Using songs to remember important events in our cultural history

Just heard this song and it always brings tears.  I don't suppose many people are still alive who remember the plane crash.  But I have great affection for songs that keep events alive in our memories.

And another famous crash

Not a crash this time, but just as sad

Well, Gordon Lightfoot's "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" probably qualifies. The US families were scandalized that a Canadian capitalized on their loss with a hit song. Except he immortalized these 29 men on an industrial freighter who otherwise would have been instantly forgotten. This the power of the artist, who puts the moment that matters right in our face, and lets us remember through time.

Aside: It might be helpful to define "our cultural history." These are trying times as you might know.

Music transends boundries and with so many ways to communicate in this day and age, I like the broader, more inclusive sense of "our culture".

My friends kids are getting into their buddy holly phase, and the song about how he parished lead them to learn about the big bopper and  ritchie valens.  That's the value of songs keeping history alive.  I kind of like that.

Shipwrecks eh?

I play this one when I'm struggling with a task.  It's a hopeful shipwreck.

I know a few such songs. Maybe one of the most notable is "Wildfire" by Watchhouse (formerly Mandolin Orange)

"The Day the Mississippi Died" by Gillian Welch & David Rawlings--a song about climate change and our time in history. The Mississippi running dry, and frustration with society as being too polarized to do anything about it.

From the same album is Hashtag, a song for Guy Clark.

Two questions -- a) does it have to be an "event" or can it be a moment? And b) does it count if the video is just about required to unpack the full context of the song's referents?

Spangled by Fust. This sounds like something that happened. Maybe people in the area would be more familiar. And probably has happened a lot!



They tore down the hospital
Out on Route 11
I'm not sure what happened
Seems like repossession
And I'm not one to try to get
All the way to heaven
But now I can't even visit
The last place it was relevant
Now I can't even visit
The last room I may have been in it
So give my love to Amy, give my love to Kevin
They tore down the hospital
And I'm left floating in room 305
I'm floating forever, 305


They say the night gets spangled
When you can't get еnough to drink
Well I've been drinking
So the night looks spanglеd to me
Yeah I'm feeling pretty spangled
I'm feeling pretty blue
Off a bridge on VA-305
In the Shenandoah
In the Shenandoah
Up in that north country blue
Yeah I'm feeling pretty spangled
I'm feeling like heaven
I'm feeling like a sparkler
That's been thrown off a roof
And I'm left floating off VA-305
I'm floating forever, 305

Well the rain is hard and it pools up
Pools up hard in a septic ditch
But not enough to drown me out
So I'm left looking up at this
At these stars spangled
Wondering who's the god of that sky
And who's the god of memory?
And what kind of kids did they kid?
And can they make it rain a little more
Fill this ditch up to the brink
Cause I'm not trying to spend my final days
In a Shenandoah precinct
Precinct 305
I'm left floating off VA-305
I'm floating forever, 305

Rugby is an exceedingly important event in Wales...



The lyrics get modified occasionally. This is not the version I remember as a kid!

Escudilla, from Briscoe’s new album, about the last grizzly bear of Escudilla mountain.



Here is a more recent article about it: https://rewilding.org/escudilla-aldo-leopold-and-restoring-grizzlies-to-the-southwest/

Aldo Leopold also wrote an essay on it, “Escudilla”. I have not yet read it but hope to soon.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Well, Gordon Lightfoot's "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" probably qualifies.  

An American Group, Home Free, just put out their version of it a few weeks ago.



I read that locals (not sure which side of the border) were even more upset when someone sent a submersible down to look at and go into the wreck. They considered it a grave and didn't want it disturbed.