Teen Angel

February 1960

Our next tragic love ballad is a one-hit wonder by Mark Dinning that took the #1 spot for 2 weeks.

The first two months of #1 singles in 1960 have got to be the most morbid in the entire timeline. First, a ranchero gets tangled up in a deadly love affair in Mexico. Then two American Indian lovers are swept away together by a raging river. Now, it's the most realistic one yet: it involves a high school class ring, a train, and two teenage sweethearts just like you, kids! (Never mind that Dinning was 26 when he recorded the track.)

The song was allegedly controversial at the time, and that's understandable, especially in the socially conservative climate of 50 years ago. Not only does it feature a 16-year-old girl getting hit by a train, but the lyrics are fairly direct. It doesn't hide behind ambiguous hinting – we witness the girl's death and then we see the ring clutched in her cold, dead fingers. (Okay, I added the "cold, dead" part, but still.) I myself am mildly offended by the song, not because of its violence, but because of the stupidity it promotes. Running back into a car that's about to get hit by a train? Really? Just for a ring? She deserved everything she got, I say.

Tragedy has been popular ever since drama has existed, and musical tragedy has been around ever since opera existed. The first fully surviving opera (or at least the first well-known one) is Claudio Monteverdi's L'Orfeo from 1607. It tells the Ancient Greek tale of Orpheus, who followed his dead lover into the underworld and successfully bargained with Hades himself, only to lose her again forever in an act of similar stupidity. Fast forward to the 2oth century, and what are the most popular operas? The death-filled tragedies of Puccini. In the world of popular music, such themes were clearly common as well.

Quick, name a movie where nobody dies. Not a comedy, or a kids movie. But even there you'll find deaths-a-plenty. People love reenacting death. It, along with its partner, love, are the cornerstones of drama. Story-songs are out of vogue these days, so teen tragedies seem to be a thing of the past. But given our human race's fixation on the subject of dying, I fully expect the genre to strike again. It's impossible to predict what form it will take, but you heard it here first.

C