Great songs about real news events

PS, the real people thread if you're curious.

This one...

Great song about, well, all the news events...

Jeremy by Pearl Jam, about Jeremy Wade Delle. He was a 15 year old sophomore who shot himself in front of his whole class in high school.

Love this from when I was a little kid. My parents had the album

"In 1868 a man named Tom Dula (pronounced Dooley) was hanged in Statesville, N.C. after being convicted of murdering his lover, Laura Foster, in 1866. The execution wasn't the end of Tom Dula's story. For generations rumors, conspiracies, and a hit song have swirled around the crime and its fallout."

Pete Seeger - The Titanic Song.

I hate OP’s Gordon Lightfoot song. The music’s just the same line of music over and over again forever, with no chorus.

^ Lots of people long that song because of it's haunting lyrics and sad tale

^ *love*

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young -- Four Dead in Ohio

^ Good one

Johnny Horton filled an album with such songs. The Battle of New Orleans hit #1 on the charts

"Space Oddity" was released a week before the Apollo moon landing and although it was inspired by the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey." the BBC played “Space Oddity” during their coverage of the Apollo 11 landing and the connection stuck

Buffalo Springfield - For What It's Worth

A real tear-jerker from the 60s...

"Fortunate Son" -- Creedence Clearwater Revival

At the height of Viet Nam war, this song resonated with the youth of that day.

"Sunday Bloody Sunday" - U2

Woodstock - Crosby Stills Nash and Young

"Zombie" - The Cranberries

"Mississippi Goddam" - Nina Simone. Really more about a series of events in 1963.

Louisiana 1927 by Randy Newman. A reminder to those who remember the Bush days with nostalgia.

"American Pie" - Don McLean

I Don't Like Mondays by The Boomtown Rats. About the Cleveland Elementary School shooting which took place on January 29, 1979.

"Strange Fruit" about black lynchings 😢

Goodness, this filled up fast!

Despite what is posted as the title on R10's clip, that CSNY song is just called "Ohio."

And R3, we said great song, not terrible one......but recollections may vary! LOL

Joe Hill

^ Op, despite having a good idea for a thread, you're a dick

One of Dusty's last hits, about the Profumo Affair in the UK.

Enola Gay - OMD

Stan Rogers "Northwest Passage" about the Franklin Expedition!

R2 Barry Gibb was so young! He looks about 12 in that video.

The People's Temple

Billy Joel, "Allentown."

"Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" ranks near the top of my Most Depressing Songs list.

Mine disasters another good opportunity for sad songs.

Criminals another good opportunity for songs. (I think there must be 50 songs about Bonnie and Clyde).

Bob Dylan's 1975 hit "Hurricane" - about boxer Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter, wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for murder. The song was based on Carter's 1974 memoir, which he wrote in prison.

'Ode to Billie Joe' about the shocking suicide of a young man who didn't leave a note

'The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia' based on the time they hung an innocent man in the South

R38 Those weren't real news events, those were fictional stories.

R39 I know. I was joking. Many boomers at the time thought they were real events.

'Puff The Magic Dragon'. was based on a true story however,

Gordon Lightfoot: Black Day in July about the Detroit riots of 1967.

AIDS

JFK death

Joan Baez, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, the story of Virgil Caine

Biikkkoooooooo

"You Haven't Done Nothin'" by Stevie Wonder (with backup by The Jackson 5) was about Richard Nixon.

Had the song been released now, it could just as easily apply to the previous administration.

I guess this thread could be limited to pop/folk music... but if it isn't, give Stephen Sondheim's "Assassins" a listen. Different presidential assassins get their say. Some good stuff... here's an example: How I Saved Roosevelt, about the attempt on FCR's life in Miami's beautiful Bayfront Park. Obviously unsuccessful...

Ain't gonna play Sun City.

Except for Queen (and Cher, Dolly, Elton, Liza, Frank before them). But it was the Queen gig that kicked this off.

[quote] Ain't gonna play Sun City. Except for Queen (and Cher, Dolly, Elton, Liza, Frank before them).

Virtue signaling at its finest

This piece of dreck from 2001

Boycotts were a major contributing to the fall of apartheid R49. Take your attempt to smear actual virtue as virtue signaling elsewhere and leave this thread to fun tunes.

A mix of the historical and personal

A celebration of Hank Aaron breaking Babe Ruth's lifetime home run record in 1974.

Another mining disaster, from PP&M.

Carly Simon of course

MARY!

Barbra Streisand - Don't Lie to Me from her 2018 album "Walls".

Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A Changin' "

Here is a clip of Lynn Whitfield playing Josephine Baker (1985's 'The Josephine Baker Story') lip-syncing to Josephine Baker's version of the song (one of the best versions, by far).

About MLK and his assassination

Believe it or not, when Donna Summer wrote 'Bad Girls', it was inspired by 'real news events' happening outside the offices of Casablanca Records in 1977. The office was located on Sunset Blvd in LA, and at the time the LAPD was cracking down on prostitution in that part of town. Summer said one day, two secretaries from the office went out to get lunch for everyone and when they got back, they were shaken up pretty bad. They were stopped by the police who had mistaken them as prostitutes for the way they were dressed - back then the style was knee-high boots and short-shorts. They were taken aside and questioned, and it took them a while to convince the cops they were not prostitutes but secretaries at the record company. Their ordeal inspired Summer to write the song, one of the biggest hits in her career.

That’s all wrong. Casablanca Records’ office was not in the City of LA, and LAPD had no jurisdiction in that area.

And that was not typical dress in 1977.

From Google:

'Los Angeles The offices of Casablanca moved into the former A&M Records offices on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Casablanca's new offices were soon remodeled after the movie set of the film of the same name.'

[quote]And that was not typical dress in 1977.

It was indeed.

The assasination of MLK

R63 Should say 'from Wikipedia' , not 'Google'. Sorry.

R64 I know no one likes to search all throughout a thread, but that was literally done just a few entries before yours.

Sorry R66 I usually check. It bothers me when people do that too.

This one is is about the torture of people during the Argentinean and Chilean coups in the late 70s. Incredibly dark, twisted and beautiful.

R63 you’re still wrong, whichever source you quote.

Midnight Oil - "Blue Sky Mine"

Via wiki:

[quote] "Blue Sky Mine" is a song by Australian rock band Midnight Oil, released in February 1990 as the first single from their seventh studio album, Blue Sky Mining (1990). The song was inspired by the experiences of workers at the Wittenoom asbestos mines who contracted various asbestos-related diseases The "blue" refers to blue asbestos, and the "sugar refining company" mentioned in the lyrics refers to the Colonial Sugar Refining Company Ltd, the owner of the mines.

63 just acknowledge your error —it’s the preferred way on DL—and move along

R70 I didn't make an error. But thanks !

The economic decline of cities in the American rust belt like Akron, Ohio ...

The Pretenders - "My City Was Gone"

Ay, oh, way to go, Ohio

R67 You're forgiven. THIS time. 😁

Many nursery songs are about real life events. My favorite is what "Rock-a-Bye Baby" is really about:

[quote] Rock-a-Bye Baby refers to events preceding the Glorious Revolution. The baby in question is supposed to be the son of King James II of England, but was widely believed to be another man’s child, smuggled into the birthing room to ensure a Roman Catholic heir. The rhyme is laced with connotation: the “wind” may be the Protestant forces blowing in from the Netherlands; the doomed “cradle” the royal House of Stuart. The earliest recorded version of the words in print contained the ominous footnote: “This may serve as a warning to the Proud and Ambitious, who climb so high that they generally fall at last”.

Creedance Clearwater Revivial - "Fortunate Son"

Released in 1969 during the Vietnam War, it focuses on how the sons of the wealthy, politically- or militarily-connected were getting out of being sent to the war zone during the draft.

R.E.M. - What's the Frequency, Kenneth?

Derived from the real life assault of Dan Rather in 1986.

....

July 6th by John and Mary. The event they're singing about also was witnessed in person by data lounge favorite Charles Nelson Reilly.

You’re Missing (about 9-11)

R79 I really like that song and I also enjoy the cowboy junkies cover of it.

If this is goodbye by emmylou Harris and Mark knopfler. Not fair said it was inspired by voicemails left by people trapped in the towers.

Magdalene Laundries, by Joni Mitchell - about Ireland's Magdalene Laundries (song explains).

"One day I'm going to die here too

And they'll plant me in the dirt

Like some lame bulb

That never blooms come any spring

Not any spring

No, not any spring

Not any spring."

MARY!

David Bowie and Iman had just arrived in Los Angeles to start house hunting the day the 1992 riots occurred in the city (due to the Rodney King verdict). They watched everything unfold on television in their hotel room. This led to him writing the song, "Black Tie, White Noise."

Well, um, it's Easter week, right?

Crucifixion...

First We Take Manhattan