Death was an obsession with teens of the late 50's and early 60's. Morbid music and monster movies became a fad. While there have always been grim pop songs from "Gloomy Sunday" to "D.O.A." somehow, dying was just so much more entertaining, during this era!
The day the music died...was every day on the radio back then.
Bobby Darin snapped his fingers and sang of bodies oozing life. Bobby Goldsboro, Nervous Norvus and many others became famous because of novelty death ditties. Heck, "The Cheers" recorded a motorcycle wreck song. How cheerful! Meanwhile on the C&W charts it was death as usual, completing the trifecta of woe that included being drunk and rarely getting laid.
You get the usual motorcycle wrecks and grim songs of dead people ("Tragedy" by The Excellents, "Dead!" by Carolyn Sullivan) and even a few morbid and weird C&W ditties.
Here's Lloyd Price, Mark Dinning, The Shangri-Las, Twinkle, Jody Reynolds, Dickey Lee, Ray Peterson, The Cheers and more...
Use the comments feature to ruminate on faves I've left out (like "Laurie/Strange Things Happen," "Honey" or "Ode To Billie Joe") or just download these downers and rest in peace:
1. Teen Angel
2. Tell Laura I Love Her
3. Endless Sleep
4. Patches
5. Last Kiss
6. Leader of the Pack
7. Dead Man's Curve
8. Black Denim Trousers
9. Terry
10. I Can Never Go Home Anymore
11. Stagger Lee
12. Tragedy
13. Dead!
14. Me and Little Andy
15. El Paso
Downloading this? "Look out, Look out, Look out!"
5 comments:
How 'bout Phantom 309... a real tearjerker! BTW, do you happen to have a copy of "Strange Things Happen"?... I haven;t heard that one in years.
Ya convinced me...will get to "Strange Things Happen" on the 19th or 29th. One of the all time greats.
Not quite a teen death song, but it has death and a motorcycle... Richard Thompson's "!952 Vincent Black Lightning."
Repost, PLEASE!
Hi, hope to get around to it...have to re-find it all. Rapidshare really loused me up with their quick-change policies, which is why I stopped using them. There are a few large compilation files that need to be re-done.
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