Line #4 ShootTheShaggyDog/Music


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6	ShootTheShaggyDog in Music.
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9	* Music/ElvisPresley's "In The Ghetto" from ''Music/FromElvisInMemphis'': a boy is born in poverty, led to a life of crime and gets murdered. And while this happens "another little baby child is born in the ghetto", proving that this kind of situation will keep on occurring in the future if nothing is done about it.
10	* The music video for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqp6z6vfHX8 "Highland Farewell"]] by Music/GraveDigger. A teenage boy is taken from his parents, press-ganged into fighting in a battle, and dies. His parents cry over his body. The end.
11	* "[[https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm14508260 Dead Foresta]]" is probably Music/{{hinayukki}}'s most depressing work, having "futility" as its central message. It tells the story of a girl who can speak to the Gods. Asked for help by the miserable citizens of a dying town, she spends day and night praying to the Gods to deliver the people. However, nothing seems to change, and the desperate people propel themselves into a path of self-destruction by lying and stealing. The girl herself grows steadily more corrupt, and eventually drowns herself into the lake. The following lines sum up the gloomy theme:
12	-->''Her singing voice, woven from within her enduring life,\
13	in the end isn't able to connect to even the faintest path.''
14	* The Music/InsaneClownPosse song "The Echo Side" is about a man named Damien who escapes out the back gates of Hell, only to find himself in an endless nightmare realm (the titular Echo Side). He runs as far and fast as he can, even as his arms and legs rot away, and finally thinks he's found refuge:
15	-->Finally he found some fortress gates, so he quickly rolled into it\
16	Those red gates were the front doors of Hell; he never knew it
17	* Julie Brown's "The Homecoming Queen's Got A Gun" plays this for (admittedly dark) laughs. After the titular homecoming queen is fatally wounded, ending her rampage, her best friend asks her why she did it. Before she dies, she gasps out "I did it for Johnny." This would probably have been more informative if the friend knew who Johnny was.
18	* Music/LouReed's "Street Hassle" is about a woman dying of an overdose, and another character giving her boyfriend a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech about how it's now his job to dump her body in the street ("By morning, she's just another hit-and-run"), ending in the following summary of her life:
19	-->''You know, some people got no choice, and they can never find a voice\
20	To talk with that they can even call their own\
21	So the first thing that they see that allows them the right to be\
22	Why, they follow it - you know what it's called:''\
23	''[[SuddenSoundtrackStop Bad luck]].''
24	* More or less the plot of Music/ThePrettyThings' 1968 RockOpera ''Music/SFSorrow''. All of Sorrow's friends are killed in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, his fianceé dies in a dirigible accident in front of his eyes, and is forced into a trip by [[BorrowinSamedi Baron Saturday]] to the moon where Sorrow learns that his life has been, and will continue to be, meaningless. By the end, Sorrow is emotionally shattered and isolates himself from society for the remainder of his life.
25	* "Stargazer" by Music/{{Rainbow}} is about a cult spending years building a tower under brutal conditions for the Wizard to use in a demonstration of his magic, believing he'd fly them all to a chosen star in the sky. The big moment finally comes and the surviving servants gather around at its base to watch him fly... and instead he falls to his death. Turns out, the "Wizard" was never really magic, just a delusional idiot with enough charisma to trick many people into thinking he was.
26	* This happens at the end of Music/{{Rush\|Band}}'s ''Music/TwentyOneTwelve'' suite. The protagonist, realising how much of a [[CrapsackWorld crapsack world]] he's living in, kills himself. Then, almost immediately, the tone of the song changes and we soon hear "attention, all planets of the Solar Federation; we have assumed control." [[WordOfGod Word Of God]] states that this is the cavalry, the "good guys" coming to save everyone from the dystopia of the Priests of Syrinx... after the protagonist has [[DrivenToSuicide killed himself in despair]].
27	* Music/{{Savatage}}'s ''Music/DeadWinterDead'' is a RockOpera about the [[UsefulNotes/TheYugoslavWars Bosnian War]]. One of the characters is an old man who plays cello in a bombed out square, protesting the war with complete disregard for his safety. Unfortunately, he can only tempt fate so long before he's finally killed. His protest accomplishes virtually nothing, two other characters are saddened by his death and flee Sarajevo, but otherwise nobody notices or cares and the war rages on.
28	* Music/TheVelvetUnderground's "[[Music/WhiteLightWhiteHeat The Gift]]" involved Waldo -- fearing that his girlfriend Marcia would end up cheating on him during the two months they were apart -- mailing himself to her. Not only has she moved on, she along with her best friend Sheila weren't able to open the package since it's stapled firmly shut, so they had to retrieve a sheet metal cutter. Sheila plunges it into the package, bisecting Waldo's head.
29	* Music/{{Vocaloid}}:
30	** In the song "Kokoro". A scientist builds a RobotGirl (Rin), but he can't figure out how to give her a [[TitleDrop "kokoro"]] (heart/soul), so she's stuck as an EmotionlessGirl. He never quite solves the problem, and eventually dies; he seemingly loved Rin, but she was unable to feel anything for him, even when he died. Centuries later, Rin starts wondering about that "kokoro" thing, and accidentally uploads a prototype version of it into herself. She's suddenly overloaded with emotions, and finally discovers both joy in life and sadness over the scientist's death. She desperately wishes she could thank him for creating her. And then, as an afterthought that [[AllThereInTheManual isn't even in the lyrics]], the emotions fry her systems and she dies. Many music videos of it [[FixFic try to make the ending less ridiculously depressing]] by letting her see the scientist one last time and/or having them reunite in the afterlife.
31	** The official prequel song "Sayonara Arigatou" makes the whole thing sadder: the scientist (Gakupo) had been lonely his entire life, but building Rin helped him get his "heart" back, so to speak. He tries to repay the favor by building her a heart of her own, but by the time he's got a prototype down, he's too old to finish the project. He dies without ever managing to properly thank Rin, and spends his last moments begging for a little more time to see her finally smile.
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Context ShootTheShaggyDog / Music