One of nine siblings, Mark Dinning recycled an old song written by one of his sisters (of the Dinning Sisters) and turned it into an early rock ‘n’ roll hit. The song is about a girl who is out on a ride with her boyfriend. Their car is stalled on a railroad track when he pulls her to safety. But when she runs back, she gets hit by a train. When they find her body, the narrator's high school class ring is in her hand, apparently the reason that she ran back.
Because of it's rather taboo subject matter at the time, Teen Angel was one of the first songs of the '60s to attract controversy, and was banned by many radio stations for being morbid. Several other songs like The Kingsmen's Louie Louie (1963) and The Byrds' Eight Miles High (1966) followed.
It went to #1 on the Billboard charts even though some stations felt it was too morbid to play. Dinning died of a heart attack at age 52.