YMMV / Ricky Nelson

• Harsher in Hindsight: Going through his discography, there are some eerie coincidences that almost seem to be Foreshadowing his death in a plane crash at age 45 on New Year's Eve 1985.
  • The final song Nelson recorded ("True Love Ways") and the final song he sang live ("Rave On!") were both Buddy Holly covers. A few years prior, Nelson had played at a Holly memorial concert, and had even commented to associates about how awful it would be to die in a plane crash like him.
  • In 1979 he had a minor hit on the Country Music chart with "Dream Lover", a song that originally been a hit for another contemporary who died tragically young, Bobby Darin.
  • His 1967 album Country Fever included three Cover Versions of songs by Hank Williams, who likewise died on the last night of the year en route to his next performance.
  • While his hit singles were bright and sunny, a few of his album tracks had lyrics that mentioned death or going to Heaven, which took on new resonance after his plane crash. The final lines of "Gypsy Pilot" from Rudy the Fifth in 1971 are both spooky with the reference to collecting his dead body, and poignant since they amount to Nelson writing his own eloquent epitaph.
    When they claim my body
    They won't have much to say
    Except that he lived a good life
    He lived every day
    And I know he saw the sunshine
    And I know he felt the rain
    And he loved everybody
    And he hopes you'll do the same
• Hilarious in Hindsight: These lines from "Palace Guard", written a few years before a certain Disco group debuted.
  All you village people
  Sing your songs of the morning sunlit sky
• Suspiciously Similar Song: While they didn't imitate them so much musically, some of his early songs were obvious lyrical riffs on other big hits of their time, like "Waitin' in School" ("School Day"), "Lonesome Town" ("Heartbreak Hotel") and "It's Late" ("Wake Up Little Susie").
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Nelson starred in On the Flip Side, a 1966 ABC made-for-TV musical with songs by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, which even had a soundtrack album released. His two main numbers for the show—"They Don't Give Medals to Yesterday's Heroes" and "Take a Broken Heart"—are both really good, fitting his vocal style perfectly, and were a far better attempt at updating his sound than the light Psychedelic Rock albums he did at the time. Had he started working with Bacharach and David full-time, it may well have revived his career, but sadly that was their only collaboration.