Songs that depict a real life event

[ChrisFL]

Billy Joel - Goodnight Saigon

 

[Praying Colonel]

 

[NYCgrrl]

This song has always struck me as being about a slave revolt in LA but I have a vivid imagination. Bernie Taupin (songwriter) says it's about many revolts throughout the world and history:

A protest/riot in Chicago during the upheaval of the 60s. Wont say more since I'll probably get dinged since the history involves the "P" word:

 

[NYCgrrl]

 

[NYCgrrl]

Love "old time" C+W; Nashville sound does little for me.

 

[Flowers12]

Life Changes - Thomas Rhett

Good lord is he handsome.

 

[Flowers12]

Bob Dylan. Hurricane

 

[NYCgrrl]

We were in DC this past weekend and a busker sang this song outside of the African American Museum. Got a nice amount of change from what I could see:

 

[NYCgrrl]

Mandela, a man unlike many:

 

[smiths02]

Zombie by The Cranberries

 

[PrincessShmoo]

LITTLE BOXES - Pete Seeger
Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes
Little boxes
Little boxes all the same

There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same

And the people in the houses all go to the university
And they all get put in boxes, little boxes all the same
And there's doctors and there's lawyers
And business executives
And they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same

And they all play on the golf course and drink their martini dry
And they all have pretty children and the children go to school
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university
And they all get put in boxes, and they all come out the same

And the boys go into business and marry and raise a family
And they all get put in boxes, little boxes all the same

There's a green one, and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same

 

[PrincessShmoo]

SINK THE BISMARK - Johnny Horton
In May of 1941 the war had just begun
The Germans had the biggest ship that had the biggest guns
The Bismarck was the fastest ship that ever sailed the sea
On her decks were guns as big as steers and shells as big as trees

Out of the cold and foggy night came the British ship the Hood
And every British seaman he knew and understood
They had to sink the Bismarck the terror of the sea
Stop those guns as big as steers and those shells as big as trees
We'll find the German battleship that's makin' such a fuss
We gotta sink the Bismarck cause the world depends on us
Yeah hit the decks a runnin' boys and spin those guns around
When we find the Bismarck we gotta cut her down

The Hood found the Bismarck and on that fatal day
The Bismarck started firing fifteen miles away
We gotta sink the Bismarck was the battle sound
But when the smoke had cleared away the mighty Hood went down
For six long days and weary nights they tried to find her trail
Churchill told the people put every ship asail
Cause somewhere on that ocean I know she's gotta be
We gotta sink the Bismarck to the bottom of the sea
We'll find the German battleship...

The fog was gone the seventh day and they saw the morning sun
Ten hours away from homeland the Bismarck made its run
The Admiral of the British fleet said turn those bows around
We found that German battleship and we're gonna cut her down
The British guns were aimed and the shells were coming fast
The first shell hit the Bismarck they knew she couldn't last
That mighty German battleship is just a memory
Sink the Bismarck was the battle cry that shook the seven seas
We found the German battleship t'was makin' such a fuss
We had to sink the Bismarck cause the world depends on us
We hit the deck a runnin' and we and spun those guns around
Yeah we found the mighty Bismarck and then we cut her down
We found the German battleship...

 

[FlightlessDuck]

I think this kinda/sorta counts. it's about the failure of Bethlehem Steel and how it affected the Lehigh Valley metro area (Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton). While the song is about Allentown (the next city over), the steel mill was in South Bethlehem. Allentown scanned better, and honestly suffered just as much as Bethlehem did, because Allentown's financial district imploded at the same time.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

One could argue this fight actually happened. Crowe says it didn't, Murphy says it did.

 

[melk]

Same Old Lang Syne by Dan Fogelberg.

Before he died he said that really happened to him. I believe the woman lives in the Midwest but she doesn’t comment on it.

 

[jimmalru80]

Bob Dylan - "Hurricane"

 

[NotUrsula]

Don McLean's American Pie. of course. The generation lost in space spent endless hours trying to decipher the historical references in it. The "day the music died" was clearly a reference to the crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper on 2/13/59, but what were the others? The song was written in 1972, so there was a lot of time to analyze in between. Three of the things people most commonly cited were Bob Dylan's motorcycle accident, the Rolling Stones concert at Altamount, and the 1968 football players protest at U. Wyoming, but you can almost take any other incident and squeeze it into those lyrics somewhere.

The other one that comes instantly to mind is The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, by Gordon Lightfoot. The ship sank on November 10, 1975. Along the same lines, the Bee-Gees "New York Mining Disaster, 1941" (aka Have you seen my wife, Mr. Jones?) was about a real mine disaster, but not in New York, and not in 1941. It was inspired by the Aberfan Disaster in Wales on October 21, 1966, when an enormous pile of coal dust slid down a mountainside and buried an elementary school. 114 children and 20 adults died.

 

[holden]

U2 - Pride (In the Name of Love)
U2 - MLK

Both about MLK Jr.

 

[NYCgrrl]

It was a changing every day time period. A group that specialized in songs about love and heartbreak (Love on a 2 way Street, Stoned Outta My Mind) broke loose and and wrote this protest song; perfect for doing the Klick Klack:

The Isley Bros did what they wanted and for me it's hard to categorize to them. Great civil rights protest song in my eyes:

Released in the early 70's. Watergate, end of the Vietnam War, inflation enters the vocabulary of the average American, native American protests enter a new phase, gas rationing, historic Supreme Court decisions, the start of hip hop and disco; just a ball of confusion.
This song fit the times to a "T":

 

[low-key]

very edgy NYC
First recorded by the famous jazz singer Billie Holiday, ‘Strange Fruit’ is a song about the lynching of black people in the American South in the first half of the 20th Century. ... First recorded by the famous jazz singer Billie Holiday, ‘