Teenage Tragedy Songs
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Teenage Tragedy Songs
A teenage tragedy song is a style of ballad in popular music that peaked in popularity in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Examples of the style are also known as "tear jerkers", "death discs" or "splatter platters", among other colorful sobriquets coined by DJs that then passed into vernacular as the songs became popular. Often lamenting teenage death scenarios in melodramatic fashion, these songs were usually sung from the viewpoint of the dead person's sweetheart, as in "Last Kiss" (1961), or another witness to the tragedy, or the dead (or dying) person. Other examples include " Teen Angel" by Mark Dinning (1959), " Tell Laura I Love Her" by Ray Peterson (1960), " Ebony Eyes" by the Everly Brothers (1961), "Dead Man's Curve" by Jan and Dean (1964), and " Leader of the Pack" by the Shangri-Las (1964). The genre's popularity faded around 1965 (as a mostly American phenomenon, it was one of many musical formats that were drowned out by the British Invasion), but inspired a host of ...
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Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Europe, and later in Australia, North Africa, North America and South America. Ballads are often 13 lines with an ABABBCBC form, consisting of couplets (two lines) of rhymed verse, each of 14 syllables. Another common form is ABAB or ABCB repeated, in alternating eight and six syllable lines. Many ballads were written and sold as single sheet broadsides. The form was often used by poets and composers from the 18th century onwards to produce lyrical ballads. In the later 19th century, the term took on the meaning of a slow form of popular love song and is often used for any love song, particularly the sentimental ballad of pop or roc ...
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The Kingston Trio
The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to the late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, and Nick Reynolds. It rose to international popularity fueled by unprecedented sales of LP records and helped alter the direction of popular music in the U.S. The Kingston Trio was one of the most prominent groups of the era's folk-pop boom, which they kick-started in 1958 with the release of the Trio's eponymous first album and its hit recording of " Tom Dooley", which became a number one hit and sold over three million copies as a single. The Trio released nineteen albums that made ''Billboard''s Top 100, fourteen of which ranked in the top 10, and five of which hit the number 1 spot. Four of the group's LPs charted among the 10 top-selling albums for five weeks in November and December 1959, a record unmatched for more than 50 years, ...
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Reparata And The Delrons
Reparata and the Delrons were an American girl group. They are best known for their 1965 recordings "Whenever a Teenager Cries" and "Tommy", for the 1968 European hit " Captain of Your Ship" and for Reparata's 1975 solo hit "Shoes". History 1962-1965: Early years The group started out as a five-piece high school harmony group called the Delrons, formed in 1962 at St. Brendan's Catholic School in Brooklyn, New York by the lead singer Mary Aiese. The other original members included Nanette Licari, Regina Gallagher and Ann Fitzgerald, but they were soon replaced by Sheila Reilly, Carol Drobnicki and Kathy Romeo. Romeo was replaced by Marge McGuire, but McGuire herself then left the group. All eight girls graduated St Brendan's in the Class of 1964. As a trio, Aiese, O'Reilly and Drobnicki were spotted by record producers Bill and Steve Jerome. They asked Mary Aiese to choose a stage name to make the group name more interesting and marketable. She chose Reparata, her confirmation nam ...
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Girl Group
A girl group is a music act featuring several female singers who generally harmonize together. The term "girl group" is also used in a narrower sense in the United States to denote the wave of American female pop music singing groups, many of whom were influenced by doo-wop and which flourished in the late 1950s and early 1960s between the decline of early rock and roll and start of the British Invasion. All-female bands, in which members also play instruments, are usually considered a separate phenomenon. These groups are sometimes called "girl bands" to differentiate, although this terminology is not universally followed. With the advent of the music industry and radio broadcasting, a number of girl groups emerged, such as the Andrews Sisters. The late 1950s saw the emergence of all-female singing groups as a major force, with 750 distinct girl groups releasing songs that reached US and UK music charts from 1960 to 1966. The Supremes alone held 12 number-one singles on ...
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Star-crossed
"Star-crossed" or "star-crossed lovers" is a phrase describing a pair of lovers who, for some external reason, cannot be together. The term also has other meanings, but originally means that the pairing is being "thwarted by a malign star" or that the stars are working against the relationship.Levenson (ed.), Jill L. (2000). Romeo and Juliet, The Oxford Shakespeare (Oxford World's Classics). Oxford: Oxford University Press. page 142 . Astrological in origin, the phrase stems from the belief that the positions of the stars ruled over people's fates, and is best known from the play ''Romeo and Juliet'' by the Elizabethan playwright William Shakespeare. Such pairings are often said to be doomed from the start. Definitions The phrase was coined in the prologue of Shakespeare's ''Romeo and Juliet'': It also refers to destiny and the inevitability of the two characters' paths crossing. It usually but not always refers to ''unlucky'' outcomes, since Romeo and Juliet's affair ended ...
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Trope (literature)
A literary trope is the use of figurative language, via word, phrase or an image, for artistic effect such as using a figure of speech. Keith and Lundburg describe a trope as, "a substitution of a word or phrase by a less literal word or phrase." The word ''trope'' has also come to be used for describing commonly recurring or overused literary and rhetorical devices, motifs or clichés in creative works. Literary tropes span almost every category of writing, such as poetry, film, plays, and video games. Origins The term ''trope'' derives from the Greek (''tropos''), "turn, direction, way", derived from the verb τρέπειν (''trepein''), "to turn, to direct, to alter, to change". Tropes and their classification were an important field in classical rhetoric. The study of tropes has been taken up again in modern criticism, especially in deconstruction. Tropological criticism (not to be confused with tropological reading, a type of biblical exegesis) is the historical study ...
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James Dean
James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931September 30, 1955) was an American actor. He is remembered as a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, '' Rebel Without a Cause'' (1955), in which he starred as troubled teenager Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his stardom were loner Cal Trask in '' East of Eden'' (1955) and surly ranch hand Jett Rink in '' Giant'' (1956). After his death in a car crash on September 30, 1955, Dean became the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his role in ''East of Eden''. Upon receiving a second nomination for his role in ''Giant'' the following year, Dean became the only actor to have had two posthumous acting nominations. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him the 18th best male movie star of Golden Age Hollywood in AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list. Early life and education James Byron Dean was born on Februar ...
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Jerry Leiber And Mike Stoller
Lyricist Jerome Leiber (April 25, 1933 – August 22, 2011) and composer Michael Stoller (born March 13, 1933) were American songwriting and record producing partners. They found success as the writers of such crossover hit songs as " Hound Dog" (1952) and "Kansas City" (1952). Later in the 1950s, particularly through their work with The Coasters, they created a string of ground-breaking hits—including " Young Blood" (1957), " Searchin'" (1957), and "Yakety Yak" (1958)—that used the humorous vernacular of teenagers sung in a style that was openly theatrical rather than personal. Leiber and Stoller wrote hits for Elvis Presley, including " Love Me" (1956), " Jailhouse Rock" (1957), " Loving You", " Don't", and " King Creole". They also collaborated with other writers on such songs as " On Broadway", written with Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil; " Stand By Me", written with Ben E. King; "Young Blood", written with Doc Pomus; and "Spanish Harlem", co-written by Leiber and Phil Spect ...
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Black Denim Trousers And Motorcycle Boots
"Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots" is a song by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Recorded by The Cheers, it went to #6 on the ''Billboard'' Best Selling singles chart in the fall of 1955, becoming Leiber and Stoller's first top ten pop hit. Veteran performer Vaughn Monroe covered the record, going to #38 on the Billboard charts; the song also rose to a top-10 chart appearance on the ''Cash Box'' chart (which counted songs, not records, and thus counted all cover versions of a song as one). In 1956, French chanteuse Edith Piaf recorded a French translation of the song titled "L'Homme à la moto," which became one of her biggest selling singles. The song tells the story of a motorcycle rider, described as "the terror of Highway 101," and his loyal but oft-neglected girlfriend Mary Lou. In the song she pleads with him not to ride one night: "I've got a feeling if you ride tonight I'll grieve" she tells him, but he ignores her and "hit a screamin' diesel that was Californ ...
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Running Bear
"Running Bear" is a teenage tragedy song written by Jiles Perry Richardson (a.k.a. The Big Bopper) and sung most famously by Johnny Preston in 1959. The 1959 recording featured background vocals by George Jones and the session's producer Bill Hall, who provided the "Indian chanting" of "uga-uga" during the three verses, as well as the "Indian war cries" at the start and end of the record. It was No. 1 for three weeks in January 1960 on the '' ''Billboard'' Hot 100'' in the United States. The song also reached No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart and New Zealand in 1960. Coincidentally, "Running Bear" was immediately preceded in the Hot 100 No. 1 position by Marty Robbins' "El Paso", and immediately followed by Mark Dinning's " Teen Angel", both of which feature a death of, or affecting, the protagonist. ''Billboard'' ranked "Running Bear" as the No. 4 song of 1960. The tenor saxophone was played by Link Davis. Richardson was a friend of Preston and offered "Running Bear" to him aft ...
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El Paso (song)
"El Paso" is a western ballad written and originally recorded by Marty Robbins, and first released on '' Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs'' in September 1959. It was released as a single the following month, and became a major hit on both the country and pop music charts, reaching No. 1 in both at the start of 1960 (the first No. 1 hit of the 1960s). It won the Grammy Award for Best Country & Western Recording in 1961. It is widely considered a genre classic for its gripping narrative which ends in the death of its protagonist, its shift from past to present tense, haunting harmonies by vocalists Bobby Sykes and Jim Glaser (of the Glaser Brothers) and the eloquent and varied Spanish guitar accompaniment by Grady Martin that lends the recording a distinctive Tex-Mex feel. The name of the character Feleena was based upon a schoolmate of Robbins in the fifth grade, Fidelina Martinez. Members of the Western Writers of America chose "El Paso" as one of the Top 100 Western so ...
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Marty Robbins
Martin David Robinson (September 26, 1925 – December 8, 1982), known professionally as Marty Robbins, was an American singer, songwriter, actor, multi-instrumentalist, and NASCAR racing driver. Robbins was one of the most popular and successful country and western singers for most of his nearly four-decade career, which spanned from the late 1940s to the early 1980s. He was also an early outlaw country pioneer. Born in Glendale, Arizona, Robbins taught himself guitar while serving in the United States Navy during World War II, and subsequently drew fame performing in clubs in and around his hometown. In 1952, he released his first No. 1 country song, " I'll Go On Alone". Four years later, he released his second No.1 hit “Singing the Blues”, and one year later, released two more No. 1 hits, " A White Sport Coat" and "The Story of My Life". In 1959, Robbins released his signature song, " El Paso", for which he won the Grammy Award for Best Country & Western Recording. ...
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