As we were discussing yesterday, the teenage tragedy record faded from view in the mid 60s, as the first generation of rock and roll listeners grew to adulthood and rock got more sophisticated. But it never went away entirely, because death is a powerful theme, storytellers can’t resist it, and we’re sentimental saps at heart. And so untimely death (not always involving teens) would continue to intrude on Top 40 radio now and again.
In 1968, smack in the middle of one of the rock era’s most pivotal years, the tragedy genre yakked up its greatest hit: “Honey” by Bobby Goldsboro. It’s the story of a guy with an endearingly dimwitted wife (plants trees sure to die, wrecks the car, loves puppies, cries watching sad movies) who dies suddenly (”One day while I was not at home/While she was there and all alone/The angels came”), all backed by sweet strings, an angel chorus, and heavenly chimes. Heart-tugging schmaltz has never been done more heart-tuggingly or schmaltzier, and there’s a statistic to prove it: “Honey” spent five weeks at Number One in the spring of 1968. (This 2004 web video plays the song straight, but adds some clever animation to cut the treacle.)
In 1961, the Belgian composer Jacques Brel wrote “Le Moribond,” a dark song about a man about to be executed, and sang it in an unsentimental, almost jazzy style. Sample lyric, translated to English:
Goodbye, Tony, I didn’t like you too much you know
It’s killing me to be dying today
While you are so vigorous and full of life
And stronger even than boredom itself
In 1964, the poet Rod McKuen rewrote it, which should tell you something, but a recording of the new version by Bob Shane didn’t become a hit. The Beach Boys cut it in 1973, but decided not to release it. The producer on the Beach Boys sessions, Terry Jacks, recorded it himself after rewriting some of the lyrics yet again, turning the protagonist from a prisoner bound for the gallows to a guy dying of something generic. However, it’s not the lyrics as much as it’s Jacks’ delivery that turns “Seasons in the Sun” into another schmaltz classic—he’s not the macho guy in the Brel original, he’s a earnest, sensitive man of the 1970s trying to leave nothing unsaid before he joins the Choir Invisible. “Seasons in the Sun,” powered by an echo-drenched opening riff from guitarist Link Wray, would do three weeks at Number One. (Before Kurt Cobain’s death, Nirvana recorded a version with a slightly different lyric, which was not released until 2004; according to this Slate article, the first record Cobain ever bought was “Seasons in the Sun.”)
Most tragedy songs proceed at a medium-to-down tempo in keeping with their somber subject matter, but “Rocky” by Austin Roberts sprints out of the gate and then accelerates, which makes the transition to tragedy in the last couple of verses even more jarring: “I was proud and satisfied/Life had so much to give/’Til the day they told me that she didn’t have long to live.”
During the week of October 4, 1975, the same week “Rocky”’s unnamed beloved was dying of an unknown disease at Number 10 on the singles chart, David Geddes reached Number Four with “Run Joey Run.” The tragedy genre is all about melodrama, but “Run Joey Run” turns it up to 11. I can’t embed the video made for the song in 1975, but you really have to see it. Click now. (I’ll wait.) “Run Joey Run” is the absolute apotheosis of the teenage tragedy record. It’s got it all: love, sex, angry parents, violence, the tragic mistake, blood, pathos, and death, delivered in a manly, Michael-Boltonesque style punctuated by an off-key angel chorus. Only Geddes himself would try to top it, with “The Last Game of the Season,” the followup to “Run Joey Run,” which was on the radio this week in 1975. It’s the story of a scrub high school football player whose blind father dies during a game. The scrub demands that the coach put him in during the second half, and he runs wild, singlehandedly winning the game for the home team. Asked about his performance after the game, the scrub says simply, “It’s the first time my father ever saw me play.” That brief description cannot capture the majestic, manipulative awfulness of “The Last Game of the Season.” Such knowledge can only come from hearing it.
The work of David Geddes more than 30 years ago had one beneficial effect: it pretty much killed the tragedy record, although they still turn up on country radio fairly often. Life is still plenty tragic, and songwriters are still going to write about that tragedy, but rarely as they did in the first 20 years of the rock era.
If you have a favorite song of this ilk, please share it in the comments.
“Seasons in the Sun”/Terry Jacks (buy it here)
“Rocky”/Austin Roberts (buy it, along with “Run Joey Run,” here)
“…majestic, manipulative awfulness…”
See, this is why you write and the rest of us read.
Take “majestic” out of the description, and we’d be left with Think’s “Once You Understand.”
Oh, my. David Geddes. And that video!
The worst thing is, while watching that video, I saw the links on the side to The DeFranco Family’s “Heartbeat Is a Lovebeat,” so then I had to watch it. Like slowing down on the interstate to see wreckage.
Not a favorite, but the one that came to mind was “Billy. Don’t Be A Hero,” a No. 1 record by Bo Donaldson & the Heywoods. As for “Seasons,” it’s one of those singles that make me shudder.
Does Bloodrock’s “D.O.A.” count as a tragedy record?
Not surprising, my sisters loved “Seasons in the Sun” while I had all I could do not to vomit. As for tragedy songs, I don’t know if this qualifies, but—– I believe I read somewhere that David Gates wrote “Everything I Own” as a tribute to his father. True or not, that song has hit me hard ever since my father died in 2000.
Btw, Chuck’s “interstate wreckage” description gets my vote for comment of the year.