Dead teenager songs
Behold! The only discussion of dead teenager songs that I haven’t found completely tedious!
I love ridiculous catalogs that overwhelm even the archivist, and this archivist is barely keeping a handle on his dead teen songs. If I set out to organize dozens of melodramatic ballads by cause of death (cars, rivers… surfing…) I’d probably get a bit silly too.
Honey – Bobby Goldsboro (1968) Kind of a twist, it sounds like she crashed the car and survived, but then died of some sort of disease. Most of the song is about the tree he planted.
He makes fun of most of the songs, but he still catalogs them. This role model might help me break on through to a “so bad they’re good” appreciation of these songs. I’m always game to stop hating something.
What really makes this list for me, though, is the inclusion of songs I genuinely like. I may be all burnt out on Leader Of The Pack and Tell Laura I Love Her, but I can still handle these post-punk gems:
- Tonight, by Iggy Pop (“I saw my baby/She was turning blue”… filed under drugs.)
- Space Junk, by Devo (“it smashed my baby’s head/and now my Sally’s dead”… filed under my favourite, other.)
(The photo above is a shot of Madonna that Galen pointed out looks just like Iggy Pop. They’re both kind of undead.)