Page 98
'April Love', 'April Come She Will', 'First Of May', '4th of July Asbury Park', 'In The Summertime', 'It's Summer', 'It
Might As Well Rain Until September', 'Autumn Almanac', 'November Rain', 'December Will Be Magic Again',
'Hazy Shade Of Winter'. Some years have been memorialized: Mott The Hoople's 'Late In '58', 'December, 1963',
The Stooges' '1969', 'Summer of '69', Ash's '1977', Smashing Pumpkins' '1979', Hendrix's '1983' and Prince's '1999'.
And there is, of course, a whole genre of songs about Christmas.
Or you can write a song about a historical event. 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down' is an evocation of the
American Civil War. 'Born In The USA' and 'Pull Out The Pin' recall the Vietnam war. 'Cities In Dust' refers to the
eruption of Mt. Vesuvius that buried Pompeii. Often such songs have a protest element in them – like Neil Young's
'Ohio' or 'Alabama'. Other historical examples include Joni Mitchell's 'Woodstock', 'Enola Gay', 'The Wreck Of The
Edmund Fitzgerald' and 'Amelia'. History can itself be a source of metaphors, as with Abba's 'Waterloo'.
People
Many songs focus on famous people and celebrate (or criticize) their lives and deeds. Don McLean's two most
famous songs celebrated the lives and art of Buddy Holly ('American Pie', re-recorded by Madonna) and Vincent
Van Gogh ('Vincent'). Other artists (of various types) who are the subjects of songs include Mozart, Beethoven,
Delius, Woody Guthrie, Elvis Presley, Gene Vincent, Levi Stubbs, Smokey Robinson, Scarlet O'Hara, Bette Davis,
Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne, Robert de Niro, Michael Caine, Andy Warhol and Andy Kaufman. Madonna name-
checked many Hollywood celebrities in 'Vogue', and Ian Dury wrote about Noel Coward, Van Gogh, Einstein and
Segovia in 'There Ain't 'Alf Been Some Clever Bastards'. It seems to be hip to drop the name of the British group
T.Rex, judging by citations in 'All The Young Dudes', 'You Better You Bet' and 'Wake-Up Bomb' (where Michael
Stipe promises to "practise my T.Rex moves'). 'The Seeker' mentioned many 1960s counter-culture figures.
Such historical figures as Davy Crockett, Lady Godiva, Robin Hood, Christopher Columbus, Gary Gilmore, Al
Capone, St. Augustine, General Custer, Richard III, Henry VIII, Houdini, Nostradamus and Jack the Ripper have
had songs written about them. Political figures who have made it into songs include Steve Biko, Nelson Mandela
and Joseph McCarthy. Eva Peron got a whole musical. 'Abraham, Martin and John' paid homage to three
assassinated icons: John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Dr King was also eulogized in
U2's 'MLK', and John F. Kennedy was memorialized in The Byrds' 'He Was A Friend Of Mine'. JFK is mentioned in
an alliterative pairing with Khruschev in 'Killer Queen' and appears again in Living Colour's 'Cult Of Personality',
which, like 'No More Heroes' (Shakespeare, Lenin, Trotsky), is an anti-hero song. If writing about a political or
historical figure, always take into account your audience. Elvis Costello knew that his song about the 1930s British
fascist Oswald Moseley, 'Less Than Zero', would not translate to the U.S., so there it became a song about another
Oswald – Lee Harvey Oswald, alleged assassin of President Kennedy. Many songs, like Dylan's 'Hurricane' (about
the boxer Hurricane Carter), have been written about individuals who were the victims of injustice.
Songs have also celebrated fictional characters such as Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the Red Baron, Tarzan, Jane and
King Kong, Romeo and Juliet, Captain James T. Kirk, and Mulder and Scully. Popular music has its own roll-call of
fictional characters, and in some cases these characters seem as real as any from a film or novel. Think of Desmond
and Molly, Terry and Julie, Arnold Layne, Emily