Friday, September 14, 2007

Teen Tragedy Song List

A list of songs from 1955-1969. Can you think of any that are missing?

Link via this Test Pattern article.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Depending on the definition of Teen Tragedy, nearly the whole catalong of the Shangri-Las deserves to be there, along with the obvious "Leader of the Pack," and perhaps also "Tom Dooley". The 1969 cutoff is given to avoid including Springsteen with the likes of "I Want My Baby Back" (wherein the obsessed survivor sings the last chorus from inside his dead lover's coffin, having dug her up and climbed in...since I haven't heard it for years, I'm not sure that this was meant to involve teens, though it's definitely a full-strength parody of morbid pop lachrymosity).

Unknown said...

You gotta have "Leader of the Pack" on a list like that.

Anonymous said...

I was just going to say what Todd said about "I Want My Baby Back" (which I do have) - a classic by the standards of warped minds like some of us here.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

It's on a CD called LAST KISS: Songs of Teen Tragedy (Varese Vintage), along with Teen Angel, Leader of the Pack (& Laundromat), Endless Sleep, Tell Laura I Love Her, Patches, Ebony Eyes and a couple not on the website:

"Goodbye Baby" by Little Caesar (not the Little Caesar of "Those Oldies By Goodies" fame) is about a guy whose girl cheats on him so he kills her. But then he can't live without her and kills himself.

"Rocky" by Austin Roberts, an upbeat tune with a theme like the infamous "Honey" - she dies in the end.

Unknown said...

I knew you guys would come through with stuff that wasn't on the list.

Cap'n Bob said...

"Drivng Mary Home." Is that the right title?

Anonymous said...

The Cap'n might be thinking of another Dickie Lee song:

In 1965, he returned to teen tragedy with "Laurie (Strange Things Happen)" a song related to the urban legends known as the vanishing hitchhiker and Resurrection Mary . The song was written by a Memphis psychologist, Milton Addington, based on a newspaper article by Cathie Harmon, who shared songwriting credit. The singer meets a girl at a dance and falls in love with her. He loans her his sweater, and when he goes to her house to retrieve it, he is informed by her father that Laurie "died a year ago today." When a "strange force" draws the singer to the graveyard, he sees his sweater lying on Laurie's grave. The song made only #14 on the national charts, but broke the top ten in a number of regional markets. To many, "Laurie" is still remembered as "the sweater song."

Cap'n Bob said...

Jeff reveals himself as the master of oldies again. Yep, that's the song.

Kent Morgan said...

What about Ode to Billie Joe?

Anonymous said...

i went to the site and read all the readers' responses. i didnt see that pat boone song there. the one with the mysterious lyrics that nobody knows. it comes at the "bridge" of the song. or the "chorus." or whatever the central, recurring sequence of notes in every song is called. the commode: the place you go back to all the time. anyway, everybody seems to have their own idea of what he is saying at this part. my own notion is that he is saying "moody river/ thwartedly/ land of anus night/ moody river/ Yum Uddywallers/ stole my baby's life." i always figured Yum Uddywallers was a person in the hick town where all this is occurring. i've never been able to sort it all out properly. that's a teen tragedy in itself.

Unknown said...

I always wondered what Pat was saying. Now I know.

Anonymous said...

I think it's called "Moody River" 1961 by Pat Boone

Anonymous said...

I'm looking for the name of a song (more of a story really) that was about a young guy who fell in love with a girl from an Indian reservation...he tells his dad about it and his dad tells his son the story of how he had a sister that was taken away when she was a baby...then he tells his son that he can't marry her because she is his SISTER! Anyone know the name and artists of this one?

Unknown said...

"Son Don't Go Near the Indians," by Rex Allen. You can listen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsLaTC6bGdo

Anonymous said...

Awesome!..Thanks Bill..

Unknown said...

I'm here to help. Sometimes.