President John F. Kennedy was assassinated 60 years ago this week, on November 22, 1963. While that happened a few years before I came around, the event, the history, and the folklore has been embedded in my psyche since I can remember.
In October, while on tour in Texas, we visited Dealy Plaza and spent a few minutes walking around that hallowed ground. We saw the open window on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, the two Xs on the street where bullets met flesh, and the viaduct the limo went under as it sped towards Parkland Memorial Hospital. I stood there like a tourist, having my picture taken on the grassy knoll, where the second gunman fired the fatal shot, according to many officially unproven theories. The impact of that location on me, the United States, and the world hit me for a moment, and I paused to take it in, with a slight sense of shame about reducing it to a cheap, self-serving snapshot for a social media post proclaiming “I was there,” as one might do with Mickey Mouse in front of the Magic Kingdom. This wasn’t Disneyland.
JP on the Grassy Knoll, Dallas, Texas - October 17, 2023. Photo: Gabriel Doman
Here are five of my favorite songs about the Kennedy Assassination, or the cult of JFK in general. The views in these songs are those of the songwriters, or the characters they are portraying. They’re here because they’re great tunes that have connected with me in one way or another.
The Avengers - “The American In Me”
This has to be number one. The Avengers were a first-wave San Francisco punk band most famously known for being the support band on the last-ever (pre-reunion) Sex Pistols show. Shortly after moving to Marquette, Michigan and forming my first band The Regulars, our drummer John Burke brought this in and it was one of the first songs we learned.
It's the American in me that makes me watch the blood running out of the bullethole in his head.
It's the American in me that makes me watch tv see on the news, listen what the man said.
He said, "ask not what you can do for your country what's your country been doing to you
Ask not what you can do for your country what's your country been doing to your mind?"
SAXON - “Dallas 1PM”
I was a Saxon fan from my junior high school metal days, but it wasn’t until I met Carl Fulsher in Marquette that I was turned onto this song, from their great Strong Arm of the Law album. It’s a very typical Saxon tune - Biff Byford and company often incorporate chunky, driving guitars and melodic choruses under a powerful, spaced out vocal. The assassination even had an effect on the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Carl and I still wax nostalgic about Saxon 40 years later.
White hot lead in the back of the head
Screaming confusion, Shots ring the air
Cadillac racing, Cops on the run
They couldn't believe that the President's hit
The world was shocked that fateful day
A young man's life was blown away, away - In Dallas one pm
The Rolling Stones - “Sympathy For the Devil”
What can you say about “Sympathy for the Devil?” The song is filled with all the tension that was in the air in the late 60s, and that conversation always included references to the deaths of JFK and his brother Robert, five years later. The tribal drum & guitar bed is the perfect vehicle for Jagger’s incredible vocal, capturing all the rage, anxiety, anger, and fear that had to be in the air.
I watched with glee while your kings and queens
Fought for ten decades for the gods they made
I shouted out Who killed the Kennedys?
When after all it was you and me
Let me please introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
And I laid traps for troubadours
Who get killed before they reached Bombay
LIVING COLOUR - Cult of Personality
Not exactly about the assassination, but very much so about the cult of JFK and god-like politicians. I saw Living Colour open for Soul Asylum before either band had a hit, in a small club in Ann Arbor, and they blew me away with this tune from their new album Vivid. Three months later I saw them on stage at the Pontiac Silverdome supporting the Stones in front of 70,000 people, where I heard this and, an hour later, “Sympathy For the Devil” - two bookend songs with loosely-related themes. This song and this album still hold up, and this band is still kicking ass.
I know your anger, I know your dreams
I've been everything you want to be
Oh, I'm the cult of personalityLike Mussolini and Kennedy - I'm the cult of personality
Neon lights, a Nobel prize
When a leader speaks, that leader dies
You won't have to follow me
Only you can set you free
The Misfits - Bullet
Admittedly I’m not the biggest Misfits fan, more vested in covers of their music by Metallica and Hank III than their own versions, but I have friends who’ll call me out if I don’t include this historically inaccurate, mildly offensive, but nonetheless fun and scrappy two-minute tune.
President's bullet-ridden body in the street - Ride, Johnny, ride
Kennedy's shattered head hits concrete - Ride, Johnny, ride
Johnny's wife is floundering, Johnny's wife is scared - Run, Jackie, runTexas is an outrage when your husband is dead
Texas is an outrage when they pick up his head
Texas is the reason that the president's dead
You gotta suck, suck, Jackie, suck
There’s literally hundreds more - over 300 on this 10 year old blog alone. What are your favorites?
Jeremy Porter lives near Detroit and fronts the rock and roll band Jeremy Porter And The Tucos. Follow them on Facebook to read his road blog about their adventures on the dive-bar circuit.
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Twitter: @jeremyportermi | Instagram: @onetogive & @jeremyportermusic
