Songs That Chronicle Historical Events

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In the car today I heard "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" by the Band. Written by Robbie Robertson, it tells a story from the American Civil War written from the perspective of a southern railroad worker who sees the railroad destroyed, a brother killed and cities burned.

(CBC radio was doing a documentary on historical songs this afternoon, but this is the only one that I heard)

So I'm wondering what I might have missed and what other songs are out there that make references to history.

― jim wentworth (wench), Sunday, 29 August 2004 01:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Doolin-Dalton by the Eagles

― Sir Dante Evans (Sean3), Sunday, 29 August 2004 01:02 (twenty-one years ago)

"American Pie" — Holly/Valens/Big Bopper deaths
"The Lonesome Death of Hattie Caroll," "Talkin' Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues," "Hurricane," lots of other Dylan songs
"Woodstock," Joni Mitchell
"More Trouble Every Day," "For What It's Worth" — Watts Riots

― Rock Hardy (Rock Hardy), Sunday, 29 August 2004 01:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Gordon Lightfoot, 'Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald', 'Canadian Railroad Trilogy', many more, I'm sure.
Frank Black, 'St. Francis Dam Disaster'(a wonderful song!)
Stan Rogers, 'The Mary Ellen Carter', again, surely many more.

― derrick (derrick), Sunday, 29 August 2004 01:51 (twenty-one years ago)

we didn't start the fire, duh.

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Sunday, 29 August 2004 02:27 (twenty-one years ago)

"Graf Zeppelin" - Atilla The Hun

― m0stly clean (m0stly clean), Sunday, 29 August 2004 02:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Anything by Al Stewart

― greenmozzastate, Sunday, 29 August 2004 03:20 (twenty-one years ago)

warren zevon, "frank and jesse james"
they might be giants, "james k. polk"
orchestral manoeuvres, "enola gay"
bruce springsteen, "born in the usa"
bruce springsteen, "nebraska"

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Sunday, 29 August 2004 04:58 (twenty-one years ago)

and, oh yeah, all folk music to thread.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Sunday, 29 August 2004 04:58 (twenty-one years ago)

sex clark five have -
'wehrmacht's lament'
'sarajevo'
'communist bloc blues'
'cold and gray'

― keith m (keithmcl), Sunday, 29 August 2004 05:55 (twenty-one years ago)

About 25% of Stompin' Tom's songs.

― Huck, Sunday, 29 August 2004 06:23 (twenty-one years ago)

the band, "acadian driftwood"
roger waters, "watching tv"

― jedidiah (jedidiah), Monday, 30 August 2004 14:05 (twenty-one years ago)

the sex clark five don't get mentioned nearly enough around here. thanks, keith m!

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Monday, 30 August 2004 14:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Waterloo

― Huck, Monday, 30 August 2004 14:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Deep Purple, "Smoke On the Water"

― dleone (dleone), Monday, 30 August 2004 14:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Rush - Bastille Day
Manowar - Guyana, Cult Of The Damned
Iron Maiden - The Trooper
Iron Maiden - Alexander The Great :

"Near to the East, in a part of ancient Greece,
In an ancient land called Macedonia,
Was born a son to Philip of Macedon,
The legend his name was Alexander.

At the age of nineteen, he became the Macedon king,
And swore to free all of Asia Minor,
By the Aegian Sea in 334 BC,
He utterly beat the armies of Persia."

Paul McCartney - Pipes Of Peace, or was that just the video?
Did Sinead O'Connor ACTUALLY write a song about the potato famine?

― udu wudu (udu wudu), Monday, 30 August 2004 14:37 (twenty-one years ago)

More!

"King Darius the third, Defeated fled Persia,
The Scythians fell by the river Jaxartes,
Then Egypt fell to the Macedon king as well,
And he founded the city called Alexandria.

By the Tigris river, he met King Darius again,
And crushed him again in the battle of Arbela,
Entering Babylon and Susa, treasures he found,
Took Persepolis, the capital of Persia.

Chorus:
Alexander the Great,
His name struck fear into hearts of men,
Alexander the Great,
Became a god amongst mortal men.

A Phrygian King had bound a chariot yoke,
And Alexander cut the "Gordion knot",
And legend said that who untied the knot,
He would become the master of Asia.

Helonism he spread far and wide,
The Macedonian learned mind,
Their culture was a western way of life,
He paved the way for Christianity.

Marching on, Marching on.

The battle weary marching side by side,
Alexander's army line by line,
They wouldn't follow him to India,
Tired of the combat, pain and the glory.

Chorus:
Alexander the Great,
His name struck fear into hearts of men,
Alexander the Great,
He died of fever in Babylon."

― udu wudu (udu wudu), Monday, 30 August 2004 14:39 (twenty-one years ago)

the tragically hip - "nautical dysaster" (it's about dieppe)

― dyson (dyson), Monday, 30 August 2004 14:44 (twenty-one years ago)

neil young, "cortez the killer"
u2, "sunday bloody sunday"

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Monday, 30 August 2004 14:58 (twenty-one years ago)

"The Ballad of Easy Rider"

― Huck, Monday, 30 August 2004 15:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Iced Earth - The whole new album

― Cacaman Flores, Monday, 30 August 2004 21:50 (twenty-one years ago)

the Brandos, "Gettysburg"

― Morley Timmons (Donna Brown), Monday, 30 August 2004 22:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Buffalo Springfield "For What It's Worth" - 1965 Watts riots

― jim wentworth (wench), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 00:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Pavement "The Unseen Power of the Picket Fence" - General Sherman's March to the Sea (references more than chronicles)

― J-rock (Julien Sandiford), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 03:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Crosby Stills Nash and Young - "Ohio" (about how some soldiers killed four protesters at kent state about 30 years ago)

― Mr. Snrub, Wednesday, 1 September 2004 04:50 (twenty-one years ago)

In the car today I heard "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" by the Band. Written by Robbie Robertson,

FWIW, Robbie Robertson is about as solely responsible for that song as Courtney Love is for every song on Live Through This and as Alex Chilton is solely repsonsible for "Back of A Car" and "September Gurls".

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 05:01 (twenty-one years ago)

some shooting-of-JFK songs, in descending order of historical accuracy/intelligibility:

the human league - seconds

godley and creme - lonnie

the wedding present - kennedy

one piece of glorious counterfactual-history lunacy about kennedy and the death of marilyn monroe, just for good measure:

new order - 1963

― grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 1 September 2004 11:21 (twenty-one years ago)

and that one by Don McClean .. "Bobby, Martin & (who else?)

maybe it wasn't Don McClean - and I may have gotten the names wrong in the song title..

bruce springsteen - American Skin/ 41 shots

― dave225 (Dave225), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 11:51 (twenty-one years ago)

? ..maybe I'm thinking of "Abraham, Martin and John" ...

― dave225 (Dave225), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 11:53 (twenty-one years ago)

I prefer the Dandy Warhols' lost shoegaze cover of the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. it's long, but it's not NEARLY as long as the original.

― Super-Masonic Black Hole (kate), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 11:53 (twenty-one years ago)

"Ra Ra Rasputin" - Boney M

― Wooden (Wooden), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 12:50 (twenty-one years ago)

someone told me that "In the Wake of Poseidon" by King Crimson was about the Spanish Civil War. Is this true?

― dog latin (dog latin), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 12:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh, that reminds me of the dreadful Manic Street Preachers with their godawful "If you Tolerate etc."

― Wooden (Wooden), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 13:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Jez Lowe's "The Last of the Widows" is a lovely folk song about the passing of the last widow created by the Easington Colliery mine explosion/fire of 1951, which killed 83 miners.

Of course, as someone said above, there are tons of folk songs on historical events.

― Rick Massimo (Rick Massimo), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 13:14 (twenty-one years ago)

m0unta1n g0ats, 'song for cleomenes'

73 years before the advent of the christian era,
as rome was taking over any land within reach,
setting up proxy governmnents in the conquered lands,
there lived one such man given just such a job.
gaius verres--go.

a praetor held a position which operated on trust.
he was to govern instead of the emperor himself.
it was an easy easy privilege to abuse.
and verres did so.

he was the governor of agrigentum, which we now know as sicily.
and he stole everything that wasn't nailed down,
took improper advantage of other men's wives,
the list goes on. trust me--
cicero wrote it all down.

at syracuse verres welcomed a band of pirates.
they all drank and danced and sang on the shore,
and when the husband of one of verres's paramours
came bringing a fleet of boats with him,
verres--clever, if diabolical--gave him a job.
and enlisted the pirates to burn the whole fleet down.

the boats burned in the sicilian harbor
the flames rose hundreds of feet into the air
we stood on the shore watching them burn we stood
on the shore, we heard the old songs. hey!

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 13:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Chris de Burgh: "Revolution" and loads more offa the Crusader album.

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 13:44 (twenty-one years ago)

MX-80 Sound's "White Night" chronicles the 1979 riots in San Francisco that followed Dan White's murder non-conviction. (The burning police car gracing the cover of the first Dead Kennedys LP is a photo taken that night.)

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 14:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Jim, check post #3, kthxbye.

― Rock Hardy (Rock Hardy), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 14:38 (twenty-one years ago)

momus - the rape of lucretia

(i mean, he could always post that himself. but hey)

― grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 1 September 2004 14:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Sorry, Rock Hardy, My flub.

― jim wentworth (wench), Thursday, 2 September 2004 01:18 (twenty-one years ago)

are those the real lyrics to the iron maiden song?
where does he stick in the rock god falsetto?
are there widdly solos between verses?

"By the Aegian Sea in 334 BC,
He utterly beat the armies of Persia"

is this the least rock lyric of all time?
i have to hear this song.....

― m0stly clean (m0stly clean), Thursday, 2 September 2004 02:18 (twenty-one years ago)

The Clash - "Spanish Bombs"
Double-Dee and Steinski - "The Motorcade Sped On"

― Mike Ouderkirk (Mike Ouderkirk), Thursday, 2 September 2004 04:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Boston Tea Party by The Sensational Alex Harvey Band.

― Palomino (Palomino), Thursday, 2 September 2004 11:43 (twenty-one years ago)

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