Feel free to use any of them, as long as you rock. Also, if you actually do use any of the three hyperlinked ones, then I want to hear about it.
- Brotherhood of the Bomb
- Mike Tyson’s Abandoned Mansion
- Sudden Infant Dance Syndrome
- The English Sweat
- What A Pal
- Born Arms
- Lyric Grumble
- Mystery Tales
- Skeleton Army
- Just Don’t
- Golden Paratroopers
The Cramps - Garbageman
You ain’t no punk, you punk,
You wanna talk about the real junk?
Wherein The Cramps beat Carles at his own game except not in a way that is juvenile, obnoxious, and makes me want to fucking step on someone’s neck.
Also, anyone else feel like this song is the marriage of Repo Man and Men At Work?
Dan Le Sac (mix) vs. Scoobius Pip (words) - Letter From God To Man
combination of a friend’s reading Going Rogue (yes, really) and the Climate Change talks reminded me of this one…….. (animated lyrics version)
It was You that invented bombs, and the fear that comes with them
And it was You that invented money, and the corrupt economic systems
You invented terms like just-war and terms like friendly fire
And it was You that didn’t know
when to stop digging deeper, when to stop building higher
It was You that exhausted the resources I carefully laid out on this earth,
And it was You that even saw these
problems coming but accredited them little worth
It was You that used my teachings for your own personal gain
And it was You that committed such tragedies,
even though they were in my name
So I apologize for any mistakes I made, and when my words misconstrued
But this apology’s to mother nature, cause I created you
Y’know, for the sake of taking American 1960’s cultural phenomena and colliding them head-on (like a car crash! synergy!)
There are three tiers of ’60s teenager death songs:The teenager is dead and it’s no one’s fault. The third tier. This would be something like “Laurie,” by Dickie Lee. It was all just an accident or, in Dickie’s case, a crazy supernatural misunderstanding. Nothing could be done.
The teenager is dead and it’s the teenager’s fault. “Teen Angel” is at the top of this tier. The clincher is that even though the car stalled out on the railroad tracks and disaster is averted initially, the poor girl actually goes running back to get Mark’s god-damned class ring out of the car and gets herself hit by the train. This tier would also probably include any song where teenagers wreck their cars, like “Last Kiss” by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers, or Jan and Dean’s “Dead Man’s Curve.” Really ups the pathos.
The teenager is dead and it’s all the adults’ fault. These are the best kind; most of the Shangri-Las’ dead-teenager songs fall under this category (“Leader of the Pack,” for example, where the poor greaser wouldn’t have had to die if the narrator’s parents had just eased up a little). The best dead-teenage song of all time, as far as I’m concerned, is the Shangri-Las’ “Give Us Your Blessing,” in which not one but both teenagers are killed because their parents are so pigheaded and stupid. If you don’t agree with me, then I will drive my daddy’s jalopy right into the ravine outside town just to make you feel terrible about disagreeing with me.
Of course, then the stupid Beatles came along and all of a sudden it’s all hand-holding and love-love-me-do and no wants to hear nice American boys singing about car wrecks anymore. Pfffft.
Imagine, if you will, that the parents in “Leader of the Pack” DO let up a little. The Greaser takes his gal out for a wild ride on his motorbike, with the parents blessing! They motor along and the brisk air combined with the speed of the bike bring a slight chill to the girl, so she grips him even a little bit tighter. He briefly looks back at her as she rests her head on the back of his shoulder, smiling. He begins to grin as well as he turns back to face the road BUT THERE IS A DEER CROSSING THE ROAD, frozen by the single bright beam of the motorcycle hurtling at it. He tries to swerve around it, but too late…. Is it the greaser’s fault? The girl’s fault? The parent’s fault? An accident/”supernatural misunderstanding”? Who knows, but all that’s left is that lone greaser to try and explain himself to the parents, to mournfully croon on his own while he’s left a-walkin’ in the rain, tears are falling and he feels the pain, and he wonders, wa wa wa wonder, Why? Wa wa wa wa why she couldn’t stay? His angel’s gone away, gone gone gone…. gone away.
