Jim Carroll’s “People Who Died” is all about…well, people he knew and how they died (in real life, of course).
the Pretenders’ “Way to Go, Ohio” is not about a specific event, but is a lament to the over-commercialization / street malling of Chrissie Hynde’s home state.
“New Speedway Boogie” by the Grateful Dead is their rather half-hearted response to the Altamont disaster.
“Woodstock” by Joni Mitchell.
In one ironic coincidence, Jefferson Airplane singer Grace Slick wrote a song called “Law Man” about a fictional old west gunslinging standoff between young cops and a “mature” brothel madame actually came true in a sense - 25 years later, Slick (during a severe alcoholic bottoming out period) actually did have a shotgun standoff with the cops (she wasn’t a brothel madame, but I suppose being a retired ‘bad girl’ rock & roll singer was the modern-day equivalent.) Thus, the initially fictional song actually came true!
Maiden has made a career writing songs from source material you would not expect. Some of the songs based on history include Die with your Boots On (charge of the light Brigade), Run to the Hills (the Indian Wars) and Aces High(Battle of Britain).
Percy Sledge’s **When A Man Loves A Woman ** was definately inspired by a real event. In fact, the event happened a few seconds before he sung the song! He got dumped by his girlfrined over the phone just as he was due to hit the stage. So when he got out there, he told the band just to play something slow and that song just poured out of him on the spot.
Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple sounds like it’s about a real event. Anyone know whether it actually is?
Wind of Change by Scorpions and Right Here Right Now are both at least inspired by the collapse of Communism, the former is about people power and the fall of the Soviet Union, while the latter is about the time surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall.
There’s an opera that tells the story of slain SF supervisor Harvey Milk, entitled oddly enough Harvey Milk.
Romanovsky and Phillips, a gay singing duo, also reference Harvey in their song “Homophobia.” Another song of theirs, “Queers in the Closet,” details some (at the time) closeted celebrities (Lily Tomlin, Merv Griffin, Calvin Klein and either Melissa Etheridge or kd lang, I forget which) who have all, except Griffin, since publicly come out. Another R&P song, IIRC called “The Sodomy Song,” details the circumstances surounding the Supreme Court’s notorious Bowers v Hardwick decision upholding sodomy laws. Since struck down in Lawrence v Texas, rendering two of R&P’s songs from the mid-80s/early 90s blessedly obsolete.
Lots of folk songs come to mind, especially those about train wrecks like Wreck of the Old 97 and Casey Jones, though the Titanic got thrown in for good measure).
Marty Robbins sang several songs based on actual events including Ballad of the Alamo, but his most bizarre “inspired by real events” song was his super-hit El Paso which he claimed both in interviews and in a follow up hit song was inspired by his memories of a previous incarnation.
Hank Williams’s song Move it on Over was inspired by a night when he really did spend the night in his dog house because his wife locked him out, while I saw the Light was actually written when he finally saw the city lights after driving in pitch darkness for what seemed like forever (and of course he adapted it to a more gospely feeling).
Another one I thought of: Suffer Little Children is about the gruesome Moors Murders that happened in Manchester in the early 60s. Apparently Morrissey was terrified by what happened as a child (he was only three or four at the time, so maybe not, I’m just going from memory here from some old Smiths books I read in high school).
I think I’ve read that The Hand That Rocks The Cradle was inspired by the same events. In fact, the lyrics mention that the child in the song is “only three,” so it makes sense.
About the sinking of the Argentine cruiser during the Faulkland Islands war.
Coming ‘round ol’ Cape Horn, the General Belgrano rolling up to do some damage, sailing through the mist of a religion out of the water came a round house punch, a British submarine torpedo In the cold south Atlantic, gonna make the sharks happy the General, the General, The General Belgrano Going down with the propeller still turning, The General Belgrano…
Flogging Molly, an Irish punk band from southern California (yes, if you’re not familiar with them, you read that right) sings several songs inspired by real events. My favorite is Tobacco Island, a song about the Irish sent to the New World as slaves by Oliver Cromwell.
“Blow Me a Kiss” is about Columbine and “Picking Up The Bones” was written after he watched a CNN report out of, I think, Kosovo. There was a man in the background, carrying a pillowcase into which he was placing the bones of his family.