bikers in songs - do they ever survive?

Subject: bikers in songs - do they ever survive?
From: Andy7
Date: 10 Jun 19 - 06:37 PM

As soon as you realise, after a line or two, that the song you're hearing is about a biker, you just know that they're going to meet a tragic end, by the end of the song.

Are there any motorbike songs in which the rider is still cheerfully alive and well, when the song finishes?

Subject: RE: bikers in songs - do they ever survive?
From: GUEST,Starship
Date: 10 Jun 19 - 11:26 PM

No.

Subject: RE: bikers in songs - do they ever survive?
From: GUEST,Starship
Date: 10 Jun 19 - 11:48 PM

I tried to write a biker song where the rider lived, but alas:

Bubba the biker lived to ride,
With a shot glass of whisk(e)y by his side,
But he hasn't seemed the same
Since he left his bleeding brain:
Long story short, the fu**ker died.

I ended it there. Never saw the point trying to do another.

Subject: RE: bikers in songs - do they ever survive?
From: Mr Red
Date: 11 Jun 19 - 03:05 AM

In Byker Hill the pig dies..................

And Bikause your Mine has a vanishingly small body count.

Subject: RE: bikers in songs - do they ever survive?
From: Gordon Jackson
Date: 11 Jun 19 - 04:57 AM

Yes, Steve Earle's The Other Kind. A wonderful lyric and a great song imho:

"The Other Kind"

I woke up this morning and I took a look around at all that I got
These days I've been lookin' in the mirror and wondering if that's me lookin' back or not
I'm still the apple of my mama's eye
I'm my daddy's worst fears realized
Here of late all this real estate don't seem all that real to me sometimes
I'm back out on that road again
Turn this beast into the wind
There are those that break and bend
I'm the other kind, I'm the other kind

Now my old buddy, what's his name, says, "Man what the hell are you thinkin' 'bout
Fool, you got two of everything, but you hang your head just like you was down and out"
And I'm damn sure not suffering from a lack of love
There's plenty more where that came from
Ah - but leave it up to me to say something wrong and hurt someone before I'm done

You see it used to be I was really free
I didn't need no gasoline to run
Before you could say Jack Kerouac you'd turn your back and I'd be gone
Yeah nowadays I got me two good wheels and I seek refuge in aluminum and steel
Aw, it takes me out there for just a little while
And the years fall away with every mile

Subject: RE: bikers in songs - do they ever survive?
From: Newport Boy
Date: 11 Jun 19 - 05:11 AM

21 years ago, I wrote this in response to a challenge. I never got round to a tune.

Oh dear, a challenge! That taxes my brain
but I’ve done it before - I can do it again!
Now - a title - a topic - a thought to begin.
My mind is a blank, what a state I am in!

World events? Too depressing - disasters galore.
The US election? I can’t stand any more
(and there’s still half a year to the finishing line).
Which reminds me - Olympics? Well, they should be fine
now that China has opened her doors to the press -
but that’s back to disasters. Oh, what a mess!

Let me look on the bright side - summer is here.
My BM is ready, I’ve checked all my gear.
All I need is the sunshine and I’m off down the lane,
‘cross the bridge to the beauty of Wales once again.
Welsh roads are a pleasure to ride on two wheels,
Whether motor or leg-driven, how good it feels
to be over the hills, down to valleys so green -
and the girls in the towns are the fairest I’ve seen.

That’s cheered me up - I can now go to bed
and stop struggling to squeeze poor rhymes from my head!

Phil

Subject: RE: bikers in songs - do they ever survive?
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 11 Jun 19 - 05:29 AM

Dunno about “well” but the narrator in the “Hell’s Angel” version of The Wild Rover is still alive - just about - in the final verse!

Regards

Subject: RE: bikers in songs - do they ever survive?
From: David C. Carter
Date: 11 Jun 19 - 05:42 AM

There's Arlo Guthrie's-The Motorcycle Song,a.k.a-The Pickle Song.

Motorpsycho Nitemare.Dylan.He escapes...just.

Subject: RE: bikers in songs - do they ever survive?
From: GUEST,Mayomick
Date: 11 Jun 19 - 06:23 AM

Just for kicks i ride all thru the night ,my bird hangs on in fright , when i do a ton for kicks..mike sarne .....from the sixties

Subject: RE: bikers in songs - do they ever survive?
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 11 Jun 19 - 06:27 AM

George Formby - Riding in the TT Races from the 1935 film No Limit.

DC

Subject: RE: bikers in songs - do they ever survive?
From: Mo the caller
Date: 11 Jun 19 - 09:12 AM

The girlfriend rode off on the Vincent, does she count?

Subject: RE: bikers in songs - do they ever survive?
From: GUEST,Andy7
Date: 11 Jun 19 - 12:39 PM

Yes, she probably does! :-)

Subject: RE: bikers in songs - do they ever survive?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Jun 19 - 09:06 PM

He does in Teenage Cremation.

Subject: RE: bikers in songs - do they ever survive?
From: GUEST,Jerome Clark
Date: 12 Jun 19 - 10:36 AM

There's a lovely song by the late Gene Clark, "Gypsy Rider," in which a biker is evoked as a modern-day, doomed-to-wander rambler. I first heard it on a 1980s album, long vanished from my collection, by Clark and Carla Olson. The Kennedys do a splendid version on their 2006 Appleseed release Songs of the Open Road.

Though the song has strongly autumnal atmospherics, nobody dies.

Subject: RE: bikers in songs - do they ever survive?
From: GUEST,Starship
Date: 12 Jun 19 - 10:45 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5ruo6h6AGk There's Clark and Carla Olson doing it.

Subject: RE: bikers in songs - do they ever survive?
From: Vincent Jones
Date: 12 Jun 19 - 02:49 PM

I seem to recall that Noah survived in Mike Absalom's "Noah and his Chopper".

Subject: RE: bikers in songs - do they ever survive?
From: Mr Red
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 03:46 AM

Wasn't the Mike Sarne song "You can't make love on a motorcycle Michael, like you can in an automobile"?

On that logic, there was no la Petite Mort






I'll get my crash helmet..........

Subject: RE: bikers in songs - do they ever survive?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 11:54 AM

The Mixtures - The Pushbike Song 1971


..though, realisticaly.. the odds are probably worse for cyclists on British roads in the 21st Century.....

Subject: RE: bikers in songs - do they ever survive?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 04:13 AM

Where would we be without doners?

Subject: RE: bikers in songs - do they ever survive?
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 10:27 AM

Your "b" got turned around.