Mama! Just Killed A Man. Songs Of Crime And Punishment

Bad bois! (And some girls).

Kicking off with R Dean Taylor’s Indiana Wants Me, a classic of the I just shot someone genre. This appears to be illustrated by film of John Eustace being chased through a quarry.

 

Giving it another go with another I killed someone and I’m on the run themed tune, the terrific Equals, featuring Eddy Grant and Police on my back which was later covered by the Clash.

 

Trouble was, as the Clash could confirm, he fought the law and the law won.

 

R. Dean Taylor was one of the few white artists recording on Motown at the time. He also had writing & producing credits for various top Motown acts, and was under-rated at the time.
I’ll add to your list ‘I’ve Gotta Get A Message To You’ by the Bee Gees before they went all squeaky-disco.

 

....only because Julie had been working for the drug squad.

 

Yes, the Bee Gees number was one I was going to add. That, like Green Green Grass of Home was part of a genre we can call I’m about to be executed including, most famously, Bohemian Rhapsody.

Around that time, the Bee Gees also pioneered a genre we could call I’m stuck down a mineshaft with no hope of rescue. Ba heck, times were grim.

 

She was a lonely girl I think.

 

That could’ve been a bigger hit but they daren’t make too much noise about it.

 

The best for me, love Johnny.

 

12 posts and no mention of Jailhouse Rock?

Elvis will be spinning in his secret compound in Alberquerque

 

Which reminds me.

 

Will certainly be all shook up.

 

Yes despite mixing with all those police and thieves on the streets - oh yeah.

 

Delilah by Tom Jones is a song about a man who murders his girlfriend.

 

Why, why, why?

 

The BBC banning criteria was unfathomable. ‘Hi Hi Hi’ by the dissolute Wings was banned, whilst they seemed to miss the ‘we’ve all got balls and brains, but some’s got balls and chains’ in this song. Bizarre.

 

Hey Joe was about a guy shooting his "old lady"

 

Hazard by Richard Marx. Could never decide if he was guilty or not.

 

Already posted.

 

Ooh, good call.

 

I saw her standing on her front lawn
Just a-twirling her baton
Me and her went for a ride, sir
And ten innocent people died

From the town of Lincoln, Nebraska
With a sawed-off .410 on my lap
Through the badlands of Wyoming
I killed everything in my path

 

Lots of Thin Lizzy, from Jailbreak to Whiskey in the Jar which combines both mama just killed a man and I’m in the nick, genres.

 

This was obviously a big number during any Richard Marx show and in anticipation of it being performed, the crew would gradually reduce the lighting in the auditorium until only two, flashing orange lights could be discerned in the gloom. These were Richard’s Hazard Warning Lights.

 

So THAT'S what he was doing with that gun in his hand.

 

Ban?

 

Unopposable.

 

You sound like a copper.