Ten Historically Accurate Songs

I am a big, big fan of ballads. Not surprisingly, a fair number of ballads are written about historic events and historical people. You may have noticed that I sometimes pepper my posts with links to such songs including "Maryland, My Maryland" and "Comanche the Brave Horse". Today, I bring you ten of the most historically accurate songs about historic events. As always, there is no particular order to the list and videos have been provided for your toetapping (occassionally) convenience.

Ten Historically Accurate Songs

1) "My Name is Emmett Till" preformed by Emmylou Harris. Tells the story of Emmett Till, a fourteen year old black boy murdered in the deep South and how his death spurred the Civil Rights Movement.

2) "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" performed by Priscilla Herdman. (For a truly beautiful rendition of the Australian folk song "Waltzing Matilda" see Andre Rieu's performance.) Tells the story of Australian soldiers during World War One.

3) "Richmond is a Hard Road to Travel" performed by the 2nd South Carolina (to be fair, this was written during  the Union Army's attempts to get to Richmond, so it darn well better be accurate!)

4) "I Was Only 19" performed by Redgum. Tells the story of the conflict in Vietnam and the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that followed my soldiers home.

5) "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" performed by Johnny Cash...pretty much speaks for itself.

6) "Sixteen Tons" performed by Tennessee Ernie Ford. Tells the story of coal workers in the early 20th century.

7) "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" performed by U2. Tells the story of police opening fire on peaceful protestors in Ireland in 1972.

8) "American Skin (41 Shots)" performed by Bruce Springsteen. This song has a good deal of controversy surrounding it and I'm not taking sides. The fact of the matter is, what happened, happened and Springsteen tells an accurate story. Personally, I see the event as a tragic accident.

From Springsteenlyrics.net: "AMERICAN SKIN (41 SHOTS) was inspired from the incident that took place on 04 Feb 1999, when four white New York City plainclothes police officers (Richard Murphy, Kenneth Boss, Sean Carroll, and Edward McMellon) shot dead Amadou Diallo, a 22 year old black West African immigrant. The four men suspected Diallo to match the profile of a rapist that had committed crimes in the area (Bronx) then, and when he tried to pull out what they later found out to be his wallet (which they presumed to be a gun), they opened fire, "41 shots", 19 of which hit the target. The officers were later tried for murder, but were found innocent by the jury. The verdict was not welcomed by many groups which created an atmosphere of tension in the city."

9) "Run To The Hills" performed by Iron Maiden. Tells the story of the American Indians fight against the immigrants.

10) "Ra Ra Rasputin" performed by Boney M. Once you over look the extremely 70's slang and remember that these songs are rated on historical accuracy and not extreme catchiness, "Ra Ra Rasputin" is surprisingly accurate.

BONUS



11) "We Didn't Start the Fire" performed by Billy Joel. Included as a bonus since it tells of approximately 120 events between 1949 and 1989...but, dang, it's good.