5 killer pop songs about true crime
If you’re the kind of person who can happily fall down a rabbit hole of unsolved cases and courtroom dramas, you’ve probably noticed something: true crime doesn’t just live in documentaries and podcasts. It’s been quietly shaping pop and rock music for decades.
Long before bingeable series you can stream, musicians were pulling stories straight from the headlines and turning them into songs. Sometimes these tracks became protests, while others were chilling character studies.
Join us at Crime+Investigation, as we list our top crime-related pop songs that’ve had a big impact on popular culture today.
1. Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen
Nebraska is not your typical Bruce Springsteen song. There’s no big chorus, no stadium energy and no comforting resolution. Instead, you get a cold, quiet confession from the perspective of a killer who doesn’t quite understand himself.
The song was inspired by Charles Starkweather, who went on a murder spree across Nebraska and Wyoming in 1957 with his teenage girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate. Over several weeks, Starkweather killed 11 people, including Fugate’s family, leaving behind one of the most infamous killing sprees in American history.
2. I Don’t Like Mondays by The Boomtown Rats
On 29th January 1979, Brenda Ann Spencer opened fire on an elementary school in San Diego, killing two people and wounding several others. When a reporter asked her why she did it, her answer shocked the world:
'I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.'
That one line raced through the media. When Bob Geldof read it, he was stunned by how empty it sounded. The song lyrics circle around alienation, emotional detachment and violence without warning.
For true crime aficionados, this case still feels haunting because there’s no simple explanation. And that’s exactly what the I Don’t Like Mondays reflects. It doesn’t offer answers.
3. Hurricane by Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan’s Hurricane stands out because it isn’t about a killer. It’s about a man Dylan believed had been wrongfully convicted.
Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter was a professional boxer sentenced to life in prison for a triple murder in New Jersey in 1966. Almost from the start, his case was surrounded by controversy, including claims of racial bias and coerced testimony.
After reading Carter’s autobiography and visiting him in prison, Dylan wrote Hurricane as a musical case file. The song walks listeners through the night of the murders, the police response and the flawed trial that followed.
4. Jenny Was a Friend of Mine by The Killers
It’s a critically acclaimed song that is considered one of The Killers’ most popular, but did you know that Jenny Was a Friend of Mine was inspired by a real-life killer?
The song is told from the point of view of a boy who is being questioned over the murder of a girl called Jenny. Hauntingly, the song provides no resolution to the crime and never clarifies whether the boy was guilty. However, the connection to a real crime is through a notorious killing that took place in 1986.
In August of that year, Robert Chambers was charged with second-degree murder following the death of 18-year-old Jennifer Levin in New York’s Central Park. Chambers would change his story several times during the subsequent investigation, and later pled guilty to manslaughter. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
As for The Killers’ connection? The song is said to have drawn inspiration from Chambers’ videotaped confession to police on the morning following Levin’s death.
5. Suffer Little Children by The Smiths
If there’s one song that feels like it stepped straight out of a case file, it’s Suffer Little Children. This haunting track from The Smiths’ 1984 debut album was inspired by the Moors Murders, one of the most notorious crime sprees in British history.
Between 1963 and 1965, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley abducted and murdered five children and teenagers in and around Manchester, burying some of their victims on Saddleworth Moor. The case horrified the country. For many, the Moors Murders remain one of those deeply unsettling cases.
Morrissey grew up in Manchester, and the crimes were part of the city’s collective memory. Rather than focusing on the killers, the song centres on the victims.
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