My Actifit Report Card: June 14 2025

Today I was listening to music and this oldie came on. It is about a dude who dies trying to win a stock car race so he can buy a ring for his girl. Apparently this was part of a music genre called teenage tragedy.

The song is called Tell Laura I Love Her, by a guy named Ray Peterson. It's super sad. Almost so sad that it is pathetic. Almost so pathetic as to be funny, ironically.

Well, here it is. What do you think?

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If, for some reason, you want another example of Teenage Tragedy, here is Teen Angel by Mark Dinning. This time the girl dies.

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Both of these songs are from 1960. Must have been a depressing time since both became big hits.

As a matter of fact, in 1960, Tell Laura I Love Her went to number 1, and the 2 songs that were number 1 before and after it were also Teenage Tragedy songs! One is El Paso, which is a pretty cool song that starts - Down in the West Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican girl. Well that dude is dead by the end of the song. The other song is Running Bear, which is about 2 American Indians in love who are on opposite sides of a river. They can't stand to be apart so they both jump in and try to swim to each other, but both drown.