Lyric/historical reference help

[Gregory]

My wife begins teaching a new semester of students this week, and we discussed new research paper topics to assign. Primarily we're tired of the same old topics (Nobel Peace Prize winners, oppressed peoples, etc). I suggested something that would incorporate poetry and fact-checking, mainly telling kids to pick a song with a historical reference and explain how it refers to it and why the event was important. Or the kids can pick an event and catalog songs that refer to it.

We want to give them some examples and off the top of my head I can think of:
- a few country songs dealing with 9/11,
- The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,
- U2's "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and the assassination of MLK Jr.
- various Vietnam and Iraq protest songs
- Don McLean's "American Pie"

The last one opens up a can of worms because it's culturally significant, and that might open the door for all types of references to the Tupac and Biggie deaths, types of dances (the Hustle, the Train, the Macarena) or even fashions (thongs, etc.). We're not sure if we want to broaden the subjects that much.

What other historical references can y'all think of in songs?

[JoeE]

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For is not about MLK's assassination, if I'm not mistaken. Pride (In the Name of Love) is.

[Susan BANthony]

Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" would really fuck with them.

[Gregory]

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For is not about MLK's assassination, if I'm not mistaken. Pride (In the Name of Love) is.

You're right. I got them switched.

[JoeE]

I could list a bunch of songs, but I doubt they'd know them, since all kids listen to these days is hip-hop (and not the good, literate kind).

[Gregory]

Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" would really fuck with them.

We're gonna disqualify that one. Too easy. Probably the same with "End of the World as We Know it."

I could list a bunch of songs, but I doubt they'd know them, since all kids listen to these days is hip-hop (and not the good, literate kind).

We live in an area (mountain hillbilly) that is pretty broad in musical tastes, but light in hip-hop. List some songs please.

[JoeE]

U2 - the aforementioned song, Sunday Bloody Sunday
Rolling Stones - Sympathy for the Devil
Billie Holiday - Strange Fruit (this song needs to be heard, period)
The Clash - Rock the Casbah

[stevapalooza]

Another one by Don McLean is Starry Starry Night, which is about Van Gogh

[Gregory]

I'm copying these (with accompanying lyrics) in an email to the missus. This kind of paper could spread throughout the school system here, and I'm preparing the songs with comments about educational relevance and why some songs are discounted (we might change our minds on the event-list songs).

If I was a student in high school, this paper would be right up my nerdy alley.

[greg donovan]

Flogging Molly's--Tobbacco Island

it makes references to events during cromwell's rule in england.

"Tobacco Island"

[Chorus]
All to hell we must sail
For the Shores of sweet Barbados
Where the sugar cane grows taller
Than the god we once believed in
Till the butcher and his crown
Raped the land we used to sleep in
Now tommorow chimes of ghostly crimes
That haunt Tobacco Island

'Twas 1659 forgotten now for sure
They dragged us from our homeland
With the musket and their gun
Cromwell and his roundheads
Battered all we know
Shackled hopes of freedom
We're now but stolen goods
Darken the horizon
Blackened from the sun
This rotten cage of Bridgetown
Is where I now belong

[Chorus]

Red leg down a peg
Blistered burns the soul
The floggings they're a plenty
But reasons there are none
Our backs belong to landlords
Where branded is there name
Paid for with ten shillings
Cheap labor never breaks
The silver moon is shinin'
Cools the copper blood
Where the livin' meet the dead
And together dance as one

[Chorus]

Agony, will you cleanse this misery?
For it's never again i'll breathe
The air of home
From this sandy edge
The rolling sea breaks my revenge
With each whisper a thousand waves
I hear roar
I'm coming home

Dark is the horizon
Blackened by the sun
This rotten cage of Bridgetown
Is where I now belong

[Chorus]