Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)

Subject: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (Mangione)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Dec 24 - 05:43 PM

The story big in the news now (December 2024) is of the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson by Luigi Mangione. And a lot of legal scholars, news reporters, and pundits have remarked on the huge fanbase that has arisen following Mangione. Some are puzzled by the support of his act and offer of fake alibis and such by those followers. There are fan pages and posts all over social media.

I haven't looked into it closely, but in what I have heard and read, I haven't come across the terms "vigilante" or "antihero" to describe the response to Mangione, but that seems to actually be the case. He is like a modern day Joaquin Murrieta or Jesse James as far as a large swath of the public is concerned. Maybe a John Dillinger.

Despite his privileged background, Mangione was able to work up a lot anger and hatred for health insurance companies and the head of this largest one in particular. His murderous act spoke to millions of people who have been victimized by these companies. People who, like apparently most Americans, have a soft spot for the anti-hero.

This seems to be something that Mudcat can address musically. In several search attempts I found lots of murder ballads but the closest I come to a similar character is Jesse James (above) and his taking on the banks in his era or Bonnie and Clyde.

UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect Luigi Mangione faces federal charges after waiving extradition

Similar figures (modern, historical, and fictional) include Robin Hood, the Scarlet Pimpernel, Michael Corleone (The Godfather), D. B. Cooper, Thelma and Louise, Tony Soprano. The character Keller in Lawrence Block mysteries. Stories where murder seems an acceptable outcome.

Will there be any songs about Mangione?

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (Mangione)
From: gillymor
Date: 19 Dec 24 - 06:15 PM

Vigilante Man- Ry Cooder Woody Guthrie Dust Bowl Ballad that doesn't exactly fit this sad story but a good song nonetheless.

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (Mangione)
From: gillymor
Date: 19 Dec 24 - 06:21 PM

and Woody's Pretty Boy Floyd by The Byrds.

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (Mangione)
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 19 Dec 24 - 08:30 PM

Dear SRS,   

    Interesting ... INTERESTING
   Wary Interesting.

You have a way of connecting, and "cutting to the quick".

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Folk legend ...

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (Mangione)
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Dec 24 - 01:56 PM

ChatGPT Luigi Mangione song

https://youtu.be/jMFEe2bUKRo?si=7hVDEQykW6hHEZJk

This is getting way out of hand

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (Mangione)
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Dec 24 - 05:20 AM

What's "heroic" about shooting an unarmed man in the back ?

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (Mangione)
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Dec 24 - 05:44 AM

Dunno about Ry Cooder and the Byrds. Give me Woody songs sung by Woody any day!

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (Mangione)
From: gillymor
Date: 21 Dec 24 - 07:02 AM

Woody was a great songwriter but I've found most of his recordings to be unlistenable. Helluva thing to say on a folk music site and I agree with Guest, I don't think this incident was vigilantism, it was just plain murder.

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (Mangione)
From: GUEST,GUEST Thompson
Date: 21 Dec 24 - 11:53 AM

I'd see someone like climate activist Gaie Delap as more songworthy, but America is a country of guns…

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (Mangione)
From: GUEST,paperback
Date: 21 Dec 24 - 12:44 PM

I'm seeing some irony here thinking it over this morning.

A man allegedly shoots someone for allegedly using a computer program to allegedly deny his insurance claim then someone uses computer programs to compose a song about it.

Tolkien was right. The servants of the machine won WWII.

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (Mangione)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Dec 24 - 01:09 PM

What's "heroic" about shooting an unarmed man in the back ?

That's part of the puzzle.

He was unarmed, but he certainly was dangerous.

Revenge, getting the attention of the insurance business in general, making an example of someone who chose to run a business this way (would it operate that way regardless of who is in charge)?

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (Mangione)
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 21 Dec 24 - 03:58 PM

The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers...

Actuarial science
Actuary

In this context, proportionally speaking, Mr. vigilante Mangione would be a cold blooded, back shooting, murderous coward. Today it's 'health care.' And tomorrow…???

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (Mangione)
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Dec 24 - 04:24 PM

And tomorrow?
The messenger

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (Mangione)
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 21 Dec 24 - 05:16 PM

The Ballad of Ned Kelly (Trevor Lucas) by Fotheringay
Released on Fotheringay 1970

Viva Zapata (Andy Irvine) by Andy Irvine
Released on Rude Awakening 1991

Ballads of Sacco & Vanzetti written and performed by Woody Guthrie
Also Facing the Chair by Andy Irvine

Tom Joad by Woody Guthrie - Tom Joad and Preacher Casy

Lots of songs about Robin Hood

Lots of songs about outlaws, thieves, criminals and murderers, of course
e.g. Bonnie and Clyde

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (Mangione)
From: GUEST,Thompson
Date: 21 Dec 24 - 06:56 PM

The Night Before Larry was Stretched, though it's more of a general criminal song. The Boston Burglar. Now don't go moonlight wandering, for you'll break the laws of man. The Wild Colonial Boy

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (Mangione)
From: GUEST,Thompson
Date: 21 Dec 24 - 07:06 PM

And of course Éamonn a' Chnuic - and here's his story told by a local child in the Dúchas collection of béaloideas.

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (Mangione)
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Dec 24 - 07:47 PM

"Woody was a great songwriter but I've found most of his recordings to be unlistenable."

Well there's no accounting for taste. Maybe Woody is a prophet without honour in his own country...

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (Mangione)
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Dec 24 - 08:32 PM

For some of you Paddy, Taffy, Jock and XXXX blokes

SLO outlaws

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (Mangione)
From: GUEST,paperback
Date: 21 Dec 24 - 08:54 PM

Probably not really the type of poetry for Advent

a slam poem by Joaquin Zihuatanejo This is a suit

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)
From: Thompson
Date: 22 Dec 24 - 01:16 AM

Wow, paperback.

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)
From: gillymor
Date: 22 Dec 24 - 06:24 AM

Yeah, wow!

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)
From: pattyClink
Date: 22 Dec 24 - 10:55 AM

Well I can't seem to find it using the usual search tools, so let's see if a human being can retrieve this one.

I seem to remember Makem and Clancy doing a song about a highwayman. Can only remember odd lines:

"took to robbing on the King's highway."

"never robbed any poor man yet, nor any tradesmen did he beset,

he robbed the lords and the ladies fair,"

anyone recall the name?

Also, there's a good page on the 'highwaymen' on the Contemplator site.

Highwaymen

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)
From: pattyClink
Date: 22 Dec 24 - 10:57 AM

Furthermore, in response to the righteous pearl-clutching over the recent murder, bear in mind there are estimates that 70,000 human beings lose their lives annually when needed treatments are denied by their insurance companies. Murder by algorithm is apparently legal.

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)
From: gillymor
Date: 22 Dec 24 - 11:13 AM

That sounds like The Newry Highwayman.

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 22 Dec 24 - 01:47 PM

Murder by 'estimation?' This "pearl clutching" Chonchyata (oh, the etymological irony) will say nope to that.

Have any of you been bothered to read your so-called 'manifesto?' Your Ivy League hero-justice monger couldn't finish a cogent thought on his own subject... according to him(?!?).

Woody Guthrie lived about ten years semi-homeless on American streets when he should have been getting institutionalized treatment, like it... or don't.

Mangione looks more like six months... give or take. American mental health care, t'was allus thus...

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Dec 24 - 04:48 PM

He isn't "our ivy league hero-justice monger," he is someone who sparked a huge conversation and has received a lot of sympathy for his act from people who feel the insurance companies are getting away with killing people for their bottom line.

Did someone publish his "manifesto?" I didn't see it or read much about it except it was a few handwritten pages. I think I heard it was about 250 words, so equivalent to one double-spaced typed page.

Deserved? Murder isn't an answer, so no. You're suggesting he'll just get a bed in the psych ward? Or that he already should have been in one? Possibly.

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)
From: pattyClink
Date: 22 Dec 24 - 08:28 PM

Thanks, gillymor, it is The Newry Highwayman.

The media outlets refused to publish the manifesto. Doesn't seem incoherent to me. manifesto   

Perhaps makes more sense to those who had a loved one or two harmed by these cold-blooded killers.

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 22 Dec 24 - 08:32 PM

[Standard boilerplate disclaimer:] Never ever, and I do mean never rely on social media for anything remotely health care or safety related. [end]

More social media convo about Mangione's abs than his smarts.

One believes in science... or not. Luigi Mangione does not. But then, to his supporters, it was never about him or science. It's all about the victim. If it had turned out to be a lover scorned, or one of a thousand other trad lyrics, Brian Thompson still gets murder... for being what he was.

...bear in mind there are estimates that 70,000 human beings lose their lives annually when needed treatments are denied by their insurance companies. Murder by algorithm is apparently legal.

...people who feel the insurance companies are getting away with killing people for their bottom line.

There is science for law, health, life and... death. “Capitalism” was not on 1/70,000 death certs. Go figure. If it was, Mangione's favorite Golden Arches would blow through the so-called 'estimates' like Del Taco through a goose.

Who get's it next? Up against the wall mutha fryers?

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Dec 24 - 08:51 PM

“I will show the Texans there is at least one Mexican in the county who is not afraid of an American Cowboy.”


Elfego Baca - I Won't Back Down - YouTube

.
The Life and Truth of Elfego Baca

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)
From: GUEST,paperback
Date: 22 Dec 24 - 08:52 PM

^

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Dec 24 - 11:55 AM

This morning on the Texas Standard radio show, the newscaster's introduction to a story on this subject described Mangione as an "anti-hero." First time I have heard it characterized in the news. (I'm not following him closely, just noticing how often they mention progress in charging him. Today he pled not guilty.)

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)
From: Thompson
Date: 23 Dec 24 - 12:08 PM

My own personal feeling about Luigi Mangione is that the man isn't well.
But we're surely talking here about how a man becomes a myth?

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Dec 24 - 12:31 PM

We started talking about how a man (or woman) becomes a legend and a song. Myth might be over-stating it since it's a modern event, though the way stories are rapidly told and re-told on social media can accelerate the myth-making properties of storytelling.

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)
From: Thompson
Date: 23 Dec 24 - 06:36 PM

Mythification.

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)
From: GUEST,paperback
Date: 24 Dec 24 - 02:56 AM

Romanticized dime novels were the clickbait of their time and were responsible for mythologizing the Old West but (monetized) YouTube is way worst then dime novels.

The mythical William Cooper certainly fits the cyber anti-hero bill.

The Conspiracist Manual That Influenced a Generation of Rappers

Norio Hayakawa calls Coopers book: Behold, A Pail of Horseshit. Amen, Mr Hayakawa

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Dec 24 - 05:39 AM

I took up a special offer to have ad-free YouTube for three months and it's been a revelation (especially when I watch it on my big telly). There are riches galore there and the crocks of shite are easily avoided. I'm going to keep it even when I have to pay.

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Dec 24 - 06:09 AM

On second thought TicTok seems

more of the culprit then YouTube

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)
From: meself
Date: 24 Dec 24 - 11:48 AM

(Bit of a thread drift, but:) "Romanticized dime novels were the clickbait of their time and were responsible for mythologizing the Old West" - there was a career-criminal and murderer (or to be more romantic, an "outlaw") hanged in Calgary, Alberta, in its early days - 1890s or early 1900s - who, on the gallows, attributed his misspent life to his "drinking whiskey and reading novels". The "Old West" was being mythologized before it was even old (as has often been noted).

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)
From: meself
Date: 24 Dec 24 - 12:08 PM

(If anyone is curious, I found a thorough source for the above: Ernest Cashel 1882-1904 It's quite a yarn. Unsurprisingly, I didn't get the story completely right:

Sixty years after his execution, his death note was found and donated to the Glenbow Museum. Titled “Advice to young men”, it warned against “saloons, gambling houses, and the houses of ill-fame”, though it noted
that crime novels were the worst influence of all. It concluded with the suggestion that young men should “stay at home, shun novels, bad company and cigarettes. Don’t do anything, boys, you are afraid to let your mother know.”)

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 24 Dec 24 - 12:20 PM

The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes
Set to music by Phil Ochs, John Otway and Loreena McKennitt

Bold Nevison; Nevison was idolised by the public, and ballads about his deeds were popular centuries after in the form of a folk song "Bold Nevison the Highwayman" (Roud 1082). The Lincolnshire folk singer Joseph Taylor knew three verses of a song about Nevison. (Wikipedia)

O Rare Turpin Hero; Richard Turpin was an English highwayman whose exploits were romanticised following his execution in York for horse theft.

Lizzie Loved a Highwayman, Reg Meuross's song about Dick Turpin

Jane and Amanda Threlfall sang Highwayman Outwitted on their 2002 CD Gown of Green. They noted: Sung by Mrs Kate Thompson of Knaresborough, and published in A Garland of English Folk Songs (1926) by Frank Kidson, this song is sometimes known as The Farmer’s Daughter. It’s probably derived from the street ballad The Crafty Ploughboy, which is based on a true incident which took place in the 1760s. (Mainly Norfolk)

Burke and Hare; Children's Nursery Rhyme
Doon the close and up the stairs
But-an'-ben wi' Burke and Hare
Burke's the Butcher, Hare the Thief
And Knox the boy that buys the beef

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 24 Dec 24 - 12:44 PM

"Al Capone" is a song and single by Jamaican singer-songwriter Prince Buster. It was first released in 1964. At the time the song was written, many Jamaicans had a fascination with films from Hollywood, particularly gangster and Western films. Al Capone, the American gangster from the 1920s and 1930s, held a particular interest for Jamaican listeners. (Wikipedia)

https://www.alcoholproblemsandsolutions.org/?s=songs

Making Moonshine songs about moonshine
“Copper Kettle” suggests the benefits, even pleasures, of moonshining.

Get you a copper kettle
Get you a copper coil.
Cover with new made corn mash
And never more you’ll toil.

Prohibition permitted doctors to prescribe alcohol for their patients. Soon, doctors were prescribing it for dozens of ailments and conditions.
Doing so generated annual income for doctors of about one-half billion dollars in today’s value.

[chorus]
Oh! Doctor, Oh! Doctor, I’m feeling blue.
Oh! Doctor, Oh! Doctor, it’s up to you.
The drug stores on the corners
Are filled with liquor mourners.
I told a drug clerk my condition,
He said, “Go see your physician!”
Oh! Doctor, Oh! Doctor, don’t feel my pulse.
That’s not what I need for results.
Write the prescription and please make it say
“Take with your meals.” I eat ten times a day.
Oh! Doctor, Oh! Doctor, help me pull thro’
For I’ll never get well ’till you do.

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)
From: Geoff Wallis
Date: 24 Dec 24 - 01:09 PM

Joe Ely's 'Me and Billy the Kid' - top notch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9hWDWNs7wk

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 24 Dec 24 - 02:06 PM

Smugglers;

A Smuggler's Song by Rudyard Kipling, set to music by Peter Bellamy.
Peter Bellamy; A Smuggler’s Song is one of Kipling’s best loved poems. It presents a somewhat romantic view of the cut-throat Sussex smugglers of the Eighteenth Century. The melody is derived from that of The White Cockade, a song which survives in the repertoire of a family in a village in which Kipling himself lived for a period: the Copper family of Rottingdean, Sussex. (Mainly Norfolk)

Smuggler’s Song / Devoran Smugglers; Ralph Dunstan collected this “Smuggler’s Song or Shanty” from Capt. T. Collett of Polglaze, Perrancoombe, 25 December 1929, who learnt it from “Capp’n Jacky”, a bargee working from Devoran, in 1864, who was then about 70. (Mainly Norfolk)

The Smuggler; Masefield includes it in his A Sailor’s Garland. (Mainly Norfolk)

Poitin;

Paddy Boyle; The Tinker's Poitín. I found this song on the Irish Traditional Music Archives sung by Annie Hirrell. The earliest recording I can find is on a 1969 album called 'The Leprechaun' by an Irish/Canadian folk group called 'Sullivan's Gypsies'; on the album they give the writing credit to a Don McLennan. (youtube)

"The Hills of Connemara" is an Irish folk song written by Sean McCarthy about Irish moonshine, or poitín, set in Connemara. (Wikipedia)

Subject: RE: Songs about vigilante anti-heroes (e.g., Mangione)
From: GUEST,paperback
Date: 26 Dec 24 - 10:45 PM

Elon Musk is rapidly becoming mythical clickbait


DDG - Elon Musk ft. Gunna (Official Music Video)