Songs about particular days of the year

April 14, 2014 8:29 AM

Happy Ruination Day, people of Metafilter! Gillian Welch wrote this great duofold song about April 14. Loudon Wainwright III wrote one that's sort of about March 16. Can you tell me about other songs about particular days of the year? Important limitations:

• NO HOLIDAYS! I don't want any songs about Christmas, the 4th of July, Thanksgiving, Mother's Day, or Groundhog Day. Well, maybe Groundhog Day, but no generally recognized holidays.
• And not just days of the week. I know you don't like Mondays, and Friday you're in love, and that you consider Saturday night to be an appropriate time for fisticuffs. I want to know the day and the month.

posted by Jasper Fnorde to Media & Arts (40 answers total)

"Do you remember/the 21st night of September..." Earth Wind Fire - September
posted by lovableiago at 8:33 AM on April 14, 2014 [3 favorites]

There's February 15th (Happy Birthday to Me) by Bright Eyes.

(Which also happens to be my birthday.)
posted by ambilevous at 8:34 AM on April 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

Here's an easy 10 of them.
posted by jbickers at 8:34 AM on April 14, 2014

Jonathan Coulton's First of May (NSFW speakers).
posted by Iris Gambol at 8:34 AM on April 14, 2014 [7 favorites]

I think this counts: Finn Brothers, Last Day Of June.
posted by holgate at 8:36 AM on April 14, 2014

Destroyer - The Music Lovers: "Feeling fine, but it must be the wine, 'cause it's April 27th and my baby's still dying on me..."
posted by mean square error at 8:39 AM on April 14, 2014

Jay Z - December 4th
posted by deezil at 8:40 AM on April 14, 2014

References "the second of July":
Amelia Earhart's Last Flight
posted by BillMcMurdo at 8:41 AM on April 14, 2014

Sublime - April 26, 1992
Bon Jovi - August 7, 4:15
posted by playertobenamedlater at 8:42 AM on April 14, 2014

Eddie From Ohio - Fifth of July.
posted by bondcliff at 8:45 AM on April 14, 2014 [2 favorites]

Forgot to add this one - Matthew Ryan - Beautiful Fool.

August the 24, 1991
You're calling for me
From the bedroom window
I'm working on the lawn
Under a northeastern sky
posted by playertobenamedlater at 8:47 AM on April 14, 2014

It's a holiday, but a very state-specific one: Sufjan Steven's Casimir Pulaski Day.

Cold Missouri Waters is about the Mann Gulch fire, which took place on August 5, 1949.

Shades of Gray is tied to the events of the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995.
posted by MsMolly at 8:48 AM on April 14, 2014

Best answer: "January 24" by Jean Michel Jarre
"Kentucky, February 27, 1971" by Tom T. Hall
"February 29th" by King Creosote
"The Dust Storm of April 14, 1935" by Woody Guthrie
"4 June 1989" by Mary Chapin Carpenter
"June 28th (I'm Single)" by Ruben Studdard
"The Battle of Marston Moor (July 2nd 1644)" by Electric Light Orchestra
"July 13th 1985" by John Wesley Harding
"33rd of July" by Paul Westerberg

I'd do more, but I gotta get to work...!
posted by mykescipark at 9:05 AM on April 14, 2014

Jan 9, by Dog Faced Hermans
posted by themanwho at 9:16 AM on April 14, 2014

Best answer:

• Jawbreaker - Sluttering (May 4th)
• Neutral Milk Hotel - Avery Island / April1 and April 8
• Lagwagon - May 16
• Minutemen - June 16
• NOFX - August 8th
• Near Miss - October Tenth

posted by namewithoutwords at 9:31 AM on April 14, 2014

Ode to Billie Joe sung by Bobbie Gentry mentions the third of June right off the bat.
posted by fuse theorem at 9:39 AM on April 14, 2014

Sunday, Bloody Sunday by U2 is a song about the Bogside Massacre, which occurred on January 30, 1972.
posted by China Grover at 9:51 AM on April 14, 2014

Early morning, April 4.
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky.

Pride (In the Name of love) -- U2

On preview: U2 jinx.
posted by Room 641-A at 9:56 AM on April 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

Oops, link: Pride (In the Name of Love) -- U2
posted by Room 641-A at 10:05 AM on April 14, 2014

Dramarama's environmentalist song "What are we Gonna Do" twice notes "It's April 21, and everybody knows today is Earth Day." The irony is that Earth Day is in fact April 22. Oops.
posted by AgentRocket at 10:22 AM on April 14, 2014

Papa Was A Rolling Stone -- The Temptations:

It was the third of September
That day I'll always remember, yes I will
posted by Room 641-A at 10:32 AM on April 14, 2014

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy

The Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot
is about the famous ship wreck which occurred on Nov 10, 1975
posted by Flood at 10:39 AM on April 14, 2014

Traditional Irish music (and associated things like Irish folk) often features specific dates, sometimes even including the year. A few examples off the top of my head:

* Greenland Whale Fisheries - "In Eighteen Hundred and Forty-Six, on March, the Eighteenth Day, we hoisted our colors to the top of the mast, and for Greenland sailed away..."

* Spancil Hill - "It being on the Twenty-Third of June, the day before the fair..."

* The Galway Races - "As I went down to Galway town to seek for recreation on the Seventeenth of August, me mind being elevated..."

* Lord Nelson - "And then in Nineteen Sixty-Six, on March, the Seventh Day, a bloody great explosion made Lord Nelson rock and sway..."
posted by Flunkie at 11:12 AM on April 14, 2014

Everyone would gather
On the twenty-fourth of May
Sitting in the sand
To watch the fireworks display

-Rush, Lakeside Park
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 11:24 AM on April 14, 2014

Bob Dylan

"Clothes Line Sage"
It was January the thirtieth, And everybody was feelin’ fine
posted by mrmarley at 11:27 AM on April 14, 2014

Nickel Creek - 21st of May
posted by youcancallmeal at 11:29 AM on April 14, 2014

"July 6th" - John and Mary
posted by dlugoczaj at 11:39 AM on April 14, 2014

"Last Day of June 1934" - Al Stewart

Thanks holgate, I didn't know about that one, and June 30 is my birthday.
posted by dlugoczaj at 11:43 AM on April 14, 2014

Big & Rich, 8th of November.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 11:51 AM on April 14, 2014

Corey Hart - 3rd of June
posted by yawper at 11:54 AM on April 14, 2014

Billy Bragg, "St. Swithin's Day"

(July 15th -- Wikipedia article here)
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 11:56 AM on April 14, 2014

As down the glen one Easter morn to a city fair rode I
There Armed lines of marching men in squadrons passed me by
No fife did hum nor battle drum did sound it's dread tatoo
But the Angelus bell o'er the Liffey swell rang out through the foggy dew
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 12:01 PM on April 14, 2014

Pride (In the Name of love) -- U2

Less elegantly, I Just Shot John Lennon by The Cranberries starts with It was the fearful night of December 8th.
posted by psoas at 12:09 PM on April 14, 2014

Nick Lowe, Marie Provost (July 29)

(the real Marie Prevost died in January, says Wikipedia)
posted by in278s at 12:21 PM on April 14, 2014

Morphine Radar

You played me like a chess game and now you say:
Checkmate
While you go running freely spending money everyplace
And me I got to hide and
I don't dare show my face
If I am guilty so are you - It was March 4, 1982
posted by Kafkaesque at 12:27 PM on April 14, 2014

Bob Dylan - Isis (5th day of May)
posted by rocket88 at 1:10 PM on April 14, 2014

Joe Tex's 1967 song,"Men Are Gettin' Scarce" mentions drinking red soda water on the 19th of June (a.k.a "Juneteenth").
posted by fuse theorem at 5:12 PM on April 14, 2014

Tragically Hip, Fiddler's Green: September 17 / for a girl I know it's mother's day / her son has gone alee / and that's where he will stay
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 8:47 PM on April 14, 2014

April 5th - Talk Talk
June 9th - Boards of Canada
The Ides of March - Iron Maiden (March 15th)
April Fools - Rufus Wainwright (April 1st)
posted by Rufus T. Firefly at 5:48 AM on April 15, 2014

The Letter, by Kristin Hersh. September 29, 1984.
posted by judith at 2:56 AM on April 16, 2014