Death as portrayed to adolescents through top 40 rock and roll music

Adolescence, Winter, 1993 by Bruce L. Plopper, M. Ernest Ness

In 16% of the songs, no relationship was discernible, but in nearly two-thirds of these songs, random murder was evident. Another type of relationship, friendship, appeared in 12% of the songs. Additionally, adversarial situations in the Old West were described in 7% of the songs, and pending executions were described in another 6%. Finally, co-workers were portrayed in 3% of the songs, people's lives were chronicled in 3% of the songs, and teenage rivalry between strangers was depicted in 1% of the songs.

Most songs reflected some attitude toward death. A fairly even distribution of 10-12 songs sent single messages that either life is cheap, death can be deserved, death can be a calculated risk, or death is not final. In some cases, one song sent two or more such messages. Nine songs reflected the attitude that death is a part of life, but only three explicitly wove death into a narrative which generally traced long periods in one person's life. By far, the attitudes least embraced were that life is dear and death is undeserved.

Although most types of identifiable attitudes were distributed quite evenly over time, prior to 1962 and after 1975 there seemed to be a disproportionate concentration of the attitudes that life is cheap (e.g., "Mack the Knife" and "18 and Life") and/or death is a calculated risk (e.g., "Don't Take Your Guns to Town" and "Renegade"). Many of the songs exhibiting these attitudes described random violence or premeditated murder.

Behavioral, emotional, and cognitive responses to death also were evident in some of the songs. Behavioral responses were most prevalent. They included praying, committing suicide, trying to be good, being lethargic, writing a song, getting drunk, leaving town/staying away from home, and in the case of one cowboy song, hanging up the gunbelt.

Few emotional responses were mentioned, and some of them were tied to behavioral responses. They included crying and/or feeling lonely, sad, blue, hurt, empty, angry, or helpless.

Cognitive responses were quite narrow in nature, being limited primarily to thinking about the deceased, remembering words the deceased had spoken, and asking questions about the deceased. Other cognitive responses included not wanting to die, doubting God, wanting to quit school, missing the deceased, and longing to see the deceased again.

The final aspect of the analysis involved an examination of the ways song titles and lyrics referred to death. Only four titles contained a direct reference to death through use of some form of the words dead or dying. Also, one song title used the word killing, and two titles employed a form of the word angel.

Song lyrics, however, freely referred to death, both directly and euphemistically. Nearly one-third contained some form of the words die or dead. The others mentioned the deceased as having gone, passing away, meeting his fate, cashing it in, being shot down, floating face down, going to the happy hunting ground, going to heaven, being taken, or having his life ended.