Because I want to do a Top Ten Songs About The 80s in a few weeks time, and because I'm a saddo list-compiler completist, I first had to go back further, to the dawn of rock 'n' roll. Just be glad I couldn't find enough songs about the 30s or 40s... or the 1800s.
To be clear - this isn't my favourite songs FROM the fifties... all these tracks were released much later. It's just a list of tracks that recall that mythical decade in one way or another...
10. Ronnie Milsap - Lost In The 50s Tonight
It's crass music journo shorthand to call Ronnie Milsap the "country Stevie Wonder" just because he's blind... so I won't.
This song was recorded in 1985... yet it could easily have come from thirty years earlier.
9. Patti Smith - 1959
I like Patti Smith. Horses? Great album. That one with Because The Night on? Even better. Let's face it, there are those who believe Morrissey and Marr named their band after her... so really, who am I to be critical?
However...
This song does contain the following lyric...
Wisdom was a teapot
Pouring from above.
???
8. The Police - Born In The 50s
OK, Sting, here's the problem. You call your song Born In The 50s, yet all your lyrics refer to events that took place in the 60s.
My mother cried
When president Kennedy died
She said it was the communists
But I knew better
Also, it seems Sting knew exactly who shot JFK... even when he was a little kid. Pity the Warren Commission didn't just ask li'l Gordon. And what's more...
They screamed
When the Beatles sang
And they laughed when the King fell down the stairs
Oh they should've known better
Oh we hated our Aunts
Then we messed in our pants
I swear I'm not making these lyrics up. I take back everything I said about Patti Smith's teapot.
7. Dion - Queen of '59
From the album Streetheart, which came bundled up on CD with its far superior (Phil Spector produced) predecessor, Born To Be With You, this is a nice little duet with Phil Everly, written about Dion's wife Susan. Damned if I can find it anywhere on the internet though.
6. Tom Waits - Ol' 55
Tom Waits takes his vintage automobile out for a spin. I have no idea what sort of car this would be, but I want to say Buick. Apparently the Eagles covered this track, but Tom wasn't too impressed, calling their version "antiseptic". But then, he hates the fucking Eagles, man.
5. The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound
You ain't supposed to die on a Saturday night, not even for making a career out of impersonating the E Street Band.
4. Beach Boys - Disney Girls (1957)
A nostalgic ode from Beach Boy Bruce Johnson, released in the 70s when the 50s already felt like a golden age. I'm not sure how much of this is American Happy Days mythologising (certainly Britain in the 50s doesn't look half as appealing with hindsight) but you can hear in this song exactly why Marty McFly had to go back there.
3. Morrissey - Munich Air Disaster 1958
As if to prove my point about Britain, here's Morrissey with a song dedicated to the Manchester United team killed on their way home from Germany. In black and white, no doubt.
2. Billy Joel - We Didn't Start The Fire
Some may question this track's inclusion. To them I say: compile your own list. This infamous 80s list song begins in the year of Joel's birth, 1949, but spends more of its time in the 50s than it does in the 60s, 70s or 80s... as illustrated in this excessively detailed guide to every single lyric.
We Didn't Start The Fire was released at the height of my teenage Joel-mania, when I really should have been listening to the Smiths... but wasn't. I still love it, even the bit where he obviously can't think of a rhyme for "JFK blown away". He should have asked Sting.
1. Richard Thompson - 1952 Black Lightning
A wonderful story about Richard Thompson's favourite motorcycle, and the heartbreaking romance it inspires. Would also likely make Number One in my Top Ten Motorbike Songs... if I ever get round to that.
Said Red Molly to James that's a fine motorbike
A girl could feel special on any such like
Said James to Red Molly, well my hat's off to you
It's a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952
And I've seen you at the corners and cafes it seems
Red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme
And he pulled her on behind
And down to Box Hill they did ride
So... do you remember any songs about the 50s? Or are you all too young?
