Favorite historically inspired songs

8th of November by Big & Rich

Said goodbye to his momma as he left South Dakota
To fight for the red, white and blue
He was nineteen and green with a new M-16
Just doing what he had to do

He was dropped in the jungle where the choppers would rumble
With the smell of napalm in the air
And the sergeant said look up ahead

Like a dark evil cloud
Twelve-hundred came down on him and twenty-nine more
They fought for their lives but most of them died
In the one-seventythird Airborne

On the eighth of November the angels were crying
As they carried his brothers away
With the fire raining down and the hell all around
There were few men left standing that day
Saw the eagle fly through a clear blue sky
1965, the eighth of November

Now he's fifty-eight and his pony tail's gray
But the battle still plays in his head
He limps when he walks but he's strong when he talks
About the Shrapnel they left in his leg

He puts on a gray suit over his Airborne tattoo
And he ties it on one time a year
And remembers the fallen as he orders a tall one
And swallows it down with his tears
 
One that was popular when I was born was 'Coming in on a Wing and a Prayer.'

Pick your version.

heh heh heh - :dance: :LOL: :LOL: :facepalm:. Of course I had to learn it much later in life. ;) The others on this thread are good also. :flowers:
 
American Pie

Death of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens.
 
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We've had 'Favorite everything else' so how about favorite historically inspired songs:


Done With Bonaparte
I'm a big Mark Knopfler fan. One of the things I like about his songs is that many of them are based on history. For example, "If This Is Goodbye" is based on phone messages left by people trapped in the World Trade Center.
 
'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down' by Robbie Robertson and The Band came immediately to mind - . But 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' is a family favourite - my two youngest children knew the lyrics by heart by age 4. Some form of child abuse I am sure. 'The Star Spangled Banner' is another favourite. Older son has a soft spot for 'Enola Gay' - he did a public speaking project related to the A-bomb missions in Grade 6.
 
Thinking some more, this song performed by Norman Blake is a fantastic bit of history, the rise and fall of coal in Kentucky. "The L & N Don't Stop Here Anymore". Written my Jean Ritchie, but she does it so fast I think it loses 'gravitas'.

I was born and raised in the mouth of the Hazard Hollow
Coal cars rambled past my door
Now they're standin' in a rusty row all empty
And the L & N
Don't stop here anymore

I used to think my daddy was a black man
With script enough to buy the company store
Now he goes downtown with empty pockets
And his face is white as a February snow


And that got me thinking of two other coal songs. Another favorite writer/performer, John Prine with "Paradise". It wasn't until I was perusing a map one day that I realized all the places he sings about are real, I assumed it was poetic license. Paradise, a town in Kentucky, in Muhlenberg County, by the Green River.

And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away


An that dug up a deep, long ago memory of probably the only Bee Gees song I like:

Bee Gees - New York Mining Disaster 1941

In the event of something happening to me,
There is something I would like you all to see.
It's just a photograph of someone that I knew.
Have you seen my wife, Mr. Jones?
Do you know what it's like on the outside?
Don't go talking too loud, you'll cause a landslide, Mr. Jones.


OK, for bonus points, not much history to this song (but the youtube video has historic pictures), but I can't resist:


-ERD50
 
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