For example, I remember the time when American Idiot by Green Day came out in 2004. The song “Wake Me Up When September Ends” was everywhere on the radio. The song is about the death of the vocalist’s father dying when he was age 10.
Yet, because that the song and album was released 3 years after 9/11 and 1 year since America started the War in Iraq, everyone associated that song with 9/11 more than what the song originally meant.
And everytime I have listened to it, I just continue to associate that song with it’s original meaning and not because people randomly decided to make it about 9/11.
Pumped up kicks. For some reason people don’t process the line “better run, better run, faster than my bullet.” It’s about columbine the bassist had a cousin had a cousin who went to columbine when the shooting happened.
In middle school and early high school my some people I knew were always like “OmG iT’s AbOuT a ScHoOl ShOoTiNg” trying to be edgy , however to give them credit I thought was true too.
But I had no idea it was about columbine specifically
Yep, you can write a song about school shootings if you’re suburban and white but if your black and “urban” they will bleep the word “purple”.
“Don’t Like Mondays” from Bob Geldof (1979) would be another example of a good song about shooting elementary school kids.