The Columbarium: Splatter Platters at the Sock Hop
The Columbarium is a free, weekly newsletter where the history of death and dying meets practical advice about the same. Enjoy this issue from the archive—and if you like it, consider signing up!
In last week’s newsletter, I selected The Shangri-Las’ morbid classic “Leader of the Pack” for Dirge of the Day. You may remember I asked a question: “Why were teenagers in the 1960s so obsessed with songs about their boyfriends and girlfriends dying?”
This week, I decided to find out.
In the 1950s and 1960s, there was indeed a trend of death-related teen hits. Officially known as teenage tragedy songs, they often go by “death discs”—or the even grislier “splatter platters.” Gross, teens of yore! Gross!!
Widely regarded as the first death disc, “Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots” by The Cheers was released in 1955—one week before actor James Dean died in a car crash. The IRL tragedy propelled the song about an ill-fated young biker and the girlfriend he left behind to number 6 on the Billboard charts.
When Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper died in a 1959 plane crash, Eddie Cochrane wrote a tribute called “Three Stars.” A few months later, Cochrane himself died in a car crash.
Many critics think teenage tragedy songs became popular because teen heroes of the era were regularly dying in horrible accidents. Others attribute their popularity to the folk revival happening around the same time. Murder and prison ballads were everywhere, and splatter platters cover similar themes.
The genre really hit its stride when Johnny Preston’s “Running Bear”—a racist Romeo & Juliet narrative about a teenage Native American couple from warring tribes who drown in the river that separates them—and Mark Dinning’s “Teen Angel”—the tale of a young couple whose car stalls on the railroad tracks—both hit number 1 on the Billboard charts back-to-back in 1960.
The next time someone tells me I’m obsessed with death, I’m going to point them to The Shangri-Las’ catalog. They made splatter platters their whole deal! Besides “Leader of the Pack,” they also sang “Give Us Your Blessings,” in which a couple die together in a car crash after their parents disapprove of their relationship, and “I Can Never Go Home Anymore,” in which a girl’s mother dies of a broken heart after she runs away.
Teenage tragedy songs inspired parodies like “I Want My Baby Back” by Jimmy Cross, and many radio stations banned them over parental concerns, which made them even more popular. But then the British Invasion happened, and they went out of style.
So if you find splatter platters particularly macabre, thank The Beatles for getting rid of them.
Sources: Ultimate Classic Rock, uDiscover Music, Wikipedia