(Click on song title for video and artist name for biography)
Many songs have reference to historical figures and events, it’s even been said that one of the artists we will hear today, Iron Maiden can teach you more about history through their music than school due to the accuracy in their lyrics.
So sit back, relax and let’s learn a little history today.
We opened the show with We Didn’t Start the Fire by Billy Joel, released as a single in September 1989, and later released as part of Joel’s album Storm Front. A list song, its fast-paced lyrics include a series of brief references to 119 significant political, cultural, scientific, and sporting events between 1949 (the year of Joel’s birth) and 1989, in mainly chronological order.
It became his third single to reach number 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number 7 here in the UK.
After a cover by Fall Out Boy was released in 2023 to negative critical reception, the song was once again brought to the forefront, and modern critics panned even the original song as one of Joel’s worst in his entire catalog despite its chart success.
What’s your opinion?
2. Enola Gay – Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD)
Enola Gay an anti-war song by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) is the only single taken from their second studio album Organisation released in 1980.
The track addresses the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by the aircraft Enola Gay on 6 August 1945, toward the conclusion of World War II.
Gaining mainly positive reviews was seen as unlikely to impact the charts due to its subject matter, but it eventually reached number 8 on the UK Singles Chart and number 34 on the US Hot Dance Club Play.
3. Indian Sunset – Elton John
Indian Sunset was released on Elton John’s 1971 album Madman Across the Water.
The song chronicles the story of an unnamed American Indian warrior on the verge of defeat from the white man. Bernie Taupin who wrote the song was inspired to write the lyrics after seeing the Frederic Remington painting, “The Scout: Friends or Foes?”
However It contains many inaccuracies, most notably the line about Geronimo being shot by US soldiers. In reality, the Apache warrior died of pneumonia at the age of 79.
4. Memory of a Free Festival – David Bowie
Memory of a Free Festival by David Bowie was originally recorded in September 1969 as a seven-minute opus for his second self-titled album, it was reworked in March–April 1970.
Biographer David Buckley described “Memory of a Free Festival” as “a sort of trippy retake of the Stones’ ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ but with a smiley lyric”. The track was written as a homage to the Free Festival, organised by the Beckenham Arts Lab, which was held at Croydon Road Recreation Ground in Beckenham on 16 August 1969.
Released in America in June 1970, the single was commercially unsuccessful; only a few hundred copies sold. It was also issued in the UK, but again was unsuccessful.
Make sure you listen to my other shows – Corking 80’s where you can hear music from the best decade aired every Wednesday at 3pm and Time Warp where you try and work out the year that the playlist is from every Thursday at 12pm.
Fernando by ABBA was written for their fellow group member Anni-Frid Lyngstad and was included on her 1975 album Frida ensam. The following year, it was re-recorded by ABBA, released in March 1976 as a single and included in later releases of their 1975 compilation album Greatest Hits.
Released in Swedish, English and Spanish, the English version had completely different lyrics by Björn, it presents a vision of nostalgia for two veterans reminiscing in old age about a long-ago battle in which they participated. Björn has said, “I wrote all the songs as little stories. ‘Fernando’ was about two old freedom-fighters from the Mexican Revolution. I was lying outside one summer night, looking at the stars and it suddenly came to me”.
6. Buffalo Soldier – Bob Marley & The Wailers
Buffalo Soldier written by Bob Marley and Noel “King Sporty” Williams was recorded by Bob Marley and the Wailers. It didn’t appear on record until the 1983 posthumous release of Confrontation when it became one of Marley’s best-known songs.
The title and lyrics refer to the black US cavalry regiments, known as “Buffalo Soldiers”, that fought in the Native American Wars after 1866. Marley linked their fight to a fight for survival and recasts it as a symbol of black resistance.
Cash Box said that the song’s “socio-political theme, steady rhythmic stream and strong but sweet vocals re-emphasize what Marley’s magic was all about.”
7. The Longest Day – Iron Maiden
The Longest Day appears on the fourteenth studio album by Iron Maiden A Matter of Life and Death which was released in 2006. Although an album track, like many other Maiden songs it has some historical reference.
The song is about the D-Day invasion during World War II and the effect it had on the young soldiers who fought that day, although it doesn’t mention which beach the story takes place on, by listening carefully to the lyrics, the song most likely takes place on Omaha Beach, which was the beach with the most casualties out of all five invasion beaches combined.
8. Little Wing (Live 1968) – The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Little Wing was written by Jimi Hendrix and recorded by his band the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1967.
According to Hendrix, “Little Wing” came from an idea he had originally developed while playing in Greenwich Village, when he was fronting his band Jimmy James and the Blue Flames in the summer of 1966.
Hendrix said; I got the idea like, when we were in Monterey and I was just looking at everything around. So I figured that I take everything I see around and put it maybe in the form of a girl maybe, somethin’ like that, you know, and call it ‘Little Wing’, and then it will just fly away. Everybody’s really flyin’ and they’re really in a nice mood, like the police and everybody was really, really great out there. So I just took all these things and put them in one very, very small little matchbox, you know, into a girl and then do it. It was very simple, but I like it though.
9. Cortez the Killer – Neil Young & Crazy Horse
The lyrics to “Cortez the Killer” were first written in high school, according to a story Young told an audience in 1996: “One night I stayed up too late when I was goin’ to high school. I ate like six hamburgers or something. I felt terrible, very bad… and in the morning I woke up and I’d written this song.” In 1995 he told Nick Kent that Cortez represents “the explorer with two sides, one benevolent, the other utterly ruthless.
The song appears on the seventh album by Neil Young & Crazy Horse released in 1975, Zuma.
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