Bruce Springsteen – Last Man Standing (teen bandmate George Theiss)
Last week Joe DePugh, a star high school baseball player from Freehold, New Jersey, died aged 75. It made headlines because he was the guy who “could throw that speedball by you / Make you look like a fool, boy” in Bruce Springsteen’s 1984 hit Glory Days – one of the numerous ordinary people that have proved inspirational in pop.
The old crowd from the Jersey Shore still make their way into Springsteen’s songs: the centrepiece of his huge stadium shows these last couple of years has been a solo acoustic number called Last Man Standing, which appeared in his 2020 album Letter to You. It was written following the death of George Theiss, in 2018. As a teenage boy, Theiss had been courting Springsteen’s sister Virginia, but ended up instead in a band with the young Bruce – the Castiles. When Theiss died, it left Springsteen the last living member of his high school band, and he composed a requiem for his friend: “Faded pictures in an old scrapbook / Faded pictures that somebody took / When you were hard and young and proud / Backed against the wall, running raw and loud.”
The Beatles – Lovely Rita (traffic warden Meta Davies)
It’s no fun being a traffic warden. In Liverpool they’ve been given bodycams; in Essex there is a campaign to raise awareness of the human cost of abuse for those who give out parking tickets. So Meta Davies got away lightly when she penalised Paul McCartney. “It was in the spring of 1967 that I ticketed Paul’s car,” she said. “He was on a meter showing excess, so I gave him a 10-shilling ticket.” After noting her unusual name, McCartney asked if he might use it in a song. When she heard the song – in which the singer “took her home, I nearly made it” – Davies admitted, “it makes me blush.”
The Knack – My Sharona (real estate agent Sharona Alperin)
“For over 35 years, Sharona has held a coveted position in the upper echelon of Los Angeles area real estate,” observes Sharon Alperin’s website, mysharona.com. She gets to call it that because she was the Sharona written about by Doug Fieger of the Knack. He wrote the song about his infatuation with her – she was in her late teens, he nine years older – though they also had a relationship and she appears on the cover of the single. Fortunately, there were no recriminations – though they went their separate ways, they remained friends until his death in 2010.
De Moraes/Jobim – The Girl From Ipanema (local teen Heloísa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto)
Back in 1962 Vinicius de Moraes would see the same girl pass by the Veloso cafe on the Ipanema beachfront in Rio all the time. She was 17-year-old Heloísa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto, and when De Moraes and Antonio Carlos Jobim were asked to write for a musical, she became one of their subjects. She was, De Moraes said, “a golden teenage girl, a mixture of flower and mermaid, full of light and grace, the sight of whom is also sad, in that she carries with her, on her route to the sea, the feeling of youth that fades, of the beauty that is not ours alone.” And what did she think? “It’s eternal. Whenever I listen, I remember my past, my younger days,” she told the Guardian in 2012. “Ipanema in 1962 was a great place. You never saw aggression. Everyone wanted to fall in love.”
Plain White Ts – Hey There Delilah (student Delilah DiCrescenzo)
Tom Higgenson of Plain White Ts met Delilah DiCrescenzo when she was a student at Columbia University. Besotted, he told her would write a song about her – even though she had a boyfriend – which he did. Several years later, in 2007, Hey There Delilah became a huge hit. By that time, DiCrescenzo was a star in her own right as an international athlete. The experience didn’t seem to scar her: she attended the Grammys in 2008 as Higgenson’s guest. The irony is that these days Higgenson doesn’t have a Wikipedia page, but DiCrescenzo does. Fame is fickle.
The Clash – Stay Free (bank robber Robin Crocker)
At school in south London, Mick Jones had been friends and co-conspirators with a lad called Robin Crocker. One of them went on to join the Clash, and the other went on to rob banks. On the second Clash album, Jones wrote a nostalgic reverie for his pal, and his joy on hearing of his release from prison: “And if you’re in the Crown tonight / Have a drink on me / But go easy / Step lightly / Stay free.” Croker was moved. “Somebody once said to me it’s the most outstanding heterosexual male-on-male love song, and there is a lot of truth in that,” Crocker told the Guardian in 2008. “Unfortunately, I didn’t Stay Free. I did a wages snatch in Stockholm and got banged up again.”
Idles – Danny Nedelko (musical peer Danny Nedelko)
Danny Nedelko moved to England from Ukraine, aged 15, ending up in Bristol and befriending Joe Talbot, who would co-found Idles. When Idles released their second album, Joy As an Act of Resistance, they were still a cult band, and Nedelko was their mate in an another, less successful band. By the end of that album campaign, he was the subject of lines roared by thousands of people at every Idles gig: “My blood brother is an immigrant / A beautiful immigrant.” Fortunately, he was not disgruntled by being made a political poster boy, pronouncing himself “very flattered and humbled”.
The Kinks – David Watts (promoter David Watts)
Perhaps the most double-edged song about a real person – but that’s Ray Davies’ writing for you. The Kinks’ staple – later recorded by the Jam – was named for a promoter in Rutland with whom the Kinks had dealings, and who had a crush on Dave Davies. Hence David Watts being “so gay and fancy free”. But it’s also homoerotic in itself, and Ray later said it was also inspired by a real-life schoolfriend, whom he wouldn’t name because they were still in touch. And the envy, the desperation, to be that boy is palpable: “And when I lie on my pillow at night / I dream I could fight like David Watts / And lead the school team to victory / Take my exams and pass the lot.”
• This article was amended on 9 April 2025 to correct a misquoted lyric from Lovely Rita.
