Stranglers – "Straighten Out" (1977)

I’ll tell you things

That’ll make your curls

Straighten out

[NOTE: I always think I know where I’m going when I sit down to write a 2 or 3 lines post.  But every so often, I take a sharp turn en route and end up at a completely different destination.  That’s what happened with this “Golden Decade” post, which originally appeared in May 2020.] 

*     *     *     *     *

I took a long bike ride on Sunday, and planned to write a post about the history of the rail trail I rode that would include photos of flowers, old buildings, and train cars that I took while on the ride.  But then I stumbled upon something that took me in a very different direction.  

What this post ultimately ended up becoming is interesting, I think, but also very sad.  So if you’re not in the mood for something like that today, feel free just to skip to the end and listen to today’s featured song.

*     *     *     *     *

On November 18, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln took a Northern Central Railway train from Baltimore to Hanover Junction, Pennsylvania, where he connected to a Hanover Branch Railroad train that took him to Gettysburg:

Lincoln’s Gettysburg train
at Hanover Junction in 1863

The next day, Lincoln attended the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery, and delivered the most famous speech in American history – the 271-word Gettysburg Address. 

*     *     *     *     *

Lincoln passed through Hanover Junction one other time.  On April 21, 1865, a Northern Central Railway train carrying the martyred president’s coffin left Baltimore and passed through Hanover Junction on the way to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

There it was carried by hearse to the State Capitol, where approximately 10,000 mourners filed past the coffin that night.

The next day, the coffin was placed on a train that carried it to Philadelphia, New York City, Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, and Chicago before  arriving at Springfield, Illinois on May 3.

*     *     *     *     *

The Northern Central Railway ceased operations in 1972, and the 41-mile stretch of its right-of-way that ran from Baltimore to York, Pennsylvania, eventually became a rail trail.

A replica of a Lincoln-era train
at Hanover Junction

The Pennsylvania portion of that rail trail is officially known as the York County Heritage Rail Trail.  On Mother’s Day, I rode the southern half of that trail from New Freedom – which sits just above the Mason-Dixon Line – to Hanover Junction and back.  

*     *     *     *     *

There are quite a few benches along the rail trail where tired hikers or bikers can stop and rest.  Nearly all those benches have small plaques commemorating a friend or family member who has passed away.

I happened to notice one such plaque that was a little different:

“End of watch” has two meanings when used by law enforcement personnel.  It usually refers to the end of a police officer’s shift, or “watch.”  But it can also refer to the date of the death of an officer who was killed in the line of duty.

Here’s an account of Officer David Tome’s death from a local newspaper:

David Tome died doing what he loved – being a police officer.

Those who knew Tome said he was a dedicated officer with Northern York County Regional Police, a great husband and father of two and an all-around likeable guy. . . .

While re-creating a fatal crash from earlier in the week, Tome was struck and killed Tuesday by a vehicle on Route 15, near Clear Springs Road in Franklin Township.  Tome and two other officers had set up orange warning cones in the middle of the right southbound lane of Route 15 about 9 a.m. when he was struck.

York County Coroner Barry Bloss said Tome's family is struggling to understand the death.

"They are absolutely devastated," he said.

Tome, 31, graduated from Spring Grove Area High School in 1996. His wife of seven years, Dody, was his classmate. The couple has a son and a daughter.

Tome became a police officer after graduating from Harrisburg Area Community College's 83rd Police Academy in 2003. He served as a regional officer for the past five years.

[Police chief Carl] Segatti said Tome was a good officer with a strong work ethic.  He loved and enjoyed his job in the uniformed patrol division, where he specialized as an accident reconstructionist, Segatti said.

Officer David Tome

The two other officers who were there at the time of the crash are doing as well as can be expected, Segatti said.  The police department closed Wednesday to mourn the loss of a fellow officer, he said. . . .

Fellow police officers have taken the death rather hard, a reality check that the job is often dangerous and deadly, several law enforcement representatives said.

"We like to think we are tougher than the average citizen out there," Segatti said. "We are when we have work to do.  But we have the same emotions as everyone.  We just don't have the luxury to show them."

Tome was struck by a 2006 Saturn Vue driven by Joanna Seibert of Dillsburg.  Seibert was shaken up by the crash and taken to Gettysburg Hospital for observation, police said.

Through a family member, Seibert declined to comment Tuesday.

Based on a preliminary investigation, Seibert hit the brakes and tried to stop before hitting Tome.  The impact sent Tome's body over a guardrail and down an embankment, killing him instantly.

An autopsy conducted Tuesday at Lehigh Valley Hospital determined Tome died of multiple blunt force trauma.

 Officer Tome's fellow officers pay tribute to him 

Based on the location of the injuries, it appears Tome was hit from the back or the side, indicating he either did not see the car coming or saw it at the last second, Bloss said.

By the time Tome heard Seibert skidding on the highway, it was too late to get out of the way, he said.

*     *     *     *     *

Joanna Seibert was convicted of vehicular homicide in the death of Officer Tome.  This account of her November 30, 2011, sentencing is from another local newspaper article:

A Dillsburg woman convicted in a crash that killed a police officer was sentenced today to . . . 1 year minus a day to 5 years minus a day in York County Prison.

The judge rejected a request for house arrest for Seibert, who is pregnant.  She's due to deliver in mid-February, so Kelly ordered her to begin serving on March 14.

Seibert, 40, was convicted Oct. 12 of homicide by vehicle and tampering with evidence in the 2008 accident on Route 15 near Dillsburg in which Northern York County Regional Police Officer David Tome, 31, was hit and killed by Seibert’s SUV.

The sentencing came after two hours of emotional testimony from Tome’’ and Seibert’s families this afternoon.

Jamie Bell, Tome's sister, said there are mementos and monuments to Tome in York County, “but they're all we have. There's no David.”

She said she hadn't heard from Seibert since the crash and didn't care to hear from her today. “I am not going to forgive you,” Bell said. “As far as I'm concerned, you can go to hell.”

Seibert said she thinks about Tome every day and that if it would ease the family's grief she would trade places with him.  “But that cannot happen,” she said.

Tome was starting work on an accident reconstruction on Route 15 south near Clear Spring Road in Franklin Township south of Dillsburg when he was hit and killed on Oct, 21, 2008.  Seibert was speeding and tailgating the vehicle ahead of her and had been using her iPhone and applying makeup.  [NOTE: Seibert maintained she was distracted by something in her eye.]  

Prosecutor Tim Barker has called those three factors, speeding, tailgating and not paying attention, “the trifecta of death.”

In court documents, Seibert said she is pregnant and had asked the court to sentence her to house arrest.  Defense lawyer Ed Spreha said house arrest is appropriate because of a serious medical condition discovered in the fetus.  Spreha said the baby has been diagnosed with a potentially life-threatening condition that will require Seibert to relocate to the Philadelphia area for monitoring during the rest of her pregnancy. . . .

*     *     *     *     *

You might suspect Seibert and her lawyer of exaggerating the seriousness of her unborn baby’s condition in hopes of persuading the judge not to send her to prison.  But you would be wrong.  

Seibert gave birth to a daughter with a congenital diaphragmatic hernia, or CDH – the “potentially life-threatening condition” mentioned in there article above – in February 2012.  

The little girl died six weeks later, on March 15.

Seibert had originally been scheduled to start her prison term on March 14.  But after her baby was born, a judge delayed her reporting date until May 9.

She eventually served ten months in prison. 

*     *     *     *     *

Most of the comments that were posted in response to a newspaper article announcing her early release expressed outrage:

– A wife without a husband, two children without a father for s lifetime, and the person who robbed them of him serves less than a year.  This disgusts me. . . . This punishment in no way fits the crime. 

– This is bullshit!!!!!  This wasn’t even her first offense of reckless driving!!!!!  She should have had to do life in prison . . . . Just sickening.

– This worthless bitch needs to rot in hell.

A few – very few – of the comments were more forgiving:

–It would be interesting to see how all those quick to judge (of course you have never made a mistake, needed a second chance, driven distracted . . . you’re all saints) would feel if the killer was your family member as opposed to the victim.  There are always two perspectives.  You could be changing a radio station tomorrow and hit someone . . . does that mean you deserve to fry, rot in hell, etc.?

– Pray for her, her family and Officer Tome’s family.  If you judge, you will be judged!  We all are guilty of something!  Let ye who have not sinned cast stones!

*     *     *     *     *

I had no idea what I was getting into when I decided to post a photo of the rail-trail bench with the plaque commemorating Officer Tone.

But once I started telling the story, I didn’t feel that I could stop in the middle of it.

The deeper I got into it, the worse things got.  Unfortunately, that’s the way life goes sometimes.

There’s really no good way to end this post, is there?

*     *     *     *     *

Today’s featured song was a non-album B-side released by the Stranglers in 1977.  (If a song as good as “Straighten Out” wasn’t good enough to be included on one of the Stranglers’ albums, imagine how good the songs that did make the cut were.)

The Stranglers in 1978

I first heard “Straighten Out” on  Steven Lorber’s legendary “Mystic Eyes” radio show in the summer of 1980.

Click here to listen to “Straighten Out.”

Click here to buy that recording from Amazon.

Stranglers – "Straighten Out" (1977)

I’ll tell you things

That’ll make your curls

Straighten out

This post started out as one thing, and ended up as something very different.  

I took a long bike ride on Sunday, and planned to write a post about the history of the rail trail I rode that would include photos of flowers, old buildings, and train cars that I took while on the ride.  But I stumbled upon something that took me in a very different direction.  

What this post ultimately ended up becoming is interesting, I think, but also very sad.  So if you’re not in the mood for something like that today, feel free just to skip to the end and listen to today’s featured song.

*     *     *     *     *

On November 18, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln took a Northern Central Railway train from Baltimore to Hanover Junction, Pennsylvania, where he connected to a Hanover Branch Railroad train that took him to Gettysburg:

Lincoln’s Gettysburg train
at Hanover Junction in 1863

The next day, Lincoln attended the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery, and delivered the most famous speech in American history – the 271-word Gettysburg Address. 

*     *     *     *     *

Lincoln passed through Hanover Junction one other time.  On April 21, 1865, a Northern Central Railway train carrying the martyred president’s coffin left Baltimore and passed through Hanover Junction on the way to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

There it was carried by hearse to the State Capitol, where approximately 10,000 mourners filed past the coffin that night.

The next day, the coffin was placed on a train that carried it to Philadelphia, New York City, Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, and Chicago before  arriving at Springfield, Illinois on May 3.

*     *     *     *     *

The Northern Central Railway ceased operations in 1972, and the 41-mile stretch of its right-of-way that ran from Baltimore to York, Pennsylvania, eventually became a rail trail.

A replica of a Lincoln-era train
at Hanover Junction

The Pennsylvania portion of that rail trail is officially known as the York County Heritage Rail Trail.  On Mother’s Day, I rode the southern half of that trail from New Freedom – which sits just above the Mason-Dixon Line – to Hanover Junction and back.  

*     *     *     *     *

There are quite a few benches along the rail trail where tired hikers or bikers can stop and rest.  Nearly all those benches have small plaques commemorating a friend or family member who has passed away.

I happened to notice one such plaque that was a little different:

“End of watch” has two meanings when used by law enforcement personnel.  It usually refers to the end of a police officer’s shift, or “watch.”  But it can also refer to the date of the death of an officer who was killed in the line of duty.

Here’s an account of Officer David Tome’s death from a local newspaper:

David Tome died doing what he loved – being a police officer.

Those who knew Tome said he was a dedicated officer with Northern York County Regional Police, a great husband and father of two and an all-around likeable guy. . . .

While re-creating a fatal crash from earlier in the week, Tome was struck and killed Tuesday by a vehicle on Route 15, near Clear Springs Road in Franklin Township.  Tome and two other officers had set up orange warning cones in the middle of the right southbound lane of Route 15 about 9 a.m. when he was struck.

York County Coroner Barry Bloss said Tome's family is struggling to understand the death.

"They are absolutely devastated," he said.

Tome, 31, graduated from Spring Grove Area High School in 1996. His wife of seven years, Dody, was his classmate. The couple has a son and a daughter.

Tome became a police officer after graduating from Harrisburg Area Community College's 83rd Police Academy in 2003. He served as a regional officer for the past five years.

[Police chief Carl] Segatti said Tome was a good officer with a strong work ethic.  He loved and enjoyed his job in the uniformed patrol division, where he specialized as an accident reconstructionist, Segatti said.

Officer David Tome

The two other officers who were there at the time of the crash are doing as well as can be expected, Segatti said.  The police department closed Wednesday to mourn the loss of a fellow officer, he said. . . .

Fellow police officers have taken the death rather hard, a reality check that the job is often dangerous and deadly, several law enforcement representatives said.

"We like to think we are tougher than the average citizen out there," Segatti said. "We are when we have work to do.  But we have the same emotions as everyone.  We just don't have the luxury to show them."

Tome was struck by a 2006 Saturn Vue driven by Joanna Seibert of Dillsburg.  Seibert was shaken up by the crash and taken to Gettysburg Hospital for observation, police said.

Through a family member, Seibert declined to comment Tuesday.

Based on a preliminary investigation, Seibert hit the brakes and tried to stop before hitting Tome.  The impact sent Tome's body over a guardrail and down an embankment, killing him instantly.

An autopsy conducted Tuesday at Lehigh Valley Hospital determined Tome died of multiple blunt force trauma.

 Officer Tome's fellow officers pay tribute to him 

Based on the location of the injuries, it appears Tome was hit from the back or the side, indicating he either did not see the car coming or saw it at the last second, Bloss said.

By the time Tome heard Seibert skidding on the highway, it was too late to get out of the way, he said.

*     *     *     *     *

Joanna Seibert was convicted of vehicular homicide in the death of Officer Tome.  This account of her November 30, 2011, sentencing is from another local newspaper article:

A Dillsburg woman convicted in a crash that killed a police officer was sentenced today to . . . 1 year minus a day to 5 years minus a day in York County Prison.

The judge rejected a request for house arrest for Seibert, who is pregnant.  She's due to deliver in mid-February, so Kelly ordered her to begin serving on March 14.

Seibert, 40, was convicted Oct. 12 of homicide by vehicle and tampering with evidence in the 2008 accident on Route 15 near Dillsburg in which Northern York County Regional Police Officer David Tome, 31, was hit and killed by Seibert’s SUV.

The sentencing came after two hours of emotional testimony from Tome’’ and Seibert’s families this afternoon.

Jamie Bell, Tome's sister, said there are mementos and monuments to Tome in York County, “but they're all we have. There's no David.”

She said she hadn't heard from Seibert since the crash and didn't care to hear from her today. “I am not going to forgive you,” Bell said. “As far as I'm concerned, you can go to hell.”

Seibert said she thinks about Tome every day and that if it would ease the family's grief she would trade places with him.  “But that cannot happen,” she said.

Tome was starting work on an accident reconstruction on Route 15 south near Clear Spring Road in Franklin Township south of Dillsburg when he was hit and killed on Oct, 21, 2008.  Seibert was speeding and tailgating the vehicle ahead of her and had been using her iPhone and applying makeup.  [NOTE: Seibert maintained she was distracted by something in her eye.]  

Prosecutor Tim Barker has called those three factors, speeding, tailgating and not paying attention, “the trifecta of death.”

In court documents, Seibert said she is pregnant and had asked the court to sentence her to house arrest.  Defense lawyer Ed Spreha said house arrest is appropriate because of a serious medical condition discovered in the fetus.  Spreha said the baby has been diagnosed with a potentially life-threatening condition that will require Seibert to relocate to the Philadelphia area for monitoring during the rest of her pregnancy. . . .

*     *     *     *     *

You might suspect Seibert and her lawyer of exaggerating the seriousness of her unborn baby’s condition in hopes of persuading the judge not to send her to prison.  But you would be wrong.  

Seibert gave birth to a daughter with a congenital diaphragmatic hernia, or CDH – the “potentially life-threatening condition” mentioned in there article above – in February 2012.  

The little girl died six weeks later, on March 15.

Seibert had originally been scheduled to start her prison term on March 14.  But after her baby was born, a judge delayed her reporting date until May 9.

She eventually served ten months in prison. 

*     *     *     *     *

Most of the comments that were posted in response to a newspaper article announcing her early release expressed outrage:

– A wife without a husband, two children without a father for s lifetime, and the person who robbed them of him serves less than a year.  This disgusts me. . . . This punishment in no way fits the crime. 

– This is bullshit!!!!!  This wasn’t even her first offense of reckless driving!!!!!  She should have had to do life in prison . . . . Just sickening.

– This worthless bitch needs to rot in hell.

A few – very few – of the comments were more forgiving:

–It would be interesting to see how all those quick to judge (of course you have never made a mistake, needed a second chance, driven distracted . . . you’re all saints) would feel if the killer was your family member as opposed to the victim.  There are always two perspectives.  You could be changing a radio station tomorrow and hit someone . . . does that mean you deserve to fry, rot in hell, etc.?

– Pray for her, her family and Officer Tome’s family.  If you judge, you will be judged!  We all are guilty of something!  Let ye who have not sinned cast stones!

*     *     *     *     *

I had no idea what I was getting into when I decided to post a photo of the rail-trail bench with the plaque commemorating Officer Tone.

But once I started telling the story, I didn’t feel that I could stop in the middle of it.

The deeper I got into it, the worse things got.  Unfortunately, that’s the way life goes sometimes.

There’s really no good way to end this post, is there?

*     *     *     *     *

Today’s featured song was a non-album B-side released by the Stranglers in 1977.  (If a song as good as “Straighten Out” wasn’t good enough to be included on one of the Stranglers’ albums, imagine how good the songs that did make the cut were.)

The Stranglers in 1978

I first heard “Straighten Out” on  Steven Lorber’s legendary “Mystic Eyes” radio show in the summer of 1980.

Click here to listen to “Straighten Out.”

Click here to buy that recording from Amazon.

Stranglers – "(Get a) Grip (On Yourself)" – 1977

The worst crime that I ever did

Was playing rock ’n’ roll

Recording artists often achieve very different levels of success in the U.S. and the UK.

But rarely has a band that was so popular with the Brits been a bigger flop with Americans than the Stranglers.

I’m a 100%, red-blooded American, so I don’t really care that the Stranglers were popular in Merry Olde.  Few people in the U.S. paid any attention whatsoever to them, and that makes them “underrated” in my book.

*     *     *     *     *

The Stranglers were founded by a thirtysomething businessman (he once owned a flotilla of ice-cream vans) named Brian Duffy – also known as “Jet Black” (which is about as cool a nickname as there is.)

Jet Black

The band’s original frontman, Hugh Cornwell, was a blues musician.  Jean-Jacques Burnet had been a classical guitarist who performed with symphony orchestras.  Black/Duffy had been a jazz drummer.

But the Stranglers are usually described as a punk band – although some of their songs have new wave, art rock, and “sophisti-pop” elements.

*     *     *     *     *

Six of the group’s first seven studio albums made it to the top ten in the U.K.  (The seventh one fell just short, peaking at #11.)

The Stranglers had seven singles that were top-ten hits in Britain, and 15 more that made it into the top 40.  

That’s not too shabby.

But the story was quite different in the U.S., where only one Stranglers album charted (peaking at #172).  None of their singles ever made it into the Billboard “Hot 100.”  (In other words, the Stranglers are underrated as all get out by Americans.)

The only place I ever heard the Stranglers’ records was on Steven Lorber’s “Mystic Eyes” radio show.  Their music was as good as anyone’s from that era, so I’m eternally grateful to Mr. Lorber for doing me that solid.

*     *     *     *     *

Dave Thompson of Allmusic has written that the Stranglers – who started out as “bad-mannered yobs” but eventually became “purveyors of supreme pop delicacies” – were “responsible for music that may have been ugly and might have been crude – but it was never, ever boring.”

Some critics were put off by what they saw as sexist innuendo.  But Thompson believed that those critics didn’t get that the Stranglers were being ironic:  

[T]he Stranglers revelled in an almost Monty Pythonesque grasp of absurdity (and, in particular, the absurdities of modern “men's talk”).  [NOTE: as someone whose “men’s talk” is often misunderstood by members of the fairer sex, I feel a certain kinship with Stranglers.]  That people are still offended by [the Stranglers’ music] only adds to its delight – if rock & roll (especially punk rock & roll) was meant to be pleasant, it would never have changed the world, after all.  

The fact that much of the Stranglers' message was actually hysterically funny – as they themselves intended it to be – only adds to their modern appeal.  And the fact that their fans are still called upon to defend them only proves what humorless zeroes their foes really were.

The Stranglers at Battersea
Park in London in 1978

You ladies don’t want to be a “humorless zero,” do you?  Like the feminist groups who went batty when the Stranglers lined the stage with topless dancing girls when they played in London’s Battersea Park back in the day?

Of course you don’t.  So get a grip on yourself and enjoy the Stranglers – beginning with today’s featured song.

*     *     *     *     *

Click here to listen to “(Get a) Grip (On Yourself),” the Stranglers’ very first single.  It was released in 1977 on the group’s debut album, Rattus Norvegicus, which eventually went platinum: 

Click here to listen to the Stranglers performing this song live in 2007 at London’s Roundhouse theatre.  (Note especially Dave Greenfield’s keyboard playing.  He’s a one-man stick of dynamite on this track.)

Click on the link below to buy the original version of there song from Amazon:

Stranglers – "No More Heroes" (1977)

Whatever happened to the heroes?

No more heroes any more

In 1992, the New Orleans school board voted to adopt a policy prohibiting the naming of schools after former slave owners or others who “did not respect equal opportunity for all.”  (Over 90% of students in New Orleans public schools at that time were African-American.)

A few years later, that school board voted unanimously to change the name of George Washington Elementary School.  

''Why should African-Americans want their kids to pay respect or pay homage to someone who enslaved their ancestors?'' asked Carl Galmon, a local civil rights activist, in 1997.  ''This was the most degrading thing that ever happened in North America, and Washington was a part of it. To African-Americans, George Washington has about as much meaning as David Duke.''

David Duke

(Carl Galmon has got to be the first guy to compare George Washington to David Duke, a former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.)

When Washington died in 1799, there were 318 slaves living at Mt. Vernon.  Of that number, 123 were owned by Washington.  (Most of the rest of them had been owned by Martha Washington’s first husband.)

Washington with slaves at Mount Vernon

To give credit where credit is due, Washington provided in his will that his slaves would be freed after both he and Martha had died.  

But Washington may not have been as kind to his slaves when he was alive.  According to the Mount Vernon website, 

Richard Parkinson, an Englishman who lived near Mount Vernon, once reported that "it was the sense of all his [Washington's] neighbors that he treated [his slaves] with more severity than any other man."  Conversely, a foreign visitor traveling in America once recorded that George Washington dealt with his slaves "far more humanely than do his fellow citizens of Virginia."  What is clear is that Washington frequently utilized harsh punishment against the enslaved population, including whippings and the threat of particularly taxing work assignments.  Perhaps most severely, Washington could sell a slave to a buyer in the West Indies, ensuring that the person would never see their family or friends at Mount Vernon again. Washington conducted such sales on several occasions.

Former U.S. Presidents Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Van Buren (who was from New York, where slavery was legal until 1827), Harrison, Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Andrew Johnson, and Ulysses S. Grant also owned slaves.  Should their names be erased from the many public schools named after them?

What about U.S. Presidents who didn't own slaves but viewed whites as superior to other races? 

Recently, student protestors invaded the office of Princeton University’s president, demanding that the school take the name of Woodrow Wilson off Princeton buildings.

Woodrow Wilson

Wilson – who was the president of Princeton before becoming President of the United States – was “virulently racist” even by the standards of the era when he lived, according to the protestors:

Wilson discouraged the admission of black students to Princeton, opposed black suffrage, was an ardent KKK apologist, and resegregated federal offices that had previously been integrated — costing many black families their jobs.

As NYU professor Regina Rini has written,

Once we’ve started rescinding honours from besmirched heroes, where should we stop?  On any reasonable scale of evil, the segregationist Wilson cannot be as bad as George Washington, who owned hundreds of slaves.  So must we also rename several universities, a northwestern state, and the District of Columbia?  The last, in fact, seems to require double renaming, as Christopher Columbus is now seen as a genocidal monster.  Perhaps "America" itself ought to go: Amerigo Vespucci wrapped up his first voyage to the New World by setting a native village on fire and "thereon made sail for Spain with 222 captive slaves."

Where will the line be drawn?  I suspect that most schools named after Confederates will eventually be renamed – particularly if they are named for Confederates other than Robert E. Lee (like Jefferson Davis and Nathan Bedford Forrest).

But I don't think George Washington has much to worry about.  (The same is true for Thomas Jefferson.)

"No More Heroes" is a 1977 single that was released on the Stranglers' album of the same name.

The first verse of "No More Heroes" refers to the assassination of the Marxist revolutionary, Leon Trotsky.  I don't think there are any schools in the U.S. named for Trotsky – not to mention Joseph Stalin, the man who ordered Trotsky's murder.

Here's "No More Heroes":

Click below to order the song from Amazon: