Several times in the last few years I’ve mentioned American music’s most baffling subgenre: Dead teenager songs.

There are plenty of baffling trends in music in this country. The late ’90s swing revival, for example. Remember that? What in the world was that? Or whatever was going on with Sha Na Na; they played Woodstock! But nothing tops the run from 1960 until 1964 when there were a confusing and slightly distressing number of songs in which a teenager dies in an automotive-related misadventure.

So let’s listen to some of those song and try to figure out what was going on with Boomers to make them so popular.

Mark Dinning — “Teen Angel”

Widely recognized as the first dead teenager song, “Teen Angel” was released in late 1959 but really broke out in 1960. It was reached No. 1 on the charts in the U.S., and somehow managed to reach No 37 in the U.K. despite being banned from the radio over there.

And it wasn’t just the Brits! Many radio stations across the U.S. banned it for being too sad. And oh, it is. A teenage boy and his girlfriend are driving and their car stalls on train tracks. He gets out and pulls her to safety, but she runs back to the car and dies when the train hits it. When they find her body she’s holding his class ring, which is apparently why she went back.

First off, she ran into the path of a train for a class ring. I mean, come on. They just make those; you can buy a new one! Also, he was gonna lose it four days after graduation anyway, since we all do.

Second, that storyline more or less proves that every song. that came after was a ripoff of this song, because every single one follows the same pattern. Boy and girl love each other, one of them dies in or because of a car, the other is sad. Over and over.

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Ray Peterson — “Tell Laura I Love Her”

This one is the second dead teenager song. It’s far less well-known than the others, but I’m including it because it reinforces my point that “Teen Angel” is very intentionally the template.

The plot of this one is that a dude named Tommy wants to marry Laura but doesn’t have the money for a ring. In possibly the worst decision for a character in a dead teenager song, he decides to earn the money in a stock car race. Naturally his car crashes, rolls over, and explodes. Laura is very sad.

Originally, Tommy was supposed to enter a rodeo and get gored to death by a bull, which is much more metal, but the record label insisted he die in a car crash to capitalize on the success of “Teen Angel.” And thus the template was formalized.

Also, as a side note, later in 1960 Marilyn Michaels recorded “Tell Tommy I Miss Him,” which is the same story from Laura’s perspective. You don’t get enough answer songs these days. I want to hear a response to “All Too Well” from the perspective of Jake Gyllenhaal. [Gokhman note: I wasn’t going to add my voice to this column, but I’ve got a good one, by Bay Area native Cam (and there’s also a ring involved): “Diane,” the rebuttal to “Jolene.”].

J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers — “Last Kiss”

I’m doing these chronologically, and this one’s slightly out of order, but we’ll get to that.

Wilson’s 1964 is version of “Last Kiss,” which reached No. 2 on the charts and is likely one of the two versions you’ve heard, is a cover of the version written and performed by Wayne Cochran in 1961. Cochran’s version didn’t really do particularly well, even when he rerecorded it in 1963.

As the story goes, this one is based on a real incident. Sixteen-year-olds J.L. Hancock and Jeanette Clark were killed in Cochran’s hometown when their car hit a truck and both were killed along with their friend Wayne Cooper. Two other friends survived the accident with serious injuries. It was so close to home that Cochran’s drummer was dating Clark’s sister at the time.

The problem with the story is that the accident happened in December of 1962. The song was originally released in July of 1961. It raises a lot of questions about Cochran’s potential psychic powers.

Anyway, like I said, Cochran tried twice to make the song a hit and it didn’t catch on either time. Then a year later it became a hit for someone else. Then in 1991 it became a hit again for Pearl Jam. That’s gotta sting.

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Jan and Dean — “Dead Man’s Curve”

By 1964, bands had to change it up to keep it fresh. That’s why this one has two notable differences from the rest.

First, and most notably, there’s no girlfriend in this one! It’s about a guy taking a drive in his Corvette and having an impromptu drag race against a stranger in a Jaguar who pulls up along side him at a light. Second, the protagonist survives! Someone still dies in a car, but it’s the guy he’s racing against. It smashes genre conventions.

We shouldn’t be surprised it breaks the mold, though. Despite being recorded by surf band Jan and Dean, it was cowritten by Brian Wilson from that other surf band you may have heard of. I hear he’s pretty good.

The Shangri-Las — “Leader of the Pack”

I’m sure someone in the comments is going to argue—whenever I mention a musician who was popular prior to 1980 the comments light up with disagreements—but to me this is the last great dead teenager song before the genre flamed out. Another late-era twist; it’s a motorcycle rather than a car, and he dies after a breakup rather than as part of a happy couple. There’s also undertones of anti-classist commentary in there, which is refreshing.

So, what do I think is behind this trend? For all their modern whining about participation trophies and snowflakes, Boomers were the original coddled generation. When they started arriving in 1946, their parents had just been through an economic depression and the biggest, deadliest war the world had ever seen, and their grandparents had been through a global pandemic before that. They had seen how bad things could get and wanted a better life for their kids. So they took great pains to give the next generation more than they had, and that meant protecting them from the evils of the world.

But some things never change and eventually they become teenagers. In 1960 the oldest ones were just entering high school, which means testing their independence and being rebellious. And if your parents have spent your life protecting you from bad things, what’s more rebellious than sad songs about tragedies? And when you’re a teenager, what’s sadder than the death of your high school sweetheart, a relationship that you’re sure will last forever?

So then what ended it in 1964? My guess is that the first wave of Boomers turned 18 and became eligible for the draft to be sent to Vietnam. I imagine that possibility changes one’s priorities and definition of tragedy. The year 1964 is, after all, the year anti-war protests started to grow and become mainstream.

Follow editor Daniel J. Willis and tweet column ideas to him at Twitter.com/BayAreaData.