Look Out Look Out Look Out...

This NPR music article makes a very funny (if not totally convincing) argument linking the music of 1960s girl groups like the Shangri-Las to modern YA fiction:

"...the truth of the matter is that a certain swath of teenagers always like stories with incredibly melodramatic high stakes, and a good chunk of those who like romance have always had a weak spot for a combination of kissing and traaaaagedy."

The premise might be a stretch, but I'm deeply grateful to the author for introducing me to these lyrics:

"The stakes are raised in "Give Us Your Blessings," which follows Jimmy and Mary... to Mary's house to ask her parents' permission to get married. Her parents are terrible, though, and just laugh at them, so Mary goes out and gets in the car with Jimmy, and the best thing in the history of everything ever happens, lyric-wise:

As they drove off, they were crying
And nobody knows for sure
If that is why
They didn't see
The sign that said
DETOUR

The message: Congratulations, Mom and Dad, you didn't let me marry my boyfriend, and we're dead now."

That kind of attitude would have really improved my Hunger Games reading experience.