Teenage tragedy song  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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The "teenage tragedy song", also known as death rock or a "splatter platter," is a style of ballad popular between the late 1950s and early 1960s, that lamented the early deaths of teenagers, either sung from the viewpoint of the dead person's sweetheart, or sometimes from the viewpoint of the dead (or dying) person.

Examples

Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" is considered sometimes teenage tragedy, due to some of the lyrics talking about a young man about to be executed. Some of the songs in The Who's Tommy are also considered of this genre (though the protagonist, Tommy Walker, does not die, he suffers from mistreatment).

Precedents

Two songs by Stephen Foster, the 19th century "father of American music," are said to have a similar basis. The lyrics to "Gentle Annie" long for a young sweetheart who is said, in some sources, to be inspired by the death of a young woman in an accident, and in "Beautiful Dreamer" (Foster's last song) the singer begs his beautiful dreamer to awake because 'Then will all clouds of sorrow depart'.

Satires/Parodies

• Bob Luman mocked the genre in "Let's Think About Living" in 1960.
• One parody that looms large in the genre's legend is Jimmy Cross' 1965 novelty, "I Want My Baby Back". The singer narrates a traffic crash that at first glance seems to be the one described in J. Frank Wilson's "Last Kiss", but is revealed to be another angle of the fatal crash at the climax of The Shangri-Las' #1 hit "Leader of the Pack"; the singer is the sole survivor, and his girlfriend was fatally dismembered by the impact ("Over there was my baby.. and over there was my baby.. and way over there was my baby"!). After months of unabated grief, the distraught singer, in an apparent fit of insanity, decides that he is going to have his girl back "one way or another". With realistic sound effects, he unearths her grave, crawls into her coffin, and closes the lid for a muffled final chorus of "I Got My Baby Back." Though the single barely made the Hot 100 (#92) during its initial release, it has since become a cult classic, rescued from obscurity by Dr. Demento, who played it regularly on his syndicated radio show. In the UK the song was rediscovered by Kenny Everett, who played it on his own radio series, which resulted in May 1977 with it being voted, by listeners, as The World's Worst Record.
• The Smothers Brothers song "Jenny Brown", from their 1964 album It Must Have Been Something I Said!, spoofs the genre. The melody and lyrics of the opening verses mimic a typical "dead teenager" song, but in the last verse, it is revealed that Jenny was playing a prank on her boyfriend.
• A more direct parody of "Leader of the Pack" is "Leader of the Laundromat" by the Detergents (1964). The song was written by Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss, and performed by a studio group including singer Ron Dante, later of The Archies.
• On a 1965 episode of The Lucy Show, "Lucy in the Music World," Lucille Ball tried to appeal to teenage music fans by singing the tragic tale of a boyfriend whose "surfboard came back by itself," thereby sending up two 1960s teenage song genres at once. She had been advised that youth today "aren't happy unless they're miserable," referring to the death disc trend.
• 10cc's 1973 song "Johnny Don't Do It," done in the style of early 1960s girl-group songs, parodies the teenage trope of the bad boy who is good but misunderstood. Johnny steals a motorcycle but then hits a truck, killing his girlfriend along with himself.
• In the film Phantom of the Paradise, the opening song "Goodbye Eddie Goodbye" is a homage and parody of these songs.
• The song "Too Old to Rock 'n' Roll: Too Young to Die!" by Jethro Tull is another homage and parody of the theme. The lyrics tell the tale of a now (1976) old rocker who, while "living in the past" and refusing to "grow up" like his friends did, suffers a motorcycle accident and meets his certain death. (Although, in the following song of the concept album, it is revealed that he survived.) The music (featuring a string quartet) and lyrics are noted for being overly dramatic for the sake of dark humor.
• Bob Rivers also did a parody of "Leader of the Pack" called "Leader of Iraq". The song was centred around the execution of former president of Iraq Saddam Hussein.
• Another satirical take on the theme was "The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun" by Julie Brown from 1984, which rather eerily anticipates a Columbine-like massacre.
• The cast of Mystery Science Theater 3000 did a parody called "Where Oh Werewolf?"

See also

• Tragedy
• Murder ballad
• Star-crossed lovers
• List of car crash songs