Songs and Stories About The End of Childhood

… which inspired the cover art for Led Zepplin’s album Houses of the Holy.

If we’re including movies, the two best coming-of-age movies in my book are:

The Cowboys (Boys learn about being men while riding herd on a cattle drive, under the tutelage of John Wayne.)

The Year My Voice Broke (Set in a small town in Australia, in 1962.)

As for songs, how about Come Dancing by The Kinks:

The day they knocked down the palais
part of my childhood died
just died

and Our House by Madness:

*Our house, in the middle of our street
Our house, in the middle of our …
Something tells you that youve got to get away from it *

The Body a short story by Stephen King (Turned into the film Stand by Me)

Summer of '69 by Brian Adams is a stretch as the artist himself points out that the song is just about sex and the double entendre.

Summer of '42. I really liked both the book and the movie. Jennifer O’Neill was way hot.

I Believe in Father Christmas by Emerson, Lake and Palmer is a bittersweet Christmas song about growing up and disillusionment.
Brighton Beach Memoirs and Biloxi Blues are good coming-of-age (at different stages of life) movies.

Children of the Corn, the short story by Stephen King, is kinda-sorta about kids growing up.

Kinda.

Sorta.