10首有关历史事件的经典歌曲(上)

1 She's Leaving Home

1. 她离家出走了

This Beatles' classic from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is based on the saga of 17-year-old Melanie Coe.

这首披头士乐队的经典曲目是基于十七岁少女梅兰妮·克依离家出走事件而创作的，后被收录在专辑《佩珀中士的孤独之心俱乐部乐队》中。

In February 1967, John Lennon and Paul McCartney spotted her story in The Daily Mirror. The pregnant and frightened teen ran away from the North London home she shared with her parents but had not run off with the father of her unborn child, or "a man from the motor trade" as the song suggests. Instead, she shacked up with a croupier for a week before her parents found her. She later had an abortion.

1967年2月，约翰·列侬和保罗·麦卡特尼在《每日镜报》上看到了这则新闻。据报道，少女克依在得知自己怀孕后十分恐慌，于是从伦敦北部的家离家出走。她如歌中所唱给父母留下了书信，然而，却并没有和她肚子里孩子的父亲或是歌词中提到的“干汽车贸易的一个小伙子”私奔，而是和一个赌场庄家同住，直到一周后她的父母找到了她，把她带回家做了流产手术。

Coe and McCartney had actually crossed paths when he was the judge of a lip syncing contest that she won on Ready, Steady, Go! four years before. She performed Brenda Lee's "Let's Jump The Broomstick" and McCartney gave her the award. Winning the contest also meant she danced on the show for a year.

事实上，麦卡特尼曾经在一个叫做《准备好了就出发吧！》的假唱模仿比赛上做评委时结识克依。在克依离家出走事件的四年前，克依表演了布伦达·李的《让我们拿着扫帚跳舞吧》并获胜，麦卡特尼为她颁奖。值得注意的是，这个比赛持续了整整一年，这说明彼时麦卡特尼就已经认识克依整整一年了。

2. Nebraska

2. 内布拉斯加

The blood-soaked tale of 50's killer couple Caril Ann Fugate and Charles Starkweather inspired Terrence Malick's 1973 classic film Badlands and Bruce Springsteen's 1982 song "Nebraska" from an album of the same name.

二十世纪五十年代的杀手组合卡瑞尔·安·富盖特和查尔斯·斯塔克韦瑟血腥十足的传奇故事为特伦斯·马利克1973年的电影经典之作《穷山恶水》以及布鲁斯·斯普林斯汀1982年发行的同名专辑中的歌曲《内布拉斯加》提供了灵感。

In 1958, Starkweather, 19, and his 14-year-old girlfriend blazed a path of death and destruction through Nebraska and Wyoming that left 11 people dead, including Fugate's mother, stepfather, 2-year-old sister and eight others. Police soon captured them and, just a year later, Starkweather was executed. Fugate, who always maintained her innocence, was sentenced to life in prison. She only served 17 years before being paroled in 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that life sentences for minors were unconstitutional.

1958年，19岁的斯塔克韦瑟和他14岁的女友在内布拉斯加州和怀俄明州开始了疯狂杀人的道路，前后共计11人死在他们手中，其中包括富盖特的母亲、继父、两岁的妹妹以及另外八人。很快，警察就抓捕了他俩。仅仅一年后，斯塔克韦瑟被处死，而一直辩解说自己是无辜的富盖特则被判处终身监禁。然而在1976年她就被假释了，也就是说，她实际上只服了17年刑，原因是美国最高法院规定对未成年人判处终身监禁不合宪法。

3. Let Him Dangle

3. 让他摇摆吧

Elvis Costello's "Let Him Dangle" tells the story of Derek Bentley, an illiterate, epileptic 19-year-old with developmental disabilities who falls in with the wrong crowd, led by a troublemaking minor named Chris Craig.

埃尔维斯·科斯特洛的《让他摇摆吧》讲述了一个没什么文化且患有发育性障碍疾病的19岁癫痫患者德里克·宾利与不法分子为伴，在问题青年克里斯·克雷格手下干活的故事。

In 1953, Craig encouraged Bentley to participate in a robbery in which the two become trapped by police. When the officers ordered Chris to put down his gun, Bentley, who by this time has already been arrested, shouted, "Let him have it, Chris." The instruction was unclear to Craig who fired, injuring an officer. When more backup arrived, the first officer to reach the roof was Police Constable Sidney Miles. He was immediately killed by a shot to the head.

1953年，克雷格怂恿宾利加入一个抢劫行动，也就是在这场行动中，他俩双双被捕。当警察命令克里斯放下手枪时，已被逮捕的宾利突然大喊道：“给他一枪，克里斯！”克雷格没大听清宾利的话，不过他还是开了枪，伤了一名警察。后来支援警员赶到了现场，第一个到达屋顶的警察西德尼·迈尔斯头部中了一枪，当场死亡。

Both men were charged with murder. Craig, because of his age at the time of the crime (16) was sentenced to prison. Bentley, however, has been condemned to death under the English common law principle of "joint enterprise"—his statement to Chris was seen an instigation to begin shooting.

宾利和克雷格两人都被指控犯谋杀罪。克雷格，由于年龄未满16周岁，只被送进监狱。然而根据英国普通法中有关“合伙人”的原则，宾利被判处了死刑，原因就是他对克里斯说的话被认为是枪击行为的点火索。

Despite his family's efforts and public support for clemency, Bentley was executed in 1953. Fifty years later, he was granted a royal pardon, and in July 1998 his conviction was finally overturned. Christopher Craig issued a statement welcoming his friend's pardon.

尽管宾利的家人极力为他辩护，就连公众也对他表示怜悯，他仍然在1953年被处死。50年过后，他被授予皇家赦免，紧接着，1998年7月，关于宾利的定罪最终被推翻。克里斯·克雷格还发表了一篇声明庆祝他这位朋友获赦。

4. The Way

4. 路途

Lela and Raymond Howard are the subjects of the 1997 Fastball hit "The Way," a song about an elderly couple that mysteriously hits the road, never to return.

莱拉和雷蒙德·霍华德是快球组合在1997年的大热曲目《路途》的主角。这首歌讲述了这对老夫妇神秘消失在路上再也没有回来的轶事。

The Howards, both in their 80s and apparently prone to confusion, left their home in Salado, Texas for a 15 mile trip to a fiddling festival in Temple and wound up dead days later in a Hot Springs, Arkansas ravine more than 500 miles away.

当时霍华德夫妇都已年逾八十，患有严重的精神紊乱症。他们离开家乡得克萨斯州萨拉多小镇，前往15英里外的坦普尔参加一个小型庆典，之后他们的遗体出现在了500多英里外的阿肯色州大峡谷的温泉城。

Fastball lead singer Tony Scalzo said that he wrote "The Way" after reading an article about the couple in The Austin American-Statesman while they were still missing. He wanted their ending to be a happier one and created an alternate reality in which the Howards find their youth and live together forever out on the open road.

快球乐队的主唱托尼说，他在《奥斯汀美国政府人员》上看到这对夫妇仍然处于失踪状态的新闻后写下了《路途》这首歌。他希望霍华德夫妇能拥有一个幸福的结局，所以他另外编造了一个结局代替现实。在他的结局里，霍华德夫妇找到了他们的童年并且永远幸福地生活在希望的田野上。

5. When The Levee Breaks

5. 当大坝决堤之时

In 1927, the Mississippi River flooded, smashing through levees, dumping billions of gallons of floodwater into the area, and destroying everything in its path. More than 630,000 people affected by the flood lived in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, with most located in the Mississippi Delta. Residents, most of which were poor African-Americans, scrambled to build higher levees, but those measures soon failed, and the swollen river broke through, killing hundreds and causing the most expensive natural disaster in American history at that time.

1927年，密西西比河洪水泛滥，冲垮了防洪堤坝。洪水如猛兽一般在这块土地上肆意窜行，洪水冲刷过的地方满目疮痍。所有受到洪水影响的人中，有超过630,000人住在阿肯色州、密西西比州以及路易斯安那州，这三个州的大部分区域位于密西西比三角洲地带。这里的居民（大部分为黑人）都争先恐后地修建高坝，然而，这些防御措施很快就无济于事了，蓄积的洪水破堤而入，导致数百人遇难，成为了那个时期美国历史上造成最大经济损失的自然灾害。

Without crops, there were no jobs, and residents had no other means of income. Many were left defenseless & penniless in ramshackle levee camp tents with no food, no money, and no place to live. As a result, they joined the Great Migration from the South to Northern and Midwestern industrial cities rather than return to rural agricultural labor. "When The Levee Breaks" by Kansas Joe & Memphis Minnie is a widely famous and popular blues song describing the devastation of the event, and it was later included on Led Zeppelin's fourth album in 1970.

没有了庄稼，也就没了工作，这儿的居民们又没有别的经济来源。很多人身无分文，孤苦伶仃地待在摇摇欲坠的堤坝营地的帐篷内，没有食物，没有钱，也没有住的地方。最后，他们加入了由南方向北部和中西部的工业城市迁移的队伍中，而不再以农为生。堪萨斯·乔和孟菲斯·米妮的《当大坝决堤之时》描述了此事件的造成的破坏，成为一首广为流传的布鲁斯歌曲。1970年，这首歌被莱德·齐柏林收录到他的第四张专辑中。