The teen-tragedy tune, "Leader of the Pack", performed by the Shangri-Las, comes in at number 447 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and has all the angst and deep, deep drama one would expect. Check out Wikipedia's straightforward description of the song's plot:
The song is about a girl named Betty, who is asked by friends to confirm that she is dating Jimmy, the leader of a motorcycle gang, whose ring they see on Betty's finger. After singing of love at first sight ("(By the way, where'd you meet him?) I met him at the candy store/He turned around and smiled at me/You get the picture?/(Yes, we see) That's when I fell for the Leader of the Pack"), Betty's heart turns to despair as she bemoans her parents' disapproval. The parents claim Jimmy hails from "the wrong side of town" and ask Betty to tell Jimmy goodbye and find someone new. Betty reluctantly does as she is asked, and a crushed and tearful Jimmy speeds off on his motorcycle. Moments later, Betty's pleas for Jimmy to slow down are in vain as Jimmy crashes on a rain-slicked surface and dies.
There have been plenty of parodies produced:
- Leader of the Laundromat
- Leader of the Sect
- Packer of the Leads
- Leader of Iraq
- A Leader like Barack
I thought I'd kick around a few ideas of my own; maybe get Weird Al to record one:
- The sad tale of a plumbing accident - Leader with a Crack
- A hemophiliac gang member - Bleeder of the Pack
- The world's Jenga champion - Leader of the Stack
- An inept handyman - He Doesn't Have the Knack
- An apprentice computer criminal - I'm Learning How to Hack
- The desperate plea of a breast augmentation client - Gimme What I Lack
Financial independence, here I come.
No comments:
Post a Comment