10首有關歷史事件的經典歌曲(上)

1 She's Leaving Home

1. 她離家出走了

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

這首披頭士樂隊的經典曲目是基於十七歲少女梅蘭妮·克依離家出走事件而創作的，後被收錄在專輯《佩珀中士的孤獨之心俱樂部樂隊》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，約翰·列儂和保羅·麥卡特尼在《每日鏡報》上看到了這則新聞。據報道，少女克依在得知自己懷孕後十分恐慌，於是從倫敦北部的家離家出走。她如歌中所唱給父母留下了書信，然而，卻並沒有和她肚子裏孩子的父親或是歌詞中提到的“幹汽車貿易的一個小夥子”私奔，而是和一個賭場莊家同住，直到一週後她的父母找到了她，把她帶回家做了流產手術。

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.

事實上，麥卡特尼曾經在一個叫做《準備好了就出發吧！》的假唱模仿比賽上做評委時結識克依。在克依離家出走事件的四年前，克依表演了布倫達·李的《讓我們拿着掃帚跳舞吧》並獲勝，麥卡特尼爲她頒獎。值得注意的是，這個比賽持續了整整一年，這說明彼時麥卡特尼就已經認識克依整整一年了。

2. Nebraska

2. 內布拉斯加

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.

二十世紀五十年代的殺手組合卡瑞爾·安·富蓋特和查爾斯·斯塔克韋瑟血腥十足的傳奇故事爲特倫斯·馬利克1973年的電影經典之作《窮山惡水》以及布魯斯·斯普林斯汀1982年發行的同名專輯中的歌曲《內布拉斯加》提供了靈感。

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歲的斯塔克韋瑟和他14歲的女友在內布拉斯加州和懷俄明州開始了瘋狂殺人的道路，前後共計11人死在他們手中，其中包括富蓋特的母親、繼父、兩歲的妹妹以及另外八人。很快，警察就抓捕了他倆。僅僅一年後，斯塔克韋瑟被處死，而一直辯解說自己是無辜的富蓋特則被判處終身監禁。然而在1976年她就被假釋了，也就是說，她實際上只服了17年刑，原因是美國最高法院規定對未成年人判處終身監禁不合憲法。

3. Let Him Dangle

3. 讓他搖擺吧

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.

埃爾維斯·科斯特洛的《讓他搖擺吧》講述了一個沒什麼文化且患有發育性障礙疾病的19歲癲癇患者德里克·賓利與不法分子爲伴，在問題青年克里斯·克雷格手下幹活的故事。

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，克雷格慫恿賓利加入一個搶劫行動，也就是在這場行動中，他倆雙雙被捕。當警察命令克里斯放下手槍時，已被逮捕的賓利突然大喊道：“給他一槍，克里斯！”克雷格沒大聽清賓利的話，不過他還是開了槍，傷了一名警察。後來支援警員趕到了現場，第一個到達屋頂的警察西德尼·邁爾斯頭部中了一槍，當場死亡。

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.

賓利和克雷格兩人都被指控犯謀殺罪。克雷格，由於年齡未滿16週歲，只被送進監獄。然而根據英國普通法中有關“合夥人”的原則，賓利被判處了死刑，原因就是他對克里斯說的話被認爲是槍擊行爲的點火索。

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.

儘管賓利的家人極力爲他辯護，就連公衆也對他表示憐憫，他仍然在1953年被處死。50年過後，他被授予皇家赦免，緊接着，1998年7月，關於賓利的定罪最終被推翻。克里斯·克雷格還發表了一篇聲明慶祝他這位朋友獲赦。

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.

萊拉和雷蒙德·霍華德是快球組合在1997年的大熱曲目《路途》的主角。這首歌講述了這對老夫婦神祕消失在路上再也沒有回來的軼事。

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.

當時霍華德夫婦都已年逾八十，患有嚴重的精神紊亂症。他們離開家鄉得克薩斯州薩拉多小鎮，前往15英里外的坦普爾參加一個小型慶典，之後他們的遺體出現在了500多英里外的阿肯色州大峽谷的溫泉城。

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.

快球樂隊的主唱託尼說，他在《奧斯汀美國政府人員》上看到這對夫婦仍然處於失蹤狀態的新聞後寫下了《路途》這首歌。他希望霍華德夫婦能擁有一個幸福的結局，所以他另外編造了一個結局代替現實。在他的結局裏，霍華德夫婦找到了他們的童年並且永遠幸福地生活在希望的田野上。

5. When The Levee Breaks

5. 當大壩決堤之時

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，密西西比河洪水氾濫，沖垮了防洪堤壩。洪水如猛獸一般在這塊土地上肆意竄行，洪水沖刷過的地方滿目瘡痍。所有受到洪水影響的人中，有超過630,000人住在阿肯色州、密西西比州以及路易斯安那州，這三個州的大部分區域位於密西西比三角洲地帶。這裏的居民（大部分爲黑人）都爭先恐後地修建高壩，然而，這些防禦措施很快就無濟於事了，蓄積的洪水破堤而入，導致數百人遇難，成爲了那個時期美國曆史上造成最大經濟損失的自然災害。

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.

沒有了莊稼，也就沒了工作，這兒的居民們又沒有別的經濟來源。很多人身無分文，孤苦伶仃地待在搖搖欲墜的堤壩營地的帳篷內，沒有食物，沒有錢，也沒有住的地方。最後，他們加入了由南方向北部和中西部的工業城市遷移的隊伍中，而不再以農爲生。堪薩斯·喬和孟菲斯·米妮的《當大壩決堤之時》描述了此事件的造成的破壞，成爲一首廣爲流傳的布魯斯歌曲。1970年，這首歌被萊德·齊柏林收錄到他的第四張專輯中。