Goalscrounger's 30 Day Music Challenge - Day 29 - Wednesday 13th May - A Song Inspired By A Historical Event

  • Elvis wrote this in 1978 on a plane coming back from Belfast. It was the first time he went to the city, and he was shocked to see very young soldiers from the British army walking around with machine guns. The song covers Northern Ireland's troubles, the end of the British empire and life in the army.
  • The title is a reference to Oliver Cromwell, leader of of the Parliamentary army in the English Civil War against the Royalist army of Charles 1. Among other things, he established what was called The New Model Army, which was the first professional, properly trained and drilled fighting force England had.
 
HarryVegas said:
Though originally written for a BBC play, Aberfan reared its awful head, he added an extra verse for the 'bairns' and it became ever after inextricably linked...

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One of my most regularly played albums. Cheers for reminding me to play it again soon, even if just for "The Tyne Slides By' to feel traitorous.
 
Bruce Hornsby & the Range
This song deals with the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The line in the lyrics that mentions "The law passed in '64" is the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The law was supposed to prohibit discrimination in public places, the government and employment.
 
"Gary Gilmore's Eyes" is an unusual song even for a punk record. Gary Mark Gilmore was born at Waco, Texas, in 1940, and graduated from delinquent teenager to small-time career criminal. In 1964, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison but was released in 1972 only to be re-arrested for armed robbery within a month. In spite of his appalling criminal record and violent behavior in prison he was paroled in April 1976 and moved to Utah, where the following July he augmented two armed robberies with senseless murders, killing first a gas station employee and then a motel manager in quick succession.

As well as being extremely violent and totally ruthless, Gilmore was dumb, and managed to shoot himself in the hand as he disposed of the murder weapon. This led to a speedy arrest, and after an equally speedy trial in what was essentially an open and shut case, he was convicted of the murder of the gas station employee, Max Jensen. In spite of compelling evidence, he was not tried for the second murder, but this was not really in dispute. Gilmore appears to have realized he was an essentially worthless human being, and although pleading not guilty, put up only a very token defense. He was sentenced to death, and while some convicted murderers in the United States spend years or even decades on Death Row appealing their convictions and/or sentences, Gilmore had made up his mind that he wanted to die. He was executed, unusually, by firing squad, on January 17, 1977; his last words were "Let's do it", which is of course a different song entirely!

Gilmore's final act, and conceivably the only noble thing he ever did in his life, certainly the most noble, was to donate his corneas for transplant. Two people received them within hours of his execution; some of his other organs were also used for transplants, and what was left of his body was cremated.
 
The date refers to the Los Angeles riots that took place in 1992 and the song describes this event and the acts of crime including arson, robbery and vandalism that occurred. The riots started after a jury trial resulted in the acquittal of four Los Angeles Police Department officers accused in the videotaped beating of African-American motorist Rodney King following a high-speed police pursuit. Thousands of people throughout the Los Angeles metropolitan area rioted over the six days following the announcement of the verdict
 
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