Assassination of John F. Kennedy in Popular Culture - in Music

In Music

In Luke Powers' song "I Saw John Kennedy Today," from the Americana CD Picture Book (2007), Kennedy explains that he faked his own death in Dallas using a body double. Being free "because he was dead," Kennedy bought an old pickup truck and has been traveling the byways of America "where the girls are always friendly."

The Broadway musical Assassins written by Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman, climaxes as the ghosts of John Wilkes Booth, Leon Czolgosz, Charles Guiteau, and other "would be" assassins appear before a suicidally depressed Lee Harvey Oswald, and convince him that the only way for him to truly connect with his country is to share his pain and disillusionment with it. The best way to accomplish this, they argue, is for him to shoot the president. Originally, Assassins culminated with a reprise of the song, "Everybody's Got the Right," following Lee Harvey Oswald's gunshot. However, the song, "Something Just Broke," which acknowledges the impact of the assassination on the American people and the course of history, was added in a 1992 production of Assassins in London at the Donmar Warehouse.

The Kennedy assassination has been the subject of two music videos, Ministry's "Reload"; Marilyn Manson's "Coma White" (with Manson as JFK), and the album cover for The Misfits' album "Bullet" (depicting an image of the president with his head blown apart).

The Beach Boys song The Warmth of the Sun was written in the aftermath of the assassination, on the evening of November 22, 1963.

The Simon & Garfunkel song The Sound of Silence was written in the aftermath of the assassination.

The Phil Ochs song "The Crucifixion" (1966) paints Kennedy as a Christ-like figure and draws parallels between their lives and deaths.

The Human League song "Seconds" from the 1981 Dare album deals directly with the Kennedy assassination and is directed at Lee Harvey Oswald. When playing live, the group regularly projected slides onto the background of the stage, and would play this song in front of images of Kennedy and the assassination in Dallas.

"Sleeping In" by The Postal Service has the lyrics "Where there was never any mystery of who shot John F. Kennedy/It was just a man with something to prove/Slightly bored and severely confused/He steadied his rifle with his target in the center/And became famous on that day in November."

"Tomorrow, Wendy" by Concrete Blonde has the lyrics "Underneath the chilly gray November sky/We can make believe that Kennedy is still alive and/We're shooting for the moon and smiling Jackie driving by..."

Saxon described the assassination from the viewpoint of Lee Harvey Oswald in their song "Dallas 1 PM", released on the album "Strong Arm of the Law" in 1980.

Mob Rules have recorded an 18-minute song about the assassination, called "The Oswald File (Ethnolution Part II - A Matter Of Unnecessary Doubt)". It was released on their 2009 album Radical Peace.

They Might Be Giants recorded the song "Purple Toupee" on the album Lincoln which references the Kennedy assassination with the lyrics, "I remember the book depository where they crowned the king of Cuba" among several other historical events from the same decade.