Teen Angel (song)

Teen Angel (song)

Infobox Single
Name = Teen Angel


Caption = "Teen Angel" by Mark Dinning - CD cover
Artist = Mark Dinning
from Album =
A-side =
B-side =
Released =
Format =
Recorded =
Genre =
Length = 2:42
Label = MGM
Writer = Jean & Red Surrey
Producer = Jim Vinneau
Certification =
Chart position = 1 (February 8, 1960, two weeks)
Last single =
This single =
Next single =
Misc =Audiosample
Upper caption = Audio sample
Audio file = Teen Angel by Mark Dinning.ogg

"Teen Angel" is a teenage tragedy song written by Jean Dinning and her husband, Red Surrey, and performed by both Jean's brother, Mark Dinning, and Alex Murray in 1959. As a one-hit wonder for Dinning, it reached number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 (February 1960) and number thirty-seven in the UK Singles Chart (even though it was banned from being played by the BBC).

Plot

The song is about a girl who is out on a ride with her boyfriend. The car is stalled on a railroad track when he pulls her to safety. But when she runs back, a train hits the car, killing her. When they find her body, the narrator's high school class ring is in her hand, apparently the reason that she ran back.

Legacy

Despite the gloomy subject matter, the song and its predecessor at the Hot 100's top spot, "Running Bear" by Johnny Preston, set off a string of pop tunes in which someone, usually a female teenage love interest, dies tragically.

In 1974, the Canadian band Wednesday released its own version of "Teen Angel" much like it had released its own version of "Last Kiss". But rather than being a remake of the original, the storyline of the 1974 version reverses the role. After losing his girlfriend some time before, the 16-year-old boy loses his life in the same manner as the girl in the 1960 song (and the song in this case is narrated by a group of the boy's friends, rather than an individual).

Others include:
* "Tell Laura I Love Her" by Ray Peterson, 1960 - auto racing accident
* "Ebony Eyes" by the Everly Brothers, 1961 - plane crash
* "Moody River" by Pat Boone, 1961 - suicide by drowning
* "Big Bad John" by Jimmy Dean, 1961 - mining accident
* "Patches" by Dickey Lee, 1962 - suicide by drowning (the song's narrator concludes by planning his own suicide as well)
* "Dead Man's Curve" by Jan and Dean, 1964 - auto street drag racing accident
* "Last Kiss" by J. Frank Wilson, 1964, Wednesday, 1973, and Pearl Jam, 1999 - automobile accident
* "Leader of the Pack" by The Shangri-Las, 1964 - motorcycle accident after break-up
* "Laurie (Strange Things Happen)" by Dickey Lee, 1965 - cause of death unspecified, but the lover returns as a ghost
* "I Want My Baby Back" by Jimmy Cross, 1965 - car crash (this ghoulish parody of teen tragedy songs, particularly "Last Kiss", ends with Cross exhuming his dead lover's body and then climbing into the casket with it)
* "Give Us Your Blessings" by The Shangri-Las, 1965 - auto accident (both boyfriend and girlfriend die after their decision to marry is scorned by their parents)
* "I Can Never Go Home Anymore" by The Shangri-Las, 1965 - (The death in this song is the mother of the narrator, possibly owing to a broken heart after her daughter runs away from home)
* "Ode to Billie Joe" by Bobbie Gentry - 1967 - suicide by jumping off a bridge (this after a preacher spots Billie Joe-- and possibly the narrator-- earlier throwing something off the same bridge)
* "Honey" by Bobby Goldsboro, 1968 - cause of death unspecified
* "Timothy" by The Buoys, 1971 - cannibalism (the song was written by Rupert Holmes as a publicity stunt)
* "Seasons In the Sun" by Terry Jacks, 1973 - (a young man says his final farewells to his best friend, his father, and his girlfriend before he dies)
* "Run Joey Run" by David Geddes, 1975 - gunshot (Julie, the narrator's girlfriend, intentionally steps in the path of a bullet intended for Joey; Julie's father was hellbent on killing Joey after finding out he got Julie pregnant, although that is not mentioned in the song for obvious reasons)
* "Leilani" by The Hoodoo Gurus, 1982 - human sacrifice
* "Black Denim Trousers" by The Cheers - motorcycle accident

Bob Luman jibed the "death-song" fad in "Let's Think About Living" in late 1960.


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