I’m about finished with the Teen Death Songs and it is time to give you a two-fer. These two are obviously connected. Tell Tommy I Miss Him and Tell Laura I Love Her are a happy pair. Laura came first. Poor Tommy douches it up. He wants to marry that dried out turd and is poor so he decides to go win a car race. As you can expect, mother fucker gets in a car crash. Fun fact: the only deaths in the 50s and 60s were because of car crashes. The Vietnam war was just one giant teenage car crash. Anyways, with his dying breath he says he loves the mucus pile that is Laura so good for him.
Later, Skeeter Davis said, “Hey, I don’t want to be original in anyway, so why don’t a glom on to a hit song. So she channels Laura, Tommy’s clown college of a girlfriend/near fiance and she just sings about how she is said he’s dead. And she tells the angels to pass that shit along. Then she kills herself with a bullet to the brain. A bullet to the brain in the form of a car crash. No! That bitch doesn’t kill herself. Pussy! She just sits around like some lame ass human trash heap and whines. Later, she ended up in squalor, an old spinster with a bunch of disease ridden cats.
I’ve had this song on my list for about 2 months and have continued to avoid it because I just had to put up this song or that song instead. When is it Billy’s turn? Now. The song Billy Don’t Be A Hero is a special little number that seems to be a cover of a song of the same name by Paper Lace, the group behind previous poor 70s track, The Night Chicago Died . Anywho, this version became popular in American while Paper Lace’s less quality number did in The UK.
About the song itself, it’s some sentimental pap smear about some dude who goes off to war and dies and it’s like anti-war or something maybe. The lyrics are silly, but I dig it just the same. Please to listen.
Running Bear has all of the TDS staples. Suicide. Check. Lovers kept apart. Check. Stereotypical Native American Woo-woo-woo-woos? Check. This is the sad tale of Running Bear and Little White Dove, two lovers from enemy tribes who seem to be too lazy to find a way to cross a river, so they decide to cross to each other and die. This song can be summed up in this beautiful Sims 2 video below.
If ever there was a teen death song, this and Last Kiss would be at the top. “Patches” by Dickey Lee has all of the good stuff. A Romeo and Juliette love affair, rich and poor folks and good old fashion suicide by drowning. Poor Patches. Don’t worry. You’ll have company soon enough, so says the end of the song. Happy listening.
Check out the picture at 2:07. Nothing like putting your relatives’ pictures up in a video about suicidal teens.
Another teen death song and one that has been confusing people for decades. Supposedly, Bobbie Genry’s record label forced her to cut 6/11 verses from the song Ode To Billie Joe. Basically, Billy Joe jumps off a bridge to his death and no one knows why except the bitch singing. She and Billy were previously seen throwing something from that bridge. WAS IT A BABY? That’s one possibility. For some reason, they made a movie from this song and it turns out Billie Joe was a big old fag who wasn’t a fan of that whole being faggy thing. What do you believe? I believe he was just going in after he dropped his cell phone because they had those back in the 60s.
Returning again to dead teens and the songs about them. They tend to be about crashing vehicles and the following famous song is no exception. The Shangri-Las’ Leader of the Pack is about some star crossed bullshittery where girl love rebel she met in a candy store. I remember when I met my rebel boyfriend in the candy store. He liked candy, knives and rough sex. Yube has purged everything Leader of the Pack for some reason, beside the following stupid yet awesome clip below.
The leader of the pack gets killed in a goose related incident. It’s so tragic.
This is one of the ultimate teen death songs. You probably know it from the cover version song by Pearl Jam. Not as good. The version of “Last Kiss” by J Frank Wilson and the Mother Fucking Cavaliers is best. What is better than a good dead girl in a car? Or shot out of a car? When I last died, I was very happy when my boyfriend wrote a song about me dying in a car accident and how I went to heaven. Boy was he wrong. Hell sucks.
“Dickey Lee was one of a number of performers from around the late 1950s-early1960s who specialized in teenage death songs which were in vogue back then.” That’s a quote and it’s awesome. You don’t realize how many of these trainwrecks (get it? death!) there were.
Since this song is the reason I’m starting this Top Ten List, I will have to put it up. Laurie (Strange Things Happen) is not in the top 10 So shut it. It is a song version of that urban legend/ ghost story about the dude who meets the girl and goes on a date and the it turns out it was her birthday and she was dead. Have fun with this depressing little number. And stay tuned for more fun with teen death songs.