Favourite line/s in song about historical figure/event?

[nightowl]

My all-time favourite...

Ra-ra-Rasputin
Lover of the Russian queen
There was a cat that really was gone

 

[DotCommunist]

Whatever happened to leon trotsky?

Where have you gone joe dimagio?

 

[stavros]

"I’m off to see the Bootleg Beatles, as the bootleg Mark Chapman.”

 

[Wookey]

At Waterloo, Napoleon did surrender
Oh, yeah
And I have met my destiny in quite a similar way
The history book on the shelf
Is always repeating itself

*I take no responsibility for historical accuracy, blame Abba.

 

[SpookyFrank]

'I laughed, when Lennon got shot'

 

[mojo pixy]

I made a song that references enclosure of the commons and the creation of the working class.

The first half goes...

There was a time in ancient history (no mystery)
When no-one owned most of the world (wild and free)
Then I fenced off some private property (and put up a sign)
And paid a guard to keep you out (this is mine!)

Gave to my children (and they to theirs)
Neighbours, I kill them (more for my heirs)
And people in the territory I enclose,
They can work for me or else away they go –
If I can’t use their labour, I’ll sell them to a slaver.

 

[DotCommunist]

the entirety of billy joels 'we didn't start the fire'

 

[DotCommunist]

Now I know how joan of arc felt, as the flames rose to her roman nose and her walkman started to melt.

 

[hitmouse]

My all-time favourite...

Ra-ra-Rasputin
Lover of the Russian queen
There was a cat that really was gone

There's a fantastic coincidence, I got to dance to that song in the street on my lunch break today!

Anyway, had a bit of a think, and I think my all-time favourite historical reference in a song has to be A Private Understanding by Protomartyr:


Elvis outside of Flagstaff
Driving a camper van
Looking for meaning in a cloud mass
Sees the face of Joseph Stalin
And is disheartened
Then the wind changed the cloud into his smiling Lord
And he was affected profoundly
But he could never describe the feeling
He passed away on the bathroom floor

Which sounds like it's obviously made up, but is apparently real, Elvis really did claim to have been driving a van outside Flagstaff when he saw the face of Joseph Stalin in a cloud that then changed into Jesus.

Other than that, I like how many historical references Rancid have in their songs, I respect that their first album has a song about the strike wave of 1934 that included the San Francisco dock strike that developed into a general strike along with the Toledo Auto-Lite and Minneapolis Teamsters strikes. You don't hear many songs referencing the 1934 Toledo strike nowadays:

 

[hitmouse]

Positive Jam by the Hold Steady manages to pack a lot of history into it:

 

[Orang Utan]

“I looked at the place where me legs used to be
And thank Christ there was nobody waiting for me
To grieve and to mourn and to pity
And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As they carried us down the gangway
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared
And they turned all their faces away”

And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda - Eric Bogle (June Tabor sings it best)

 

[JimW]

Woody Guthrie's Ludlow Massacre is a hell of a song, know Dick Gaughan's version best, though not sure if that counts as a reference.

The state soldiers jumped us at the wire fence corner
They did not know that we had these guns
And us red neck miners mowed down them troopers
You should have seen those poor boys run

We took some cement and walled that cave up
Where you killed those thirteen children inside
I said, "God bless the Mine Workers' Union"
And then I hung my head and cried.

 

[Monte]

He got an ice pick
That made his ears burn

 

[petee]

Where have you gone joe dimagio?

our nation turns its lonely eyes to you...

turns out he was a bit of a prick.

 

[hitmouse]

Gertrude Stein, Marlon Riggs, Billie Jean King, Ut, DJ Cuttin Candy
David Wojnarowicz, Melissa York, Nina Simone, Ann Peebles, Tami Hart
The Slits, Hanin Elias, Hazel Dickens, Cathy Sissler, Shirley Muldowney
Urvashi Vaid, Valie Export, Cathy Opie, James Baldwin
Diane Dimassa, Aretha Franklin, Joan Jett, Mia X, Krystal Wakem
Kara Walker, Justin Bond, Bridget Irish, Juliana Lueking
Cecelia Dougherty, woo! Ariel Schrag, The Need, Vaginal Creme Davis
Alice Gerard, Billy Tipton, Julie Doucet, Yayoi Kusama, Eileen Myles

 

[mx wcfc]

"One Charles was enough"

Attila The Stockbroker's Barnstormer.

I'm sure there are more.

 

[ElizabethofYork]

Noel Coward was a charmer
As a writer he was Brahma
Velvet jackets and pyjamas
A gay divorce and other dramas

There ain't half been some clever bastards

 

[hitmouse]

Noel Coward was a charmer
As a writer he was Brahma
Velvet jackets and pyjamas
A gay divorce and other dramas

There ain't half been some clever bastards

Einstein can't be classed as witless
He claimed atoms were the littlest
When you did a bit of splitting-em-ness
Frightened everybody shitless

 

[AverageJoe]

Not sure this counts as he's still alive but even so...

Punk's dead
Punk's dead
'Cause of you, punk's dead
And to think I believed in all that shit that you said
Johnny Rotten is turning in his bed
I was gonna say grave, but the fucker ain't dead

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

 

[Mrs Miggins]

There seems to be a few Simon & Garfunkel references so....

So long
Frank Lloyd Wright
I can't believe your song is gone so soon
[Edit]
Architects may come and architects may go and never change your point of view
When I run dry
I'll stop a while and think of you


Are there any other songs about architects? I don't think I've heard another.