Songs that depict real events...Now also, playlist on Spotify

[mhardy6647]

Oh.
Yeah.
Altamont.
That happened.

This happened, too.

 

[mhardy6647]

What tips do you have to give? It can be any type of event.

I myself discovered this live version from the thread about Live Albums. Undoubtedly, it also fits into this thread:

Live Albums

audiosciencereview.com

That era (well, the very early days of The Troubles) was the inspiration for this beaufiful version of this painful song, too.

 

[Robin L]

 

[DanielT]

Here is an event that not only affected Germans in Berlin, but the whole world. The biggest thing that has happened in big politics since, well ... WW2?

 

[Jdunk54nl]

Pearl Jam - Jeremy

Mother of the Teen Who Inspired Pearl Jam's 'Jeremy' Speaks Out

The mother of Jeremy Dell, the teenager who shot himself in front of his English class in a Texas high school in 1991, is finally speaking out about her son.

ultimateclassicrock.com

 

[sergeauckland]

One of my favourites is Pat O'May, 'Overlord' from his album 'In Live We Trust' In spite of his name, he's a Breton French Blues man, and he depicts the story of famous Scottish piper Bill Millin during the Normandy invasion of the 6th June 1944.

Piper Bill Millin: The 'Mad piper' who piped the allied troops ashore

Bill Millin was the "Mad Piper" who played allied commandos ashore under heavy German fire at Sword Beach in Normandy on D-Day, on the extreme eastern flank of Operation Overlord.

www.independent.co.uk

Here's a video of another performance of his

S

 

[LTig]

The Diary by The Gentle Storm - the full album (in 2 versions, gentle and storm) is based on letters from a man and a woman in the 17th century which were found in an old chest stored for hundreds of years in the corner of an attic.

 

[mhardy6647]

This one gets me in the feels (as they say) every time.

 

[NiagaraPete]

 

[mhardy6647]

OK, this one's a little abstruse, but it's a gorgeous song and it is "based on a true [if inconsequential] story", so I am gonna mention it.
The story, as told by songwriter Nicky Mehta, is that the Wailin Jennys were playing someplace (a college campus, perhaps in Waterloo, Ont.). The Jennys were ensconsed for the evening in a dormitory, and were awakened very early by the cacophony of a bunch... umm... murder of crows. Since she couldn't sleep anyway, she wrote a song (sort of) about it.

This one, from singer/songwriter/guitarist Patty Larkin, is similar. She was driving in the Rockies in a snowstorm in a rented Pontiac T1000 (badge engineered Chevette, for any of you who remember that dud). Trucks, she says, were indeed "slidin' sideways like sons of bitches" -- but that dinky T1000 got her to her destination "like God was throwin' the switches". I don't know about the other verses of the song's veracity, though. Whatever, I love the song, and my eyes almost always well with tears listening to the refrain.

 

[mhardy6647]

Pete Townshend has had many a rough night -- this particular one, involving an encounter with a Sex Pistol, he wrote a song about.

(this promo video is, IIRC, devoid of the salty language of the album version)

 

[DanielT]

Then real events can be inspired to songs where more or less artistic freedom has been included in the artistic expression:

 

[BDWoody]

American Pie
Don McLean

 

[Pegwill]

The Fortunes - The Alamo

 

[Pegwill]

Marvin Gaye

 

[mhardy6647]

Speaking of ol' Stephen Stills -- two of my favorite songs of his were inspired by one very real and living muse, Judy Collins.
OK one definitely was -- and I've always assumed that the other, earlier song was, too.

... and having mentioned Roberta Joan Anderson ("Joni") earlier -- her one-time beau wrote at least one nice song about her, too.

(maybe the Hygge National Anthem? )

Oh, and Joni, famously, wrote Carey about the also very real Cary Raditz

He gave me back my smile -- but he kept my camera to sell
(from Joni's song California, of course)

 

[Robin L]

All true:

 

[BinkieHuckerback]

 

[litemotiv]

Bruce Cockburn - If I Had a Rocket Launcher

Written by Cockburn about his visit to a Guatemalan refugee camp in Mexico, following the counterinsurgency campaign of dictator Efraín Ríos Montt. In the song, Cockburn despairs of waiting for a political solution to the crisis, and expresses the desire to take matters into his own hands.

Pierce The Veil - Bulls in the Bronx

Song written about the suicide of a young girl from Australia named Olivia Penpraze, who had Psychosis and was bullied. Her friends wrote to the band saying that she had committed suicide and they thought they'd like to know because she was such a big fan. They also sent pictures of Olivia with the band when she met them.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

The Band "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"