Stagger Lee by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Assuming it’s the same song, Stagger Lee is a very old blues tune. It may go back 150 years.
Well not the same tune but the same source material anyway.
Ah, okay.
Lots of Bob Dylan songs, like "Oxford Town.
CSNY song about “Four dead in Ohio” was Kent State.
Many Beatles songs were about/inspired by real-life occurances in their lives, like “Taxman,” “She Came In Through the Bathroom Window” (someone apparently did), “Sexy Sadie” was about the Maharishi, who only George dug… I’d say fully half of John Lennon’s songs were somehow autobiographical.
Plane Wreck at Los Gatos – Woody Guthrie
Pretty Boy Floyd – Woody Guthrie
Dust Storm Disaster – Woody Guthrie
Okay, a ton of Woody Guthrie songs. There’s another one about a fire in a tenement building set by company goons, but I don’t remember what it’s called.
On Birmingham Sunday deals with the bombing of a black church in (of course) Birmningham AL in September 1963. Four young girls were killed. It was written by Richard Farina and was sung most beautifully by Joan Baez.
“My City Was Gone” was the title. Great song.
“Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite” by the Beatles was based on circus posters found by John Lennon.
James Taylor’s Fire and Rain was about a fellow patient who committed suicide at a psychiatric institute where Taylor had committed himself in the mid-60’s.
If I were more evil, I’d bring up You’re so vain. But I’m not that evil. 
[nitpick]The song is called My City Was Gone. [/nitpick]
Curse you Mr. Blue Sky! :mad:
Well, isn’t Alanis Morisette’s You Oughtta Know specifically written with someone (Dave Coulier is one name I’ve heard) in mind.
Elton John’s American Triangle was inspired by Matthew Sheperd’s death.
Al Stewart’s Roads to Moscow about the Great Patriotic War. In fact most of his Past, Present and Future album would qualify.
I have before me a cassette of “tragedy songs” recorded between 1923 and 1942 (though many of the events occurred earlier):
Floyd Collins’ Fate
The Pickwick Club Tragedy
Little Marion Parker
The Sinking of the Vestris
The Sinking of the Submarine S-51
Little Mary Phagan (very creepy, as it was recorded before Leo Frank’s lynching!)
The Wreck of the Southern Old 97
Jesse James (“That darty little coward that shot Mr. Howard . . .”)
The Airship That Never Returned
I looked it up and there doesn’t seem to have been a major mining disaster between 1940 & '43.
That would be
1913 Massacre
Well, that’s embarrassingly apparent. Thanks!
The entire Sometime in New York City album by John Lennon
Dickie’s Such an Asshole - Frank Zappa (Watergate)
Fox Face - Grace Slick (John Lennon’s Death)
Rhymin’ Man - Frank Zappa (Jessie Jackson)