By Billy Florio
April 20 marked the sixth anniversary of the Columbine school shooting. After those horrible events, investigators tried to figure out the reasons why Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold massacred their fellow students. Their conclusions settled on many scapegoats, but mostly music. Society blamed musicians like Marilyn Manson and the Insane Clown Posse for the actions of Harris, Klebold and all delinquents everywhere. This wasn’t the first time music had been blamed for causing deviance: “Cop Killer” and “Fuck The Police” were blamed for inciting riots, The Grateful Dead were blamed for promoting and glorifying drugs, oh, and apparently Elvis’ gyrating hips caused teenagers to have sex. In most cases, the music blamed was just the music that parents didn’t approve of their kids listening to. They were the artists that scared them. ICP and Manson are not exactly Bobby Vinton, but saying their music caused the Columbine massacre is just insane. Maybe listening to them would cause the suicide part, but certainly not the shootings and murder. Here are 10 songs though, all of which are about shootings and murder, and all of which would have been better scapegoats for Harris’s and Klebold’s actions:
1. The Boomtown Rats: “I Don’t Like Mondays”-This song was based on the real life incident that happened in San Diego in 1979, where a 17-year-old girl took a rifle into a school and just started shooting at everyone. Her reasons, as she told the police, were, “I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.” Contrary to what many of you are thinking, Bob Geldolf, the writer of the song, does have a heart. He later went on to form Band Aid.
2. Lloyd Price: “Stagger Lee”-There are probably thousands of blues songs that could make this list, but “Stagger Lee” is the most famous of them all. The song was based on a real incident that happened in a bar-room in 1895, where Billy Lyons and “Stag” Lee Sheldon, two friends, got into an argument over politics. The argument resulted in Billy being fatally shot by Lee, after snatching the hat off Lee’s head. The song has been done numerous times, but Lloyd Price’s 1959 version is the most notable, since it was the version that caused enough controversy that Dick Clark made Price rewrite the lyrics for an American Bandstand appearance, in which, instead of murdering Billy, Stagger Lee makes up with him. I know I hated Dick Clark for a reason.
3. The Coasters: “Run Red Run”-Definitely the most obscure song on this list. “Run Red Run” is a little known doo-wop song from the Coasters. At first, the lyrics seem completely ridiculous: A man buys a monkey just to cheat at poker with. The monkey catches on and chaises after the man with his gun. Huh? Supposedly the lyrics have a deeper meaning, but until anyone sees that, it’s just a song about… a homicidal monkey. You heard me.
4. Nancy Sinatra: “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)”-Originally not a song about real killing: it’s a metaphor of two childhood loves playing. That is, until Quentin Tarantino got a hold of it. His use of it in Kill Bill Vol. 1 put a whole new literal spin on the song’s title. And in Vol. 2, Tarantino twists the meaning yet again.
5. Bob Marley: “I Shot The Sheriff”-Of course there’s that whole theory that this song is about birth control (go read the lyrics), but until that is proven, we’ll take it at face value. The title tells all: A man shoots the sheriff-but is accused of shooting the deputy, as well. A classic reggae song that was later massacred by Eric Clapton.
6. Gene Pitney; “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”-We needed a western shoot-out on this list. “When two men go out to face each other / only one returns.” Would it be the outlaw Liberty Valance, or the Lawman from the East? Well, the title kinda gives it away.
7. The Leaves: “Hey Joe”-Almost everyone knows the 1967 Jimi Hendrix version of this song, but the first released (and possibly the best) version was the Leaves in 1965. The song had been floating around, performed by various artists with various people listed as the writer. It wasn’t until The Leaves recorded it though, sounding like a duplicate of the White Stripes, that this song about a man who goes and shoots his wife and her lover in bed finally hit the mainstream.
8. Johnny Cash: “Folsom Prison Blues”-Yeah, every Johnny Cash song could probably fit in this list too. But this is the one with that famous lyric: “But I shot a man in Reno / Just to watch him die.” Johnny Cash may not have been the Ultimate Country Outlaw (Merle Haggard anyone?) but this song sure made him the coolest.
9. Aerosmith: “Janie’s Got A Gun”-A girl murders her father because he molests her. The video spells it out clearer than the song itself.
10. Crosby, Stills, Nash &Yong: “Ohio”- This song, written about the Kent State massacre of four students by the national guard, shows a side no other song on this list shows: Murder by the government. An anti-Vietnam anthem, and one of the most important songs ever recorded.