mr. Gravedigger - David Bowie
Somebody Got Murdered - The Clash
Carseat - Blind Melon (tribute to Susan Smith’s kids)
Cask of Amontillado, Telltale Heart - Alan Parsons Project (based on Poe, natch)

53

Black Peter - Grateful Dead
Kill The Poor - Dead Kennedys

54

Hasn’t anyone mentioned Maxwell’s Silver Hammer yet?

55

pretty much every song by eminem?

kim, stan, kill you (do continuous threats count?), '97 bonnie and clyde

even the real slim shady features the murder of dr dre.

56

Makes murder sound fun:

Lou Reed’s Kicks

57

And if you count self-murder:

Hey Man Nice Shot