History Main / TeenageDeathSongs

* The well-forgotten "Run, Joey, Run" by David Geddes (1975) about a teenage affair that ends tragically when the girl gets pregnant and her father gets pissed and tries to kill her boyfriend, only for her to [[TakingTheBullet take the bullet for him]].

* "Janie's Got A Gun" by Music/{{Aerosmith}} (1989). Girl gets violent revenge after years of ParentalIncest.

* "The Bridge" by Music/DollyParton, cuts off abruptly because the narrator throws herself off the titular bridge, where she first met the lover who's now abandoned her. While the narrator isn't explicitly said to be a teenager, the way she describes TheirFirstTime, and the fact where she's committing suicide over being pregnant and alone, certainly implies it.

* "Timothy" by The Buoys (1970). The narrator is trapped in a mine with Joe and Timothy. [[spoiler:They kill and eat Timothy in order to survive.]] Allegedly the band insisted that Timothy was only a mule [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar in order to be allowed to record the song.]]

* Music/BlueOysterCult's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" (1976) deals with death and afterlife itself and touches on the story of Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet (who were both fifteen in Creator/WilliamShakespeare's play).

* "Travelin' Soldier" by The Dixie Chicks. Another Vietnam War entry. The titular (deceased) soldier had just turned eighteen.

** His most famous song is without a doubt "Endless Sleep"(1957). Reynolds based this partly on Music/ElvisPresley's "Heartbreak Hotel". A girl tries to drown herself in the ocean after a fight with her lover, but he rescues her. Technically nobody dies, but because the chorus says "Come join me, baby, in my endless sleep" many people think this is the original Death Rock song. It was banned in England because it seemed to invite kids to commit suicide.

* Main/Rockabilly singer Jody Reynolds wrote a lot of songs like this:

* "Endless Sleep" by Jody Reynolds (1957). Reynolds based this partly on Music/ElvisPresley's "Heartbreak Hotel". A girl tries to drown herself in the ocean after a fight with her lover, but he rescues her. Technically nobody dies, but because the chorus says "Come join me, baby, in my endless sleep" many people think this is the original Death Rock song. It was banned in England because it seemed to invite kids to commit suicide.
** Reynolds continued to use this trope in a lot of his songs. "Don't Jump" (1963) involves a girl about to commit suicide while her lover pleads her not to; "The Girl From King Marie" (1963) is about a man who frequents the spot where his lover had died from being struck by lightning; "Where the Woodbine Twines" (1964) is about a girl who hangs herself because her lover does not want to marry her, with him only finding out about her demise after changing his mind and returning to the woods to find her.
** This may have been one of the inspirations behind Music/PattiSmith's "Redondo Beach" (1975).

* "Endless Sleep" by Jody Reynolds (1958). Reynolds based this partly on Music/ElvisPresley's "Heartbreak Hotel". A girl tries to drown herself in the ocean after a fight with her lover, but he rescues her. Technically nobody dies, but because the chorus says "Come join me, baby, in my endless sleep" many people think this is the original Death Rock song. It was banned in England because it seemed to invite kids to commit suicide.

* The [[UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}} Columbine High School massacre]], as one of the most famous examples of the kind of tragedy described by this trope happening for real, proved to be a major font of such songs in the late '90s and '00s.

* “Hello, My Name Is Joannie,” Paul Evans(1978): Joannie and her boyfriend argue at his place, and she drives away in anger. The next morning, he calls to apologize, and leaves a message on her answering machine. When his phone rings, it’s not Joannie, but a mutual friend breaking the news that she’d died in a car crash the night before. So he dials her number just so he can hear her voice on the machine.

* "Three Stars" by Music/EddieCochran (1959), commemorating the deaths of Music/RichieValens (who was 17 at the time), Music/BuddyHolly and J.P. Richardson a.k.a Music/TheBigBopper in an airplane accident. The pilot, Roger Peterson, was hardly 20 himself.

* "Nightmare" by the Whyte Boots (1967). The protagonist fights another girl who stole her boyfriend and accidental death results.

* "Bat Out Of Hell"

* “Hello, My Name Is Joannie,” Pail Evans(1978): Joannie and her boyfriend argue at his place, and she drives away in anger. The next morning, he calls to apologize, and leaves a message on her answering machine. When his phone rings, it’s not Joannie, but a mutual friend breaking the news that she’d died in a car crash the night before. So he dials her number just so he can hear her voice on the machine.

* Hello, My Name Is Joannie,” Pail Evans(1978): Joannie and her boyfriend argue at his place, and she drives away in anger. The next morning, he calls to apologize, and leaves a message on her answering machine. When his phone rings, it’s not Joannie, but a mutual friend breaking the news that she’d died in a car crash the night before. So he dials her number just so he can hear her voice on the machine.

** Music/NicoleDollanganger's ''Columbine'' EP (2013), featuring covers of "Pumped Up Kicks" and two Music/MarilynManson songs ("The Nobodies" and "The Reflecting God"). Her song "Rampage" off of her 2014 album ''Observatory Mansions'' also samples Eric Harris' home movies and the documentary ''Zero Hour: Massacre at Columbine High'', and uses Harris and Dylan Klebold's {{Monster Fangirl}}s as a metaphor for people trapped in [[DomesticAbuse abusive relationships]], thinking that their abusers can be redeemed through ThePowerOfLove.

** Music/NicoleDollanganger's ''Columbine'' EP (2013), featuring covers of "Pumped Up Kicks" and two Music/MarilynManson songs ("The Nobodies" and "The Reflecting God"). Her 2013 song "Rampage" also samples Eric Harris' home movies and the documentary ''Zero Hour: Massacre at Columbine High'', and uses Harris and Dylan Klebold's {{Monster Fangirl}}s as a metaphor for people trapped in [[DomesticAbuse abusive relationships]], thinking that their abusers can be redeemed through ThePowerOfLove.

* "Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots" (1955) by the Cheers, may be the prototype death rock song, as well as the inspiration for "Leader of the Pack" a decade later. It was popular enough to have a parody, Dodie Stevens' 1959 "Pink Shoelaces".

* [[Music/HalfManHalfBiscuit]] have "The Coroner's Footnote", a more traditional teen death song involving a love triangle and a speeding train, and "Excavating Rita", which vaguely mentions a death caused by carbon monoxide and focuses more on [[ILoveTheDead what Rita did next]].

** Cassie Bernall, one of the victims, was the subject of a number of songs by [[ChristianRock Christian musicians]], most notably "This Is Your Time" by Michael W. Smith (1999) and "Cassie" by Music/{{Flyleaf}} (2005), based on an {{urban legend|s}} surrounding her death. It was claimed that her killer, before shooting her, asked her if she believed in God, to which she replied "yes" and died for her faith.[[note]]This incident actually happened to [[https://columbine.wikia.org/wiki/Valeen_Schnurr Valeen Schnurr,]] who was wounded in the shooting but survived. By her account, after Dylan Klebold shot her, she cried out "oh my God, help me!", prompting Klebold to ask "do you believe in God?". After she said "yes", Klebold asked her why while calling God gay, and then walked away after she said it was because her family was Christian. Reportedly, Klebold and Eric Harris asked several students the same question, and their answers had little bearing on whether or not they got shot.[[/note]]

** Cassie Bernall, one of the victims, was the subject of a number of songs by [[ChristianRock Christian musicians]], most notably "This Is Your Time" by Michael W. Smith (1999) and "Cassie" by Music/{{Flyleaf}} (2005), based on an {{urban legend|s}} surrounding her death. It was claimed that her killer, before shooting her, asked her if she believed in God, to which she replied "yes" and died for her faith.[[note]]This incident actually happened to [[https://columbine.wikia.org/wiki/Valeen_Schnurr Valeen Schnurr,]] who survived the shooting (albeit wounded). By her account, after she said "yes" to the question, Dylan Klebold asked her "why?" and then walked away. Reportedly, Klebold and Eric Harris asked several students "do you believe in God?", and their answers had little bearing on whether or not they got shot.[[/note]]
** Music/MarilynManson's ''Music/HolyWoodInTheShadowOfTheValleyOfDeath'' (2000) was a ConceptAlbum heavily inspired by the shooting and what Manson saw as the forces that produced it. A key theme of the album is that modern (circa 1999-2000) society was too degraded by celebrity worship, gun culture, [[IfItBleedsItLeads media sensationalism]], and hypocritical MoralGuardians to permit for the kind of idealism that powered [[NewAgeRetroHippie the hippie and protest movements]] of TheSixties, hence why the "youth rebellion" of the time was teenage outcasts shooting up their schools because [[DespairEventHorizon they thought they had no future]].