splatter platter

plural splatter platters

1. entertainmentA song about death; especially a song of the style popular in the mid-20th century about the tragic death of a teenage lover, typically in a car crash.

   The YMCA Pool is also opened on Sunday afternoons, so in the wintertime, Osborne, who donates his services, emsees "Splatter Platter Parties."

   1960 February 15, “Billboard”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), page 23

   2 more examples

   The popularity of the splatter platters proved the American public, despite wanting to appear outwardly normal, had a remarkably wide morbid streak.

   2013 February 14, James Greene, This Music Leaves Stains: The Complete Story of the Misfits, Scarecrow Press, →ISBN, page 5

   Another early splatter platter came out later in 1960, the over-done "Tell Laura I Love Her" by Ray Peterson. The narrator dies as a result of participating in a car race, but has sufficient life in him to cry out the song's title several times before expiring.

   2014 May 22, William E Studwell, David Lonergan, The Classic Rock and Roll Reader: Rock Music from Its Beginnings to the Mid-1970s, Routledge, →ISBN, page 162

   Synonyms: teenage tragedy, death disc, tearjerker