Even to the child I was then, the song conveyed the miserable inadequacy of reducing responsibility to something uniquely borne by individuals who malevolently commit bad actions. The repetitive beat of justification and exculpation left no doubt in that little girl that even those who could swear that they had not committed the actual act of killing, and certainly had no intention to kill, had their hands deep in his death. This was no tragedy, as if he had been inexplicably struck down by the fates, like a figure who falls on the stage in a Sophocles play. They all killed Davey Moore.