10 Songs That Predicted the Tragic Fate of Their Singers in Real Life

WatchMojo

Music can be a powerful premonition. Join us as we explore spine-chilling songs that eerily foreshadowed the tragic fates of their legendary singers, revealing an uncanny connection between art and destiny that will send chills down your spine.

Transcript

00:00I'm so tired I can't sleep

00:07Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at the most spine-chilling songs

00:11that, strangely enough, seem to foreshadow the artist's untimely deaths.

00:15I can't get no satisfaction All I want is easy action, baby

00:22Lonely Teardrops, Jackie Wilson

00:24After rising to fame as a member of Billy Ward and his Dominoes,

00:28Jackie Wilson launched his solo career in 1957,

00:31scoring a hit the following year with Lonely Teardrops. Renowned for his

00:34electrifying stage presence, Wilson always raised the bar with his performances.

00:47But in 1975, while singing Lonely Teardrops at Dick Clark's good old Rock and Roll Review,

00:52life delivered a cruel twist. As he hit the lyric,

00:55My Heart is Crying, Wilson suffered a heart attack and collapsed on stage.

01:06Initially, the audience mistook it for part of his act and cheered him on.

01:09The truth soon became clear, and he was rushed to the hospital. Sadly,

01:13Wilson remained in a semi-comatose state for nearly nine years before passing away in 1984.

01:19Jackie Wilson had such an impact on the entertainment industry at large,

01:26and definitely in the music industry.

01:28Solid Gold, Easy Action, T-Rex

01:31T-Rex frontman and founder Mark Bolin never learned to drive out of fear that he would die

01:35in a car accident. Ironically, he wasn't entirely wrong. Though he never got behind the wheel,

01:40Bolin tragically died in 1977 after a vehicle driven by his girlfriend, Gloria Jones,

01:46crashed into a tree.

01:50As if that wasn't spooky enough,

01:53Bolin himself may have unwittingly foreshadowed his fate in T-Rex's 1972 song,

01:58Solid Gold, Easy Action. The track begins with the lines,

02:01Life is the same and it always will be, easy as picking foxes from a tree.

02:10At first glance, it seems innocuous, until you realize that the car that collided with the tree

02:15bore the license plate Fox 661L.

02:25The Factory, Warren Zevon

02:27Warren Zevon's 1987 track The Factory tells the tale of a man who takes over his father's

02:32grueling job at a factory. The song lays bare the toll of working such a job,

02:42closing with the lines,

02:49Strangely enough, this seemed to hint at Zevon's eventual fate.

02:53Although he never worked in a factory, in 2002, the singer was diagnosed with

02:58pleural mesothelioma, a lung cancer typically caused by exposure to asbestos.

03:03Now he's on disability and I got his old job in the factory.

03:09Choosing not to undergo treatment, Zevon immediately set to work on what would be

03:13his final album, The Wind, which was released just weeks before he died in September 2003.

03:24Penny Royalty, Nirvana

03:26Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain often channeled his experience with mental health issues and

03:31substance use disorder into his songs. The band's 1993 track Penny Royalty revolves around

03:36someone grappling with severe depression, which by all accounts mirrored Cobain's own

03:40state of mind when he wrote it. With haunting lyrics like give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld

03:52so I can sigh eternally and sit and drink Penny Royalty distill the life that's inside of me,

03:58the track reads like a cry of anguish from Cobain himself.

04:07Penny Royalty appeared on Nirvana's third and final album in utero and was scheduled to be

04:12released as a single. However, shortly before that could happen, Cobain took his own life at

04:18his Seattle home. It was discovered by an electrician who had showed up at around 8 40 a.m

04:22this morning, Friday morning, to do some work at the house. He looked in a window and said he

04:26recognized the body on the floor inside as Cobain's. Leaving on a Jet Plane, John Denver.

04:31While he was still a struggling musician, John Denver wrote a song during a layover at the

04:35airport titled Babe I Hate to Go. In the tune, which was eventually retitled Leaving on a Jet

04:48Plane, the singer bids farewell to his loved one shortly before he boards a plane, stating that he

04:53hates to leave and is unsure of when he will be back. Nearly 30 years later, those bittersweet

05:07lyrics took on a haunting new meaning. In October 1997, Denver, who was a licensed pilot with years

05:14of flying experience, died when his private plane malfunctioned mid-air and crashed into

05:18the Monterey Bay in California. He was the sole occupant.

05:31That Smell, Leonard Skinner. This song appeared on Street Survivors, the fifth album by rock band

05:36Leonard Skinner, which gained infamy shortly after its release. The original album cover

05:41depicted the band members surrounded by flames. This was a rather ominous choice given that just

05:52three days after its debut, the band was involved in a devastating plane crash that claimed the

05:56lives of frontman Ronnie Van Zandt and others. Even more ominous, That Smell, co-written by Van

06:02Zandt, contained lyrics like Tomorrow might not be here for you and the smell of death surrounds

06:07you. While Van Zandt intended the song as a warning against his bandmates' excessive drinking

06:18and drug use, it has since been viewed as an unsettling foreshadowing of his own tragic end.

06:24Six people lost their lives. Among them was the heart and soul of the band,

06:29Ronnie Van Zandt.

06:30Done Changed, Richie Rich featuring Tupac. Ever since Tupac Shakur was murdered in September

06:361996, his death has been a hotbed of conspiracy theories. One of the most infamous claims is that

06:41Shakur faked his death and is still alive, a notion that is fueled by the strange way the

06:46rapper seemed to have predicted his own demise. Two months earlier, Shakur was featured on a song

06:56by fellow rapper Richie Rich where he rapped the line, I've been shot and murdered, can't tell you

07:01how it happened, word for word. True to the lyrics, Shakur was shot on his way to a nightclub

07:09in Las Vegas and died days later in the hospital. It wasn't until 2023 that anyone was arrested for

07:16the crime.

07:16Dwayne Café D. Davis has been indicted for murder, according to the Associated Press.

07:21Davis shared in a memoir entitled Compton Street Legend that he was in the Cadillac

07:26where the gunfire came from.

07:28Dream Brother – Jeff Buckley

07:30In 1994, Jeff Buckley wrote Dream Brother as a plea to his friend, urging him not to abandon

07:35his pregnant girlfriend. This was a familiar scenario for Buckley, whose father left his

07:40mother when he was just six months old. However, the song includes some ominous

07:51lyrics that seem unrelated to his friend's situation, like that dark angel he is shuffling

07:56in, watching over them with his black feather wings unfurled, asleep in the sand with the ocean

08:00washing over. These words became particularly chilling when, just three years later, Buckley

08:14tragically drowned while swimming in the Wolf River Harbor. Although the death was ruled accidental,

08:19the eerie parallels between the lyrics and his fate have continued to raise eyebrows.

08:26Borrowed Time – John Lennon

08:34John Lennon recorded this song in 1980, but it never saw the light of day until four years

08:39after his death. Borrowed Time is a calypso-tinged reggae tune that was inspired by a turbulent

08:44sailing trip, during which Lennon's yacht got caught in a severe storm.

08:56Reflecting on the experience, he sang the line,

08:58Living on borrowed time without a thought for tomorrow. Lennon was simply contemplating mortality

09:03following the harrowing near-death experience, but little did he know that his words would become

09:07strangely prophetic just months later. On December 8, 1980, Lennon was tragically shot

09:19and killed by Mark David Chapman in front of his apartment building in New York City.

09:23The Ballad of Jimmy – Jimi Hendrix & Curtis Knight

09:53Jimi Hendrix exploded onto the scene in 1967 with his groundbreaking debut album,

09:57Are You Experienced? But two years earlier, while still struggling to make a name for himself,

10:02Hendrix recorded a standalone track titled The Ballad of Jimmy with fellow musician Curtis Knight.

10:15The song's protagonist, also named Jimmy, was portrayed as a heroic figure who met a tragic

10:20end. Eerily prophetic lyrics included lines like,

10:23Many things he would try, for he knew soon he'd die, and,

10:27Five years this he said, he's not gone, he's just dead.

10:38Fast forward five years, and Hendrix himself passed away in London at the age of 27,

10:43succumbing to asphyxia while he was intoxicated. It's almost as if he had written his own epilogue.

10:51Did we miss any other singers who predicted their own futures with their music?

11:07Let us know in the comments below.

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