From 1 October 2021
Historical Events
Any musical track, any genre, that references a historical event from any country or era. No references in the band’s name. Thanks to Arno for the theme!
Errol
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
Most of you are probably familiar with the version of ‘The night they drove old Dixie down’ sung by the Joan Baez. Her version is by far the most popular, but is not the original. I prefer the original, which was composed and performed by The Band in 1969, as it is a much more soulful version, better suited to the dreadful events being portrayed.
The lyrics tell of the last days of the terrible American Civil War, portraying the suffering of Virgil Caine, a poor white Southerner. Dixie is the historical nickname for the Confederate States. The song’s opening lines refer to one of General George Stonemman’s raids behind Confederate lines attacking the railroads of Danville, Virginia, in the last year of the war:
Virgil Caine is the name, and I served on the Danville train
Till Stoneman’s cavalry came and tore up the tracks again
In the winter of ’65, we were hungry, just barely alive
By May the tenth, Richmond had fell, it’s a time I remember, oh so well.
Rolling Stone magazine critic Ralph Gleason wrote of it: Nothing I have read … has brought home the overwhelming human sense of history that this song does. It’s a remarkable song, the rhythmic structure, the voice of Levon and the bass line with the drum accents and then the heavy close harmony of Levon, Richard and Rick in the theme, make it seem impossible that this isn’t some traditional material handed down from father to son straight from that winter of 1865 to today. It has that ring of truth and the whole aura of authenticity.
Chrisna
Bob Marley & The Wailers – Buffalo Soldier
The Buffalo Soldiers were a segregated regiment of black cavalry fighters during the American campaign to rid the West of “Indians” so that “civilized” white people could gain the lands used by Native Americans. Ironically, many of the soldiers were slaves taken from Africa. Bob Marley gives a small history lesson as a protest song about the black man’s role in building the country that continues to oppress him.
Karen
Johnny Clegg (With Nelson Mandela) – Asimbonanga – 1999
“Asimbonanga”, also known as “Asimbonanga (Mandela)”,[1] is an anti-apartheid song by the South African racially integrated band Savuka, from their 1987 album Third World Child. It alluded to Nelson Mandela, imprisoned on Robben Island at the time of the song’s release, and other anti-apartheid activists. It was well-received, becoming popular within the movement against apartheid, and was covered by several artists including Joan Baez and the Soweto Gospel Choir.
Sue
D-Day Darlings: Wartime Choir Move Judges To TEARS With WW2 Era Act | Britain’s Got Talent 2018
Wilfred
Roger Waters – The Gunner’s Dream
This song tells the story of a gunner in a bomber (not on the ground) who has parachuted out of his plane and as he floats down to the ground, memories of his life come up to meet him. But then he has a dream.
His dream is that the world will be at peace where there is no censorship so you can speak out loud about what you are thinking, there will be no military rations so everyone can eat, and men won’t have to sleep in the trenches.
Most importantly, the youth of the nation won’t be sent of to die for their country (“No one kills the children anymore”). It also refers to people disappearing in the night. This would happen to Jews and any others the Germans did not want in WWII. It also refers to the IRA terrorist attacks, which shows that the Gunner’s Dream has not been fulfilled.
Sarah
Midnight Oil – Beds Are Burning
This is a political song about giving native Australian lands back to the Pintupi, who were among the very last people to come in from the desert. These “last contact” people began moving from the Gibson Desert to settlements and missions in the 1930s. More were forcibly moved during the 1950s and 1960s to the Papunya settlement. In 1981 they left to return to their own country and established the Kintore community which is nestled in the picturesque Kintore Ranges, surrounded by Mulga and Spinifex country. It is now a thriving little community with a population of about 400.
Deborah
U2 – Pride (In The Name Of Love)
Paul
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark – Enola Gay
The Enola Gay was the American plane that dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima in World War II. It was named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the plane’s pilot, Paul Tibbets. So why did the electronic music group OMD write a song about it? In our 2010 interview, we asked their lead singer Andy McCluskey, who replied: “Many people simply don’t know what it’s actually about. Some even thought it was a coded message that we were gay. We were both geeks about WWII aeroplanes. The most famous and influential single bomber was Enola Gay. Obvious choice for us, really.”
Written by vocalist/bass guitarist Andy McCluskey, it addresses the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by the aircraft Enola Gay on 6 August 1945, toward the conclusion of World War II. As is typical of early OMD singles, the song features a melodic synthesizer break instead of a sung chorus.
Arno
Billy Joel – We Didn’t Start the Fire
“We Didn’t Start the Fire” is a song written and performed by American musician Billy Joel. The song was released as a single on September 27, 1989, and later released as part of Joel’s album Storm Front on October 17, 1989. A list song, its fast-paced lyrics include brief references to 118 significant political, cultural, scientific, and sporting events between 1949, the year of Joel’s birth, and 1989, in a mainly chronological order. The song was nominated for the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and became Joel’s third single to reach number one on the United States Billboard Hot 100 in late 1989. Storm Front became Joel’s third album to reach number one in the United States. “We Didn’t Start the Fire”, particularly in the 21st century, has become the basis of many pop culture parodies, and continues to be repurposed in various television shows, advertisements, and comedic productions.
1948
Harry Truman wins the 1948 United States presidential election following a partial term after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Doris Day debuts in film in Romance on the High Seas, featuring the popular song “It’s Magic”.
1949
Red China: is established by the The Communist Party of China who wins the Chinese Civil War.
Johnnie Ray: The rock and roll progenitor signs his first recording contract with Okeh Records.
South Pacific, the award-winning musical, opens on Broadway.
Walter Winchell, an influential radio and newspaper journalist, begins to denounce Communism as the main threat facing America.
Joe DiMaggio signs a record-breaking $100,000 contract with the New York Yankees.
1950
Joe McCarthy, a U.S. Senator, gains national attention and begins his anti-Communism crusade with his Lincoln Day speech.
Richard Nixon is first elected to the United States Senate.
Studebaker, a popular automobile company, begins its financial downfall.
Television becomes widespread throughout Europe and North America.
North Korea invades South Korea, beginning the Korean War.
Marilyn Monroe appears in five films, including The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve.
1951
The Rosenbergs, married couple Ethel and Julius, are convicted of espionage.
H-Bomb: The United States is developing the hydrogen bomb as a nuclear weapon.
Sugar Ray Robinson, a champion boxer, defeats Jake LaMotta in the “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre”.
Panmunjom, a border village in Korea, is the location of truce talks between the parties of the Korean War.
Marlon Brando is nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in A Streetcar Named Desire.
The King and I, the musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein, opens on Broadway.
The Catcher in the Rye, a controversial novel by J. D. Salinger, is published.
1952
Dwight D. Eisenhower is the landslide winner of the 1952 United States presidential election.
Vaccine for polio is successfully developed by Jonas Salk.
England’s got a new queen: Princess Elizabeth succeeds to the throne as Queen Elizabeth II and is crowned the following year.
Rocky Marciano defeats Jersey Joe Walcott, becoming the world heavyweight boxing champion.
Liberace first broadcasts The Liberace Show.
Santayana goodbye: George Santayana, philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist, dies.
1953
Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, dies.
Georgy Malenkov succeeds Stalin for six months.
Gamal Abdel Nasser acts as the true power behind the new Egyptian nation as Muhammad Naguib’s minister of the interior.
Sergei Prokofiev, a popular Russian composer, dies.
Winthrop Rockefeller had a highly publicized divorce in 1953, but Nelson Rockefeller and John D. Rockefeller III also made headlines that year.
Roy Campanella, a baseball catcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers, receives the National League’s Most Valuable Player award for the second time.
Communist bloc: The East German uprising of 1953 is crushed by the Volkspolizei and the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany.
1954
Roy Cohn resigns as Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel and enters private practice.
Juan Perón is at the height of his power as President of Argentina before a coup the following year.
Arturo Toscanini is at the height of his fame as a conductor, performing regularly with the NBC Symphony Orchestra on U.S. national radio.
Dacron is an early artificial fiber made from the same plastic as polyester.
Dien Bien Phu falls: The fall of this French/Vietnamese camp to Việt Minh forces leads to the creation of North Vietnam and South Vietnam as separate states.
“Rock Around the Clock” is a hit single released by Bill Haley & His Comets.
1955
Albert Einstein dies at the age of 76.
James Dean achieves success with East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause, but dies in a car accident at the age of 24.
Brooklyn’s got a winning team: The Brooklyn Dodgers win their first and only World Series before their move to Los Angeles.
Davy Crockett, a Disney television miniseries about the legendary frontiersman, was a huge hit and inspired a short-lived “coonskin cap” craze.
Peter Pan, recently featured in a Disney animated feature, is also the subject of a stage musical starring Mary Martin, broadcast on NBC live and in color.
Elvis Presley signs with RCA Records on November 21, beginning his pop career, going on to earn a reputation as the “King of Rock and Roll”.
Disneyland opens as Walt Disney’s first theme park.
1956
Brigitte Bardot stars in And God Created Woman, the film that establishes her international reputation as a French “sex kitten”.
Budapest, is the site of the Hungarian Revolution.
Alabama is the site of the Montgomery bus boycott, one of the pivotal events in the civil rights movement.
Nikita Khrushchev makes his famous Secret Speech denouncing Stalin’s “cult of personality”.
Princess Grace Kelly appears in her last film High Society, and marries Prince Rainier III of Monaco.
Peyton Place, the best-selling socially scandalous novel by Grace Metalious, is published.
Trouble in the Suez: The Suez Crisis deepens as Egypt nationalizes the Suez Canal.
1957
Little Rock, Arkansas is the site of a standoff between Governor Orval Faubus and President Eisenhower over the Little Rock Nine attending a previously whites-only high school.
Boris Pasternak, the Russian author, publishes his novel Doctor Zhivago.
Mickey Mantle is in the middle of his career as a famous New York Yankees outfielder and American League All-Star for the sixth year in a row.
Jack Kerouac publishes his novel On the Road, a defining work of the Beat Generation.
Sputnik becomes the first artificial satellite, launched by the Soviet Union, marking the start of the space race.
Chou En-Lai, Premier of the People’s Republic of China, survives an assassination attempt.
The Bridge on the River Kwai is released, and receives seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.[9]
1958
Lebanon is engulfed in a political and religious crisis that eventually involves U.S. intervention.
Charles de Gaulle is elected first president of the French Fifth Republic following the Algerian Crisis.
California baseball begins as the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants move to California.
Starkweather homicide: Charles Starkweather killed eleven people, mostly in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Children of Thalidomide: Many pregnant women taking the drug Thalidomide had children born with congenital birth defects.
1959
Buddy Holly dies in a plane crash with Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper. Joel prefaces the lyric with a Holly signature vocal hiccup: “Uh-huh, uh-huh.”
Ben-Hur starring Charlton Heston, wins eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Space Monkey: A rhesus macaque and a squirrel monkey become the first two animals to be launched by NASA into space and survive.
Mafia leaders are convicted in the Apalachin meeting trial, confirming it as a nationwide conspiracy.
Hula hoops sales reach 100 million as the latest toy fad.
Fidel Castro comes to power after a revolution in Cuba.
Edsel is a no-go: Production of this much-advertised car marque ends after only three years due to poor sales.
1960
A U-2 spy plane flown by American CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union, causing the U-2 Crisis of 1960. It does not refer to the band U2.[10]
Syngman Rhee is rescued by the CIA after being forced to resign as leader of South Korea.
Payola, illegal payments for radio broadcasting of songs, are publicized by Dick Clark’s testimony before Congress and Alan Freed’s public disgrace.
John F. Kennedy, a senator from Massachusetts, beats Vice President Richard Nixon in the 1960 US presidential election.
Chubby Checker popularizes the dance The Twist with his cover of the song of the same name.
Psycho, an Alfred Hitchcock thriller, becomes a landmark in graphic violence and cinema sensationalism. The screeching violins heard at this point in the song are a trademark of the film’s soundtrack.
Belgians in the Congo: The Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville) was declared independent of Belgium.
1961
Ernest Hemingway commits suicide after a long battle with depression.
Adolf Eichmann, a “most wanted” Nazi war criminal, is convicted in Israel for crimes against humanity during World War II.
Stranger in a Strange Land, written by Robert A. Heinlein, is a breakthrough best-seller with themes of sexual freedom and liberation.
Bob Dylan is signed to Columbia Records after a New York Times review by critic Robert Shelton.
Berlin’s separation into West Berlin and East Berlin is cemented when the Berlin Wall is erected.
The Bay of Pigs Invasion, an attempt by United States-trained Cuban exiles to invade Cuba and overthrow Fidel Castro, fails.
1962
Lawrence of Arabia, Academy Award-winning film starring Peter O’Toole, premiered.
British Beatlemania: The Beatles become the world’s most famous rock band.
Ole Miss: Southern segregationists rioted over the enrollment of black student James Meredith at the University of Mississippi.
John Glenn flew the first American manned orbital mission termed “Friendship 7”.
Liston beats Patterson: Sonny Liston knocks out rarely defeated Floyd Patterson in the first round of the world heavyweight boxing championship.
1963
Pope Paul VI becomes pope when Cardinal Giovanni Montini is elected to the title.
Malcolm X incites controversy, including his statement that “the chickens have come home to roost” about John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
British politician sex: British Secretary of State for War John Profumo has a scandalous sexual relationship with showgirl Christine Keeler.
JFK blown away: President John F. Kennedy is assassinated.
1965
Birth control: Griswold v. Connecticut challenges a Connecticut law prohibiting contraceptives.
Ho Chi Minh: Operation Rolling Thunder begins, with the first U.S. combat troops deployed in South Vietnam in opposition to North Vietnamese president Ho Chi Minh.
1968
Richard Nixon back again: After losing to Kennedy in 1960, former Vice President Nixon is elected President in 1968.
1969
Moonshot: Apollo 11 becomes the first successful human landing on the Moon.
Woodstock music festival attracts 400,000, as a touchstone of the counterculture movement.
1972–1975
Watergate: The Republican burglary of the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters at the Watergate office complex leads to the resignation of President Nixon.
Punk rock: Raucous bands such as The Ramones and the Sex Pistols are founded.
1976–1977
(Note: an item from 1976 is put between items from 1977 to make the song scan better.)
Menachem Begin becomes Prime Minister of Israel and negotiates the Camp David Accords with Egypt’s president.
Ronald Reagan, former governor of California, begins his US presidential campaign in 1976, and is elected in 1980.
Palestine: The ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict escalates as Israelis establish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Terror on the airline: Numerous aircraft hijackings take place, including an Air France flight diverted to Uganda, where the plane was stormed in Operation Entebbe.
1979
Ayatollahs in Iran: The Iranian Revolution replaces secular Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi with Islamic rule by Ayatollahs led by former exile Ruhollah Khomeini.
Russians in Afghanistan: The Soviet Union deploys its army into Afghanistan, beginning a decade-long war.
1981–1982
Wheel of Fortune, an American television game show, hires Pat Sajak and Vanna White before becoming widely popular in syndication.
1983
Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space by flying aboard Challenger on the STS-7 shuttle mission.
Heavy metal suicide: Heavy metal songs such as “Suicide Solution” and “Better By You, Better Than Me” are blamed by the families of fans who committed suicide.
Foreign debts: Persistent trade and budget deficits lead to numerous countries defaulting on their debts.
Homeless vets: Veterans of the Vietnam War, including many disabled in the service, are becoming homeless and impoverished.
AIDS: The immunodeficiency disease caused by HIV emerges as a pandemic.
1984
Crack cocaine became a widely used form of the drug in impoverished inner cities.
Bernie Goetz shoots four young black men he claimed were trying to mug him on a New York City subway, but is cleared of attempted murder charges.
1988
Hypodermics on the shore: Medical waste was found washed up on the beaches of Long Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut after being illegally dumped at sea.
1989
China’s under martial law: China declares martial law, resulting in the use of military forces against protesting students to end the Tiananmen protests.
Rock-and-roller cola wars: Soft drink giants Coke and Pepsi each run marketing campaigns using rock & roll and popular music stars
Geraldine
Bruce Springsteen – Born in the U.S.A.
“Born in the USA” Bruce Springsteen wrote this song in 1984 and it’s about the problems Vietnam veterans encountered when they returned to America. Vietnam was the first war the US didn’t win, and while the veterans of other wars received a hero’s welcome, those who fought in Vietnam were mostly ignored when they returned to their homeland.
Many thought it was an uncomplicated celebration of patriotism. It was not and Springsteen requested Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole and Pat Buchanan to stop playing the song at their rallies. In 1990 The Boss started performing a dour, acoustic version of this 1984 track at shows in order to more clearly convey its antiwar sentiment.
Esther
Randy Newman “Louisiana 1927”
Although Newman was born in Los Angeles, he grew up in Louisiana and wrote this slow, sombre ballad about the great flood in 1974. But 21 years later another, similarly terrible natural disaster in the form of Hurricane Katrina hit the Deep South, and Newman’s song was adopted as an unofficial anthem. He performed it in a television fundraiser on September 9, 2005, and it is now indelibly associated with two of the Deep South’s greatest tragedies.
In a September 2008 interview with The Village Voice, he was asked if he would be playing it at every show until he retired. He replied: “I wouldn’t have, because it’s the same tune as ‘Sail Away’ and it’s not quite as good a song maybe. But yeah, I do. I figure I’ll be playing it now because people want to hear it.”
Liezel
Nina Simone: Mississippi Goddam
I have to admit, I’ve always, always had a soft spot for Nina Simone. What a matriarch, trailblazer and her voice is velvet.
Mississippi Goddam captures Simone’s response to the racially motivated murders of Emmett Till and Medgar Evers in Mississippi, and the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four black children.[3] On the recording, she sarcastically announces the song as “a show tune, but the show hasn’t been written for it yet.” The song begins jauntily, with a show tune feel, but demonstrates its political focus early on with its refrain “Alabama’s got me so upset, Tennessee’s made me lose my rest, and everybody knows about Mississippi goddam.” In the song, she says: “They keep on sayin’ ‘go slow’ … to do things gradually would bring more tragedy. Why don’t you see it? Why don’t you feel it? I don’t know, I don’t know. You don’t have to live next to me, just give me my equality!”
Zosia
And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda ~ Eric Bogle
In 1915, during WW1 Britain, France and Russia sent forces to fight the Ottoman Empire to take control of the Turkish Straits in order to defeat the Turks and secure the Suez Canal. The Australian and New Zealand soldiers were training in North Africa for fighting in France. Instead, they were taken as the main force to fight the Turks in Gallipoli. Both sides had heavy losses with the Anzac deaths at 11,000 and 23, casualties. Each side suffered 250,000 casualties. This song is dedicated to the Anzac men
Lynda
Sunday Bloody Sunday (Live From Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Colorado, USA / 1983)
“Sunday Bloody Sunday” is a song by Irish rock band U2. One of U2’s most overtly political songs, it’s lyrics describe the horror felt by an observer of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, mainly focusing on the 1972 Bloody Sunday incident in Derry where British troops shot and killed unarmed civil rights protesters.