Like Pearl Harbor and 9/11, the assassination of President Kennedy was one of those stunning events where, if you were alive at the time, you will always remember where you were when you heard the news.
Many pop songs have referenced President Kennedy, and more than a few have dealt with the circumstances of his assassination, which occurred 60 years ago Wednesday (Nov. 22) as he rode in an open convertible through downtown Dallas. (It’s hard to imagine a president being so exposed today, but it was a more innocent time.)
Even before the assassination, singers (and one very famous actress) sang about him. Frank Sinatra sang a special-material version of his Oscar-winning 1959 hit “High Hopes” that became Kennedy’s 1960 campaign theme song. His rival in that election, Richard Nixon, was doubtless irked by the line “Oops there goes the opposition, kerplop.”
In May 1962, country and pop singer Jimmy Dean (who had topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1961 with “Big Bad John”) had a top 10 hit on that chart with “P.T. 109.” The song recounted Kennedy’s heroic actions during World War II as the commanding officer of patrol torpedo boat that bore that name. After the boat was rammed by a Japanese destroyer, Kennedy, then 26, led his crew to safety.
Perhaps most famously, Marilyn Monroe sang a steamy, sexy “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” at a 45th birthday salute to President Kennedy at Madison Square Garden in May 1962. Kennedy followed the performance with a quip that showed his celebrated wit: “I can now retire from politics after having had ‘Happy Birthday’ sung to me in such a sweet, wholesome way.” Tragically, both would be dead in a little more than 18 months. Monroe died of an overdose in August 1962.
Here’s a sampling of 18 songs – some famous, some not; some reverent, some highly irreverent – that reference President Kennedy. They are listed in chronological order. We show how high the song climbed on the Hot 100 – if it charted – and how high its corresponding album climbed on the Billboard 200.
From: Turn! Turn! Turn! (No. 17 in March 1966)
Key lines: “He was in Dallas town/ He was in Dallas town/ From a sixth-floor window, a gunner shot him down/ He died in Dallas town/ … Leader of a nation for such a precious time/ He was a friend of mine.”
Notes: The Byrds’ lead guitarist Roger McGuinn, who was 21 at the time of the assassination, reworked this traditional folk song as a sweet, poignant eulogy to the slain President.
Hot 100 peak: No. 4 in December 1968
From: Dion (No. 128 in February 1969)
Key lines: “Anybody here seen my old friend John?/ Can you tell me where he’s gone?/ He freed a lotta people but it seems the good they die young/ I just looked around and he’s gone.”
Notes: This sentimental ballad was a top five hit just before Christmas 1968. The verses salute three slain leaders – Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and JFK. A coda adds Robert Kennedy, who had been shot and killed that June: “Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?/ Can you tell me where he’s gone?/ I thought I saw him walkin’ up over the hill/ With Abraham, Martin, and John.”
From: Beggars Banquet (No. 5 in January 1969)
Key lines: “I shouted out/ ‘Who killed the Kennedys?’/ When after all/ It was you and me.”
Notes: If “Abraham, Martin and John” was sentimental, this was anything but. The line “Who killed Kennedy?” was changed to “Who killed the Kennedys” after Robert Kennedy was assassinated in June 1968, during the song’s recording. (RFK died early on June 6, 1968. The recording sessions were from June 4-10).
From: John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (No. 6 in January 1971)
Key lines: “I don’t believe in Kennedy…I don’t believe in Elvis/ I don’t believe in Zimmerman
I don’t believe in Beatles.”
Notes: “The dream is over,” Lennon declared in this song, which suggests that the answer is inside of each of us, not in religion and not in political leaders like JFK or pop idols such as Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan (Zimmerman) or The Beatles.
Hot 100 peak: No. 12 in May 1975
From: Sheer Heart Attack (No. 12 in May 1975)
Key lines: “A built-in remedy/ For Khrushchev and Kennedy.”
Notes: This Freddie Mercury-penned song was Queen’s first Hot 100 hit.
From: Outlando’s D’Amour (No. 23 in May 1979)
Key lines: “My mother cried/ When President Kennedy died/ She said it was the communists/ But I knew better.”
From: Dare (No. 3 in July 1982)
Key lines: “Your knuckles white as your fingers curl/ The shot that was heard around the world/ For a second/ It took seconds of your time to take his life/ It took seconds.”
Notes: In concert, the new wave band would often project slides onto the background of the stage, depicting images of Kennedy and the assassination.
From: The Blue Mask (No. 169 in March 1982)
Key lines: “I ran out to the street/ People were gathered everywhere saying/ ‘Did you hear what they said on TV?’/ And then a guy in a Porsche with his radio hit his horn/ And told us the news/He said, ‘the president’s dead, he was shot twice in the head/ In Dallas, and they don’t know by whom.’”
Notes: In this song, Reed remembers back to when he was a 21-year-old student at Syracuse University, studying poetry. That November day, he was in a bar near his college, watching football on TV when an announcer broke in and announced the tragedy.
Hot 100 peak: No. 7 in February 1986
From: The Dream Academy, No. 20 in March 1986
Key lines: “In winter 1963/ It felt like the world would freeze/ With John F. Kennedy and The Beatles.”
Notes: This wistful ballad looks back on the events of late 1963 and early 1964 – the assassination of President Kennedy that sent millions into deep sorrow, and The Beatles’ explosive breakthrough that helped many feel joy again. As anyone familiar with Beatles lore knows, The Fab Four landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on Feb. 7, 1964. The airport, formerly known as Idlewild Airport, had just been renamed in JFK’s honor on Dec. 24, 1963.
Hot 100 peak: No. 13 in May 1989
From: Vivid, No. 6 in May 1989
Key lines: “Like Mussolini and Kennedy/ I’m the cult of personality.”
Notes: If pairing JFK with the Italian dictator seems odd, that’s just how the song was laid out. Another pairing is Joseph Stalin and Gandhi. “Cult of Personality” includes the most famous lines from two inaugural addresses: JFK’s “Ask not what your country can do for you” from 1961 and FDR’s “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself” from 1933. “Cult of Personality” won a Grammy for best hard rock performance.
Hot 100 peak: No. 1 in December 1989
From: Storm Front (No. 1 in December 1989)
Key lines: “JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say?”
Notes: Joel’s line is one of the best here: As usual, less is more. This song is a fast-paced tumble of monumental historic events and passing ephemera. Fall Out Boy adhered to that formula in their current hit update. “We Didn’t Start the Fire” received three Grammy nominations – record and song of the year and best pop vocal performance, male.
From: Use Your Illusion II (No. 1 in October 1991)
Key lines: “And in my first memories/ They shot Kennedy/ I went numb when I learned to see.”
From: Yield (No. 2 in February 1998)
Key lines: “Who’s got the brain of JFK?/ What’s it mean to us now?”
Notes: This grisly song topic is rooted in the fact that, in 1966, Kennedy’s brain was found to be missing from the National Archives. It had been stored there since his autopsy, which was performed in Bethesda, Maryland on the night of the assassination.
From: Jerusalem (No. 59 in October 2002)
Key lines: “What if you could’ve been there on that day in Dallas?/ What if you could wrestle back the hands of time/ Maybe somethin’ could’ve been done in Memphis/ We wouldn’t be livin’ in a dream that’s died.”
Notes: In this stanza, Earle links JFK’s assassination to the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis in April 1968. Jerusalem received a Grammy nod for best contemporary folk album.
From: Give Up (No. 45 in April 2013)
Key lines: “Last week I had the strangest dream/ Where everything was exactly how it seemed/ 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.”
Notes: Lee Harvey Oswald did indeed become famous on that day in November — though he was famous for just two days before he, too, was shot to death.
From: Eminem Presents: The Re-Up (No. 2 in December 2006)
Key lines: “Like the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated in broad day/ By the crazed lunatic with a gun/ Who just happened to work on the same block/ In the library book depository/ Where the President would go for a little Friday stroll/ Shots fired from the grassy knoll/ But they don’t know, or do they?”
Notes: The President went for a little Friday drive, not a stroll, but the songwriters (Eminem and Luis Resto) needed a word that rhymed with “knoll.” Oswald did indeed work in the Texas School Book Depository.
From: Born This Way (No. 1 in June 2011)
Key Lines: “Put your hands on me/ John F. Kennedy/ I’ll make you squeal baby/ As long as you pay me (oh).”
Notes: Gaga performed this song – inspired by JFK’s rumored dalliance with Marilyn Monroe – on her Born This Way Ball tour (2012–13); it was also on the setlist for her Las Vegas residency, Enigma (2018–20). Born This Way received Grammy nods for album of the year and best pop vocal album.
From: Rough and Rowdy Ways (No. 2 in July 2020)
Key lines: “Was a dark day in Dallas, November ’63/ A day that will live on in infamy/ President Kennedy was a-ridin’ high/ Good day to be livin’ and a good day to die/ Being led to the slaughter like a sacrificial lamb.”
Notes: Dylan was 22 when JFK was shot. The astonishing level of detail in this nearly 17-minute song shows how much people at that time pored over the event, trying in vain to make sense of it. According to Robert Shelton’s 2011 biography, No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan, Dylan and his band members visited Dallas three months after the assassination, tracing the president’s fateful route through Dealey Plaza.