Henry Gross: Shannon Meaning

Song Released: 1976

Shannon Lyrics

Another day's at end
Mama says she's tired again
No one can even begin to tell her
I hardly know what to say
But maybe it's better that way
If Pop-pa were here I'm sure he'd tell her

Shannon, is gone I heard
She's drifting out to...

1. anonymous

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   Mar 30th 2022 report

   A young teenage girl that loved the beach and ocean and felt her family never understood her desire to be at the beach and then ran away without a trace. As a result momma and poppa got divorced and the family grieved the loss of their daughter and sister and hoped that she was alive and had found the beach that made her eternally happy
2. anonymous

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   Sep 24th 2019 report

   This song is pure nostalgia for me. It smacks of suburbia, 70's style. The mom is "tired,"
   that's divorce depression, cause "poppa's" not around. I know somebody's dog is missing, and in a sense that seems metaphorical to me. Yes, that's the here and now(Shannon the dog), but like all classic songs, it's deep,somehow...And existential...And beautiful. Those high-voiced harmonies. Slow moving but not a drudge.In the end it's about family, which includes pets.
   
   
   
3. anonymous

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   Oct 18th 2017 report

   I always thought it was the singer's sister who died.
4. astorian

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   Nov 14th 2012 report

   Henry Gross was the original lead guitarist of Sha Na Na, the Fifties nostalgia band. After that band became successful, he bought a house near the beach in Southern California, where one of his neighbors was Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys.
   
   Carl Wilson had a dog named Shannon. When Shannon died, Wilson was heartbroken, but tried to remember the good times they'd had together, and tried to imagine Shannon in some kind of dog Heaven.
   
   That inspired Henry Gross both to write the song (about a family trying to cope with the death of a beloved pet) and to sing it in the style of the Beach Boys.

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