The Lilac Time, "Rockland" Tracking down this gem from The Lilac Time was no easy task, but you'll be glad I did. Stephen Duffy is one of the great underground songwriters, and "Rockland," from the first Lilac Time album, is a real treasure. It's a lament to loss of morality that mentions Ruby by name, bitterly remarking that the "winner rewrites history / the napalm lights his vanity."
Deep Purple, "Jack Ruby" Most songs that deal with Ruby tend to either focus on the conspiracy theories that swirled around the Kennedy assassination or seek to make a statement on violence in general. Not Deep Purple. They went with the most likely explanation, that Ruby was a little crazy and shot Oswald on impulse. That attitude forms the backbone of a hell of an unapologetic rock track.
Fiskadoro, "Dubai" Let's go out with some locals, techno-noise heroes Fiskadoro! I interviewed Richard Kimball in 2012 about "Dubai" and its creepy chant of "And I knew Jack Ruby." He said...
When Jen [Kimball] and I moved to Texas, multiple people told us not to do it 'because they killed Kennedy.' The JFK assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby etc. -- it seems to be to be a metaphor for the start of all the madness around us.
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