Dori Anne

"The Leader of The Pack" and "Dead Man's Curve" are two of the more well-known "dead teenager" songs (also called "teenage tragedy songs" or even the morbid "splatter platter").


These are songs that drum up pathos by creating an angst-y teen character, often one in a societally disapproved relationship, and usually a "bad boy" or "bad girl" archetype... and then killing them off.

This Simon-as-Landis song, performed by David Winters. In this case, the doomed teen is another archetype, the pure-as-driven-snow one, who of course did not deserve to die.

While most dead teenager songs seem meant as cautionary tales by adults, and James-Dean tragedies to teens, this one is just plain sad. The song starts with a contradiction: “I'm all by myself, but I'm not alone.” How so? “Dori Anne, you’re always with me.” How tender. Is she out of town, perhaps after a move, or attending a distant school?

“I walk along the shore and sit beneath our tree,” the speaker continues, yearningly. “You were 16, my most precious queen.”

“Were”? Oh, no. Well, break-ups happen. Best not to keep revisiting your old hangouts and move on.

“Then came that fateful day.” Suddenly, the song takes a darker turn… The speaker (actually speaking this time, as in “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feelin’”) tells of the tragic death: “A blinding headlight, a crash in the night/ Took my Dori Anne away.” Truly awful.

“The rest of my life, my love will be true/ Dori Anne, I’ll always love you.” True, there is little getting over a trauma like that when one is in the throes of adolescence. (A better line however, would have been “I am always with you,” to invert the earlier “You are always with me.”

Also, there will be difficult times ahead for whomever falls for this boy, as they will have to compete with the memory of a dead teenage—and thereby perfect— romance. No less than James Joyce, in his short story “The Dead,” explores the impossibility of a fulfilling life for the person who marries one who, in turn, pines for a tragically lost teenage love.

So very many teens die each year. Today, it could be gunfire or an overdose or a bully-provoked suicide, but once parents mostly worried about illnesses and accidents, causes of teen death also still prevalent. While it is easy to dismiss or even mock songs like this for preying on teens’ hyperbolic emotional states, teen death does, sadly, occur. And when it does, teen survivors and mourners can turn to such songs to help them cope. Simply knowing that others have endured such pain can be healing, as is music in general— it is part of funeral services in most cultures, after all.

A co-worker of mine is actually attending an annual memorial service for a teen he knew who passed away. The young man was in a band and loved music; every year, attendees are asked to bring a song lyric to read at the memorial.

We’ll never forget him, the Leader of the Pack. 

Musical Note: David Winters began acting on TV as a kid, then moved to Broadway, playing Baby John in the original Broadway version of West Side Story, switching to the role of A-rab for the movie version. He then became a dance teacher and choreographer (Viva Las Vegas), then a director and producer, both on stage and onscreen. Through it all, he never stopped acting.

Next song:  Please Don’t Tell Her

Lighthouse Point #1 & #2

This is a fun dance number about the other thing hormonal teens like to do when they are not dancing: i.e., "making out," "necking," or-- if it's done in a parked car-- "parking."

There are two recorded versions of this song; #2 is slightly faster than #1, but the tracks are otherwise identical. The melody is not far from "At the Hop." But the song is notable in the Tom and Jerry catalog for the use of backup singers. Lyrically, almost every line contains an internal rhyme.

Now, when teens park, they need a good place to do so. One is the drive-in movie, at which the sound of the film covers over any suspicious sounds they may be making. Another is simply somewhere far away from civilization, the darker the better.

Well, the teens near Lighthouse Point have hit the jackpot. This spot, presumably at the end of Lovers' Lane, is "way down by the water." So, naturally, "It's so nice to park when it's dark down at Lighthouse Point." One may associate a lighthouse with brightness, but a lighthouse sends its lantern's light far at sea, while in its shadow it is dark.

Lighthouses are also equipped with sound-makers like foghorns, in case it is too foggy for the light itself to be seen by sailors. The one at Lighthouse Point, instead, has a bell, which for the teens serves the same purpose as the soundtrack of the drive-in movie: "You kiss-kiss-kiss while the bell in the beacon goes 'bong bong ba-bong-bong-bong.'"

Not they they are looking at it for long, but "There's a beautiful view for two at Lighthouse Point." And isn't is supposed to be too "dark" to see the view? Nevertheless, one can hear "the waves pound, pound all around." One need never have read a romance novel to know what the pounding rhythm of the waves is meant to represent.

But Simon makes an excellent point. Without such places, how and where would young couples... couple? There must be a garden for love to blossom in: "Let's go, I know/ That 'bong bong' bell will bring wedding bells in the Spring."

Still, he the speaker is using generalities: "There is" this place, "where it is" nice to park, and "there is" a view for two-- any old two... hint, hint...

Clearly, he hasn't been persuasive enough to his girlfriend about the charms of this spot in general, because the speaker now goes in for the hard sell: "Tonight when the moon shines bright at Lighthouse Point/ Hey, baby, come a-hold me tight at Lighthouse Point/ And we'll kiss-kiss-kiss..." et cetera.

Perhaps it is good that adults make it hard for teens to find places to canoodle. It makes them wily and resourceful. Which are good skills for them to develop, because after the "wedding bells in the spring" come, well, baby rattles. And parents need all the cleverness they can get. Especially parents of teens.

Next song: Up and Down the Stairs

I Wish I Weren't in Love

This one recalls 1959's "A Teenager in Love," both in style and sentiment, with a touch of Everly Brothers country-pop thrown in... plus a dash of flamenco in the bridge. It really presages the kind of within-one-song genre-switching that became Simon's trademark.

The opening lines could not be more straightforward: "I've got a problem/ The girl I love doesn't love me at all." Yes, another unrequited-love song.

The speaker, like another song says, got it bad, and that ain't good: "I can't do my homework/ I write her name on my notebook all night." It should be noted that these are very long lines, metrically, for a pop song.

"I'm so unhappy/ Guess I am the loneliest boy in this world," he continues, and who hasn't been there? "I wish I weren't in love," he concludes.

Now, is she stringing him along? Hardly. His love object is crystal clear in her lack of interest: "In fact, she won't even answer my call." Perhaps she finds a teenager who starts sentences with "in fact" somewhat... un-hip?

Rather than simply forget her, our hero paints himself as the victim: "The way she treats me, it just isn't right... How can I make her stop hurting me?" When, in fact, she is not hurting him at all. She is not doing anything to him! Yes, this is a problem for him... but it's not, objectively speaking, her fault.

Again, if she were being ambiguous, his complaint would have merit. But she is not. She is as plain in her disregard for him as a stone wall. Perhaps he feels that his ardor is so great it at least deserves her saying outright that he should, ahem, bug off, or stop calling, at least. She refuses to even acknowledge his existence with a verbal rejection.

The relationship, to the degree that it exists at all, is only in his mind. What this young man needs is for his friends to point out that his efforts and affections are wasted here-- and that he should, until they find a more receptive recipient, maybe do his homework.

If he gets good enough grades, he might get into college... where he might, in fact, meet a co-ed who will answer the phone for a guy who starts sentences with "in fact."

Next Song: Motorcycle

Save the Life of My Child

I recently discovered that "A Most Peculiar Man" was, in fact, a response to a newspaper item; Simon explains that he thought the subject deserved more than a three-line obituary.

If that song is reaction to a news story about a suicide published the next day, this one is reported from the scene. The setting is a sadly familiar one-- a "jumper."

We hear quite a few reactions to the boy's peril. The ones truly concerned with the boy's welfare seem to be women. The boy's mother, of course, is beside herself, calling again and again: "Save the life of my child!" Another "woman" summons the police.

True, one concerned onlooker of indeterminate gender yells: "Don't jump!" (At least no one is yelling "Jump!" as is often the case.)

But another mutters that the boy must be "high on something," and when the police officer does arrive, he complains that his ineffectuality is the child's cohort's fault. Both of these latter remarks show disdain for "kids these days" in general; while the comment "What's becoming of the children?" shows concern, it passively insists that it is someone else's fault.

Then night falls, the crowd becomes more agitated... and the child "flies away." The literal meaning here is unclear. Was the child some sort of angel?

One pattern that emerges is that no one talks to the child, aside from the first person who yells "Don't jump!" Not the police officer, not the mother, not a psychological expert called in by the authorities. No one calls up to the child, no one uses a megaphone. No one goes up to the ledge or leans out the window (the one the child presumably went onto the ledge from) to try to coax or haul the boy back inside.

No one asks the boy why he is out there. Is he upset? Deluded by a Superman episode he saw to TV? Having a negative reaction to a medication? Clinically depressed? Seeking the attention he saw similar jumpers get when they were on the news?

Michael Moore's documentary Bowling for Columbine discusses the issue of guns in America. The best line is spoken by Marilyn Manson, the outrageous and spooky performer whose morose and grotesque lyrics are a lightning rod for parental blame regarding "what's becoming of the children." Asked what he would have said to those kids who shot up the Columbine High School, Manson replies, "Nothing. I would have listened."

"Everyone agreed it would a miracle indeed/ If the boy survived"-- yet who did anything to help ensure his survival?

For all of the despair and concern voiced by the crowd over the boy on the ledge, none are doing the obvious thing-- listening to the boy. No wonder he is done with the lot of them and simply flies away.

Simon implicates the whole hand-wringing-- and hand-washing-of-- crowd who always wails "What about the children?" only to underfund schools, urge that juveniles be tried as adults, and call for crackdowns on gangs.

Simon saw a generation of youth in crisis, a whole generation sitting on ledges... and whole generations of parents and authorities doing nothing productive to get them off of those ledges. So, of course, they largely "tuned in, turned on, and dropped out." Maybe someone told them not to do it-- "Don't jump!"-- but no one asked them why they wanted to in the first place.

The last verse, taken alone, could be about a rock concert: "When darkness fell, excitement kissed the crowd and made them wild... when the spotlight hit the boy and the crowd began to cheer..." Working this metaphor backward to the beginning of the song, the "boy" is a music star and the "ledge" is a stage. Simon could also be describing performing itself as an act so self-revelatory as to constitute self-endangerment, and musing on the proclivity of musicians to flee this constant self-peril... through drugs, other self-destructive behavior that ruins their careers, long sabbaticals, etc.

The music must be remarked on, as it is so dissonant and unusual. There is an electric, perhaps even electronic, sound at certain points, and there is a drum hit that sounds like a gunshot. These sounds shock us back into the immediacy of the danger the boy is in, after all the moaning and debating that surrounds the situation.

And then there is a ghostly choir wailing, at one point coalescing into the opening lines of "Sound of Silence." That song is about "people talking without speaking/ people hearing without listening." "Save the Life of My Child" is about people talking about the child without listening to the child.

His life depends on their attentiveness, not just their attention.


Next Song: America