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Leader of the Pack – Written by George Morton and recorded by the Shangri-Las in 1964. Betty falls in love with Jimmy, the leader of a motorcycle gang. Betty’s parents don’t like Jimmy and strength her to break it off. When she does, Jimmy speeds off into the rainy night. Betty calls after him to slow down but he loses control of his bike.
Tell Laura I Love Her – Recorded in 1960 by Ray Peterson and later by Ricky Valance. Tommy wants to buy his girl a wedding ring and enters a stock car race hoping to win the $1000 prize. During the race his car flips and bursts into flames. Tommy’s dying words are to tell Laura he loves her.
Bat Out of Hell – Written by Jim Steinman and performed by Meat Loaf. “Bat Out of Hell” has each element a teen disaster needs. There’s the boy who lives in a world of evil and shadows and the girl who brings light and goodness into his life. The boy rides his motorcycle too fast and misses a curve. As he lies dying next to his burning bike, his heart beats so hard that it explodes out of his chest.
Teen Angel – Recorded by Mark Dinning in 1959. Written by Jean Dinning and her husband, this song is with regards to a girl and her boyfriend out for a ride. The car stalls on the railroad tracks and the boy pulls the girl to safety. The girl runs back to the car and gets hit by the train. When they find her body, she’s clutching the boy’s high school ring.
Last Kiss – Written by Wayne Cochran of the C.C. Riders. He started the song in 1956. Shortly before Christmas in 1962, a 16 year old named Jeanette was out with a group of friends. Another car collided with a truck and spun into the path of Jeanette’s car. Three teens were killed and the rest were gravely injured. The accident inspired Cochran to finish the song and dedicate it to Jeanette.
Dead Man’s Curve – Written by Roger Christian and Jan Berry and recorded by the duo Jan and Dean. The song is regarding a drag race that starts at Sunset and Vine and ends at Dead Man’s Curve. The two cars, a Corvette Sting Ray and a Jaguar XKE, are tied as they approach the curve but then collide, killing both drivers.
Lightning Crashes – Written and recorded by the band Live in 1995. The song was consecrated to a 19-year-old friend of the band killed by a drunk driver. Many of her organs were donated, including her liver, which was given to a 10 month old baby. The song reflects on how her death enabled others to live.
Untitled – Written and recorded in 1995 by Simple Plan. The lyrics describe the dying thoughts of an accident victim but the music video tells a more spectacular story. A drunken driver swerves head-on into the path of a car driven by a teenage girl. The girl dies while the drunk driver is uninjured. The video illustrates the affect of the girl’s death on her family and friends. MADD uses this song in their anti-drunk driving campaigns.
DOA – Recorded in 1971 by Bloodrock. The song is based on an airplane crash that killed the entire Wichita State University football team. The lyrics are an account by a victim who pulled through the basi crash. Surrounded by body parts, he sees the hopelessness in the face of the medic attending to him. Sirens in the background are shut off at the end of the song letting us know the victim has died.
Wreck on the Highway – Written and performed by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. It tells the story of a man who witnesses a rainy night hit and run accident. The man is unable to sleep, tortured by what he saw. Springsteen was inspired by a 1940s Roy Acuff song of the same name and says the song was a turning point in his world view and song writing style.
Ruders Concertos
Poul Ruders is one of the greatest names in contemporary Scandinavian music. His orchestral works in queer have a splendor and intensity that have made a great impression on audiences around the world. Concerto in Pieces was played at the Last Night of the Proms in 1995 and is one of the most successful orchestral works of our time. It is based on a theme by Purcell and is a witty, explosively colourful successor to Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. In the sunny Violin Concerto no. 1 the present day meets both Vivaldi and Schubert, while the percussion concerto Monodrama is a strong example of the primal Nordic power that fuels all of Ruders works.
ReviewThe Danish composer Poul Ruders wrote his vivacious, expertly wrought Concerto in Pieces (1995) as a sequel to Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. Commissioned by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, he followed Britten’s example and composed variations on a theme by Purcell: in this case the Witches Ho-Ho-Ho chorus from Act II of Dido and Aeneas.
Thomas Sondergard conducts the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra in a high-energy performance of the engaging score, in which Mr. Ruders spotlights dissimilar instruments with witty juxtapositions and quirky timbral effects. The theme is tossed among dissimilar groups of instruments in the third variation, then woven through a bluesy prism. The saxophone plays a languidly beautiful, rhapsodic solo, which is then taken up by the tuba in the fifth variation, and the sixth features explosive percussion. An eerie trumpet solo in the eighth variation and a frenzy of string pizzicatos in the ninth lead to the re-emergence of the theme in the triumphant, throbbing Finale fugato.
The disc likewise includes Mr. Ruders’s Violin Concerto No. 1 (1981), a homage to Vivaldi s Four Seasons that reveals Mr. Ruders s Minimalist affinities. The soloist’s frenetic line in the introductory movement, which Erik Heide plays with flair, unfolds over repetitious figurations and rhythms and the moody harmonies from the primary motion of Vivaldi’s Winter concerto. After the elegiac second movement, which Mr. Heide performs sensitively, comes the finale, Winter Chaconne, which veers amidst ebullience and introspection.
Mathias Reumert is the capable soloist in the brooding Monodrama (1988), a percussion concerto that Mr. Ruders describes as pretty grim. Apocalyptic might be a better description of the manner in which the percussionist, accompanied by dark orchestral rumblings, pounds his way through to a stark conclusion. –New York Times, Vivien Schweitzer, September 2009
Fanfare, Ronald E. Grames, Jan-Feb 2010Every once in a while, a CD is chosen for review with high expected values and turns out to be rather dissimilar from what was anticipated. That surely is the case in this program of concertos by Danish composer Poul Ruders. He is known in peculiar for his use of quotation and collage, styles that he likely invented while a student of Karl Aage Rasmussen, only a year older than Ruders, but a master of those techniques. My cognition of Ruders’ work is primarily through his operas, the disturbing but virtuosic The Handmaid’s Tale and the surrealistic and (darkly) comedic Kafka’s Trial, and a few orchestral and instrumental works, including the Concerto in Pieces. None were less than arousing and attention holding and various were more than that. Disappointment in the Concerto in Pieces was a function of the performance, not the work. A set of brilliant montage-like variations on the Witches’ Chorus from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, it was commissioned by the BBC as a complementary piece to Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. Less plainly structured for pedagogy, but exuberant and capped with an imposing fugue, it was an prompt success with the audience at it is 1996 Last Night of the Proms premiere. A studio performance, recorded a few months before the premiere with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Davis–the Proms forces–is available on two Bridge releases (9098 and 9143) with dissimilar couplings. This new performance is not in the same league. The superb BBC Symphony exhaustively outpoints the fine but not particular Aarhus Orchestra, including in the necessary blues-note saxophone solo in the fourth variation. Thomas Søndergård, who reveled in the black comedy of Kafka’s Trial, is less ebullient here, finding an undercurrent of austere modernism in this work that regrettably adds little and mitigates it is necessary high spirits. What is left is acceptable, but muted. As for the other two pieces, I concede them inventive and clever. The soloists are excellent. The orchestra plays with enthusiasm. I plainly can’t respond as in a positive manner as I expected. The Violin Concerto No. 1 is a backhanded tribute to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, quoting and deconstructing segments of the “Spring” and “Winter” concertos with a passage from Schubert’s Der greise Kopf thrown in for good measure. The extraction and reuse of motivic constituents is surely done skillfully, but it doesn’t genuinely illumine the primary concertos, except in a garish light that negates their inherent charm. Ruders’ work is virtuosic but likewise abrasive; it parodies to the point of absurdity, and ultimately–except for a few moments like the magical quote of Vivaldi’s icy winter chords beneath a sustained E in the solo violin–it is not specially memorable. It seems a work for humans who are sick to death of Baroque music. Monodrama, a percussion concerto in all but name, is marginally more interesting. Dark and ominous at the beginning, it takes in regards to five minutes to build up a head of steam. From that point on–a central eye-of-the-storm segment excepted–it is unremitting, an endurance contest for percussionist and listener alike. On one level, it is arousing and attention holding to listen how Ruders gives rise to a consistent large-scale motion with what is basically not one thing but percussion. The soloist’s for the most part unpitched contribution is accompanied by pitched percussive effects from all subdivisions of the orchestra. However, at 31 minutes from it is tentative beginnings to it is unsettled ending, it was plainly too much crashing and pounding for some repeat experiences. Mathias Reumert and the orchestra emerge unscathed each time. I cannot assert the same for myself.
American Record Guide, Paul Cook, November-December 2009Poul Ruders (b. 1949) is best at full-scale orchestral works where he may play with a broader musical palette, even if what he plays with have a tendancy more toward the jokes of postmodernism than the flourishes of neo-romanticism. I much prefer the latter instincts in him over the former. Here we have two examples of the latter and one example of the former; both underline the man’s amount of energy and his weaknesses (well, let’s say indulgences). His brilliant Concerto in Pieces (1994-95) is subtitled “Purcell Variations for Orchestra” and came from a commission from the folks at the Last Night of the Proms for a sequel of sorts for Benjamin Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. The composer still wonders why they chose him to do this. He chosen a theme from Purcell that in no way resembles the themes Benjamin Britten played with–the Witches’ Chorus from Act II of Dido and Aeneas. It was a big success, and you may listen why. Ruders is competent to maintain an thematic air remindful of Britten while nonetheless exploring each aspect of an orchestra in his own distinguishable way. This is done through tasteful insertions of percussive moments (chimes, celeste, etc.) and odd balancing systems such as the use of medieval “hoqueting” where the notes of the main theme are bounced back and forth all over the orchestra, from one instrument or set of instruments to another. A stunning achievement. The Violin Concerto (1981) is closely unrecognizable as a work of this composer. It’s a solidly romantic (post-romantic?) work that harks back to bits of Vivaldi (his Four Seasons) with touches of Schubert. It’s a closely perfective follow-up to the Concerto in Pieces; it closely seems like a coda to that piece. Both works seem gentle, playful, and yet both are invested with Ruders’s perceive of the way musical ideas may be molded by moving in and out of general harmonic structures. Both will have to fetch new fans to Ruders. His Monodrama (1998) is subtitled “Drama Trilogy II for Percussion and Orchestra”. I’ve heard assorted pieces like this over the years, and they are pretty much the same. To quote the composer’s own words, this work is “pretty grim”. It is bleak, angry, and assertive. I’d add indulgent. It’s likewise rather long, at 30 minutes. There’s a lot of banging, crashing, and knocking around; and it uses up all of it is originative ideas in the initial seven or eight minutes. But the basi two works ought to delight just with regards to any individual mesmerized in the best of contemporary Scandinavian music.
Ruders Concertos Pic
Ruders Concertos Picture
Ruders Concertos Picture
Ruders Concertos Picture
Ruders Concertos Picture
Ruders Concertos Pic
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
 Kafta versus Big Brother!
By Tym S.
The Danish composer Poul Ruders studied under Rasmussen, who had a “mash-up” approach of quoting earlier composers within a sonic blender to open new possibilities. These works extend that additive and subtractive style.
In the tradition of Britten, Ruders’ “Concerto In Pieces” is just that; a parade of themes which let the listener learn the nuts and bolts of the orchestra. From a note quote of Purcell, the intro thunders in glorious before breaking down into facets played by different sections in different styles. “IV” surprises with its slinky freeform saxophone in a more bluesy mode; “V” spotlights a nimble tuba; while “VI” is alive with polyrhythmic drums duelling a snakey piano. The latter movements are colder quiet musings drifting like snowflakes before surging back in one rousing finale.
“Violin Concerto” is a triptych contemplating winter. “1″ uses subtle quotes from Vivaldi within its complex and restless whirl; “2″ lulls into a forlorn and pensive drift, building softly; “3″ uses a Schubert quote as a form around which string clusters run, hesitate, double back, stumble, and try again through the wind storm.
The epic title piece “Monodrama”, says Ruders, is “all about creating a huge building in sound with the utmost economy.” It is an activist’s rage paced out for the long run. It is stealthy, watchful, skirting a danger that builds and stalks in return. Far from being a dry exercise in amelodic textures, it’s like an exciting mental soundtrack of Kafta escaping a Big Brother fortress. A tour-de-force for percussionist Mathias Reumert, and compelling for its entire 30 minutes. Can’t wait for a movie!
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