Songs With Factual Inaccuracies

[Scupper]

Deadly for ten thousand years is Carbon-14. -- Sting, "We Work the Black Seam"

In any kind of nuclear meltdown or waste situation, Carbon-14 is the least of your problems.

[sciurophobic]

It's possible now that the Chunnel's been built, but when Berlin sang:

"I was on a Paris train /I emerged in London rain "

it wasn't.

[TreacherousCretin]

Originally Posted by TreacherousCretin

I shall commit seppuku at once.

Originally Posted by drewtwo99

Always remember, the internet is serious business.

It was a metaphor, dear.

[Irishman]

Originally Posted by Shoeless

That reminds me of a line from Johnny Cash's "The Man Comes Around" when he says "The father hen will call his chickens home." What the heck is a father hen?

Around he-ah, we call that - I say, boy - we call that a "roostuh". [aside]That boy's about as bright as a burnt-out lightbulb. [/aside] [/Foghorn Leghorn]

Originally Posted by GuanoLad

That's just bad luck. In order to make that ironic she should have specified (somehow) that he was an Airline Safety Inspector.

But "Well isn't that nice" seems pretty ironic.

Originally Posted by flodnak

Not without pharmaceuticals, you haven't (at least on Earth). The sun will always appear to rise in the eastern half of the sky, and appear to set in the western half. It cannot set in the east.

I think this is a reference to being in the east (like Tokyo) and the west (like Texas). Not which direction you're looking.

Originally Posted by Hermitian

Uh, no, it doesn't work that way.

While it is true, the thunder you hear happens after the lightning that caused it, it is possible to hear thunder in the distance and then run inside before the storm gets overhead and lightning strikes where you are. That is, presumably, what she meant. "The storm is coming, run for cover!"

[Doug K.]

Originally Posted by Smapti

More to the point...



Is not. WHAT THE HELL, Johnny-C?

Check the dates. Mandelbrot Set was in 2004. Mandelbrot death was in 2010.

[Ponch8]

Tinie Tempah's recent hit "Written in the Stars" goes "written in the stars a million miles away ..." I think he's grossly underestimating distances to stuff in outer space.

[Red Barchetta]

Geddy Lee of Rush has admitted he mispronounced "Barchetta" in the song Red Barchetta. He pronounced it with a "ch" when really its pronounced barketta.

[Eutychus]

Close to the spirit of the OP, I was looking through old records at a yard sale the other day and come across one that featured "The Love Theme from The Flight of the Falcon." The original movie. Which features no women. And no men that could be thought of as gay.

[Jackmannii]

Georgie Fame should have sung:

Bonnie and Clyde
were driving in the sunshine
realized it was a trap and reached for their guns
then got filled full of lead

Not as evocative as the original, but far more accurate.

[hogarth]

Originally Posted by Red Barchetta

Geddy Lee of Rush has admitted he mispronounced "Barchetta" in the song Red Barchetta. He pronounced it with a "ch" when really its pronounced barketta.

That's still better than Tom Cochrane pronouncing "Somalian" as if it rhymed with "coma lion" in White Hot.

[Nava]

Originally Posted by flodnak

It's minor, but it's annoying: Slade's "Far Far Away" includes the line:
Not without pharmaceuticals, you haven't (at least on Earth). The sun will always appear to rise in the eastern half of the sky, and appear to set in the western half. It cannot set in the east.

But "the east" doesn't refer only to "the east as viewed from my location", it also refers to that part of the planet also known as the Far East or the Orient; the speaker was in the East watching the sun set to the west. I've watched the sun come up in the east many times, and I've watched it come up in the West, but I've never watched it come up in the East. The line is politically but not factually incorrect.

[The Other Waldo Pepper]

Originally Posted by bup

Ah, that song drives me nuts. The mother's deaf and the father's blind? How do they communicate?

Both cloying and impossible.

What, you missed that documentary with Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder?

Originally Posted by See No Evil, Hear No Evil

Dave: Why don't you look me in the eye and say that?
Wally: I would if I could, but I can't; I'm blind.
Dave: You're blind?
Wally: Yes I'm blind. What, are you fucking deaf?
Dave: Yes, I'm fucking deaf!
Wally: You're really deaf?
Dave: I'm really deaf.
Wally: Then how do you know what I'm saying?
Dave: Because I'm reading your lips! Now, you want the job or not?

[Hogfather65]

Originally Posted by LC Strawhouse

Gordon Lightfoot in "If You Could Read My Mind"... mentions an "old time movie, about a ghost from a wishing well". (meaning something sad and gloomy)

Unfortunately there are no old-time movies about ghosts in wishing wells. Someone looked this up and the only thing that comes close is a goofy Abbot & Costello movie that would hardly be the inspiration for the song.

It's too bad that there isn't a real "ghost in a wishing well" movie. Someone should make one.

Thought thats was a reference to one of the Topper movies, Topper Takes a Trip or Topper Returns

[Annie-Xmas]

Don Black & Andrew Lloyd Webber's song "Take That Look Off Your Face (from) "Tell Me On A Sunday") has a British woman living in New York singing this line "He's doing some deal up in Baltimore now."

Baltimore is not "up" from NYC.

[Lok]

Originally Posted by cosmosdan

"Momma couldn't hear our pretty music, but she read our lips and help the family sing"

Really? Momma was deaf and helped you sing. I wonder what that sounded like?

She kept time by clapping her hands?

Originally Posted by t-bonham@scc.net

The Battle of New Orleans: "In 1814 we took a little trip..."
-- But the Battle of New Orleans (the climactic battle) was in 1815.

But I am pretty sure they actually headed down to New Orleans in 1814, since the Interstate system was not all that good then. Plus, the actual fighting started in late December, setting up the final battle.

Originally Posted by t-bonham@scc.net

"Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip"
-- the battleground was up river from New Orleans.

Say what? The British came from Lake Borgne and hit the Mississippi River about 9 miles down stream from New Orleans. Jackson marched and did a night attack on December 23, which he lost, but it kept the British in place, so the main battle took place very close to that spot. It was to the east of New Orleans because of the way the river bends, but it was definitely downriver.

Originally Posted by t-bonham@scc.net

"And we caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans"
-- no, they caught them outside New Orleans -- preventing the British from taking the town was the point of the battle.

By that reasoning it shouldn't even be named the Battle of New Orleans, since the actual fighting never got close to it.

Originally Posted by t-bonham@scc.net

"We looked down the river and we see'd the British come"
-- the British came by land, marching across from Lake Borgne.

Again, they reached the Mississippi and started following it upriver to the city.

Originally Posted by t-bonham@scc.net

"they began to runnin', On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico"
-- the British retreat was also by land, back across to Lake Borgne and into the Gulf.
Preventing them from going down the Mississippi, into New Orleans, was what the Americans were fighting for.

And again, the British marched downriver away from the city, to reach the bayous then the Lake, which did eventually get them to the Gulf of Mexico. They did send some ships up the Mississippi after that to attack a fort protecting the mouth, but that didn't last long.

[Askance]

Oh, give me a home where the Buffalo roam
Where the Deer and the Antelope play

Buffalo are Asian, Antelope African. Almost all native Deer in North Americas lived in the Rockies, so in the ranges not on the range. The exception is the Elk which is technically a deer, so for clarity's sake let's go with:

Oh, give me a home where the Bison roam
Where the Elk and the Pronghorn play

Originally Posted by Tennyson

'Every moment dies a man,/ Every moment one is born':

I need hardly point out to you that this calculation would tend to keep the sum total of the world's population in a state of perpetual equipoise whereas it is a well-known fact that the said sum total is constantly on the increase. I would therefore take the liberty of suggesting that in the next edition of your excellent poem the erroneous calculation to which I refer should be corrected as follows:
'Every moment dies a man / And one and a sixteenth is born.' I may add that the exact figures are 1.167, but something must, of course, be conceded to the laws of metre.
— Charles Babbage
Unpublished letter to Tennyson in response to his Vision of Sin (1842)

[Boyo Jim]

Originally Posted by HeyHomie

Sade: Smooth Operator

Coast to coast, L.A. to Chicago

Nope, Chicago does not represent the other coast. If we consider Chicago coast-to-coast, we're leaving off 2/3 of the country. She could have said "Coast to coast, L.A. to Miami" and retained the meter of the line. Of course, she'd have been out of luck with a rhyme for the next to line ("Across the north and south to Key Largo"), but that's her problem, not mine.

What else?

A Chicago group went to court and succeeded in having Lake Michigan declared an "arm of the sea". So, if the song writer is an America's Cup yachtsman, it's a perfectly reasonable lyric.

[Boyo Jim]

Originally Posted by Shoeless

I was just listening to U2's "Rattle & Hum" earlier today. "Pride (In The Name of Love)" has the line:

Early morning, April 4. A shot rings out in the Memphis sky.

Except MLK was shot in the evening, not in the morning.

Not in England, or Australia, or somewhere...

[Boyo Jim]

Originally Posted by Spoke

...

If the "Georgia Patrol" (I assume you mean the State Patrol) was flagged down by your brother's shot, how did it happen that a "big-bellied sheriff" grabbed his gun. The State Patrol is state law enforcement, while the sheriff is local law enforcement. They're not going to be patrolling together.

The car-pooled to the Klan meeting?

[Rollo Tomasi]

Originally Posted by Boyo Jim

Not in England, or Australia, or somewhere...

It would have been even later in those places; they're all ahead of the U.S., time-wise. By the time MLK was shot, it wasn't even April 4 in a lot of places anymore.

[Siam Sam]

Originally Posted by Rollo Tomasi

It would have been even later in those places; they're all ahead of the U.S., time-wise. By the time MLK was shot, it was even April 4 in a lot of places anymore.

It would have been morning of the 4th on some islands east of the International Date Line.

[Rollo Tomasi]

Okay, if Bono was indeed writing the song from the perspective of a fisherman in American Samoa, then I yield. But until then, I'm going to have to call a penalty on that accuracy of that line .

[Duckster]

The Chalmette battlefield is six miles downriver from New Orleans. The British marched upriver towards New Orleans, along the river, because that's the only place high, dry and firm enough to support the soldiers, wagons and cannons. When they were defeated they retreated back downriver, along the river for the same reason.

[Zabali_Clawbane]

Originally Posted by TreacherousCretin

Bargain (Who) "In life one and one don't make two, one and one make one."

One man and one woman make one child...

Originally Posted by flodnak

It's minor, but it's annoying: Slade's "Far Far Away" includes the line:
Not without pharmaceuticals, you haven't (at least on Earth). The sun will always appear to rise in the eastern half of the sky, and appear to set in the western half. It cannot set in the east.

Well, what if he meant "I've seen the sun set in Asia, and in Europe"? Where he was at the time, not where the sun was?

[Nava]

Originally Posted by Annie-Xmas

Don Black & Andrew Lloyd Webber's song "Take That Look Off Your Face (from) "Tell Me On A Sunday") has a British woman living in New York singing this line "He's doing some deal up in Baltimore now."

Baltimore is not "up" from NYC.

Depends on your definitions and your verbal ticks. I know people who go "up" from Tudela to Saragossa (because Saragossa is bigger), others who go "up" from Saragossa to Tudela (because Tudela is upriver), and others who always go up - they may even go up from Tudela to Saragossa and come back up in the same day. Several of my American coworkers would speak of people being "up in Toronto" and "up in Houston", but if someone was at Home Office it was "at Home Office" (no up, different preposition); apparently Home Office was Ground Zero and any other company location was "up".

[TreacherousCretin]

Originally Posted by Zabali_Clawbane

One man and one woman make one child...

Sure enough. But one man and one woman can make two children, which would contradict the first line of the metaphor in question.

[Voyager]

Originally Posted by septimus

Bob Dylan's songs are full of factual errors. I'll give just a few examples.


Quote:
Originally Posted by 115th Dream

Well, the last I heard of Ahab
He was stuck on a whale
That was married to the deputy
Sheriff of the jail
But the funniest thing was
When I was leavin’ the bay
I saw three ships a-sailin’
They were all heading my way
I asked the captain what his name was
And how come he didn’t drive a truck
He said his name was Columbus
I just said, “Good luck”

People were not allowed to marry cetaceans even in pre-Puritan America.

Them old dreams are only in your head.

I said that.

[Mangetout]

Originally Posted by GuanoLad

You could spend all day pointing out every misapplication of irony in that song.

(As someone more witty than myself once observed) the only thing that's really ironic about the song, is that that Alanis Morissette doesn't seem to know what ironic means.

[Rich Mann]

Originally Posted by Chronos

The one in the OP sounds fine to me: The whole trip is coast-to-coast. The first leg of the trip starts on one coast in the city of angels, heads north to I-80 or I-90, then across to Chicago, and from there, the trip continues to Key Largo, on the other coast.

[hijack]I can't imagine going North from Lala to go East. It's actually Northwest. I can see I-80 out my window (and hear it) and I take I-5 South to get to I-40 (old Route 66) or I-15 then I-70 to go to most points East. I-80 is a great way to get to Wyoming if you don't mind mind-numbing miles of Nevada and Utah along the way. I suppose if you somehow found Nebraska and Iowa scenic or something you and your sanity might survive all the way to Chi-town. I'd rather go through Sin and Mile High or The Great Southwest and St. Lou and see some memorable sights, but maybe that's just me.[/hijack]

[Coustralee]

AC/DC
I'm TNT.. I'm dynamite..


TNT and dynamite are 2 different things.

[bup]

Originally Posted by Askance

Almost all native Deer in North Americas lived in the Rockies, so in the ranges not on the range.

Somebody forgot to tell the whitetails I see every morning biking in Illinois, or all the mule deer I saw in South Dakota.

[Diceman]

Originally Posted by bup

Somebody forgot to tell the whitetails I see every morning biking in Illinois, or all the mule deer I saw in South Dakota.

Plenty of deer in Michigan, too. According to their Wikipedia page, white-tail deer can be found in most parts of the US. They range from Canada to as far south as Peru.

[Jack Batty]

I was wondering why deer hunters in Maine usually only came back with empty cases of beer from their excursions. It's got to be hard to shoot a deer in the Rockies from the east coast, I imagine.

[Boyo Jim]

Originally Posted by Shoeless

I was just listening to U2's "Rattle & Hum" earlier today. "Pride (In The Name of Love)" has the line:

Early morning, April 4. A shot rings out in the Memphis sky.

Except MLK was shot in the evening, not in the morning.

I was just listen to a live recording of Pride, and the lyrics clearly say "evening". Someone must have clued them in. Did you send them an email?

[Annie-Xmas]

Originally Posted by Nava

Depends on your definitions and your verbal ticks. I know people who go "up" from Tudela to Saragossa (because Saragossa is bigger), others who go "up" from Saragossa to Tudela (because Tudela is upriver), and others who always go up - they may even go up from Tudela to Saragossa and come back up in the same day. Several of my American coworkers would speak of people being "up in Toronto" and "up in Houston", but if someone was at Home Office it was "at Home Office" (no up, different preposition); apparently Home Office was Ground Zero and any other company location was "up".

Nobody in the NYC area would ever say "up" to Baltimore. Baltimore is always down.

[Irishman]

Originally Posted by Askance

Buffalo are Asian, Antelope African. Almost all native Deer in North Americas lived in the Rockies, so in the ranges not on the range. The exception is the Elk which is technically a deer,

Houston has no Rockies, but it does have deer. And the elk I saw was in the Rockies (Denver). And while, technically, bison are not related to asiatic buffalo, and pronghorn deer are not really related to african antelope, settlers mangled the language pretty well and called the big grazing beast a "buffalo" and the small antelope-looking pronghorn as "antelope".

[JohnT]

Originally Posted by Boyo Jim

I was just listen to a live recording of Pride, and the lyrics clearly say "evening". Someone must have clued them in. Did you send them an email?

Back in 1984 I actually sent a fan letter to U2 about this.

So you can give me the credit.

[DrDeth]

Originally Posted by MarkD

King Bee Slim Harpo, Muddy Waters and others.

"Well I'm a king bee
Want you to be my queen
Well I'm a king bee, baby
Want you to be my queen"

King Bee?

What is that?

A "King Bee" is a "H-bee" or a Drone. Every kid knew that as they didnt sting.

[DrDeth]

Originally Posted by Irishman

Houston has no Rockies, but it does have deer. And the elk I saw was in the Rockies (Denver). And while, technically, bison are not related to asiatic buffalo, and pronghorn deer are not really related to african antelope, settlers mangled the language pretty well and called the big grazing beast a "buffalo" and the small antelope-looking pronghorn as "antelope".

Right. The USA has LOTS of deer. And there really isnt any such animal as a "Buffalo" anyway, so the American Bison might as well be one, in fact the Wisent was called a "Buffalo" before White men saw the first Mbogo or Cape buffalo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo

But yes the Pronghorn isnt a "true antelope". So?

[DrDeth]

Originally Posted by Ximenean

"Seven Nation Army":

Everyone knows about it
From the Queen of England to the hounds of hell

There's no queen of England. Mind you, I doubt there any hounds of hell either, so...

Certainly there is, Elizabeth II is Queen of England too, as well as the rest of GB, plus lots more. She's Queen of London for that matter. The whole fucking island, in fact.

[Sam A. Robrin]

When people from the Bay Area hear Eric Burdon sing about "warm San Franciscan nights," they wonder if he'd ever even visited. No such thing!

[Ximenean]

Originally Posted by DrDeth

Certainly there is, Elizabeth II is Queen of England too, as well as the rest of GB, plus lots more. She's Queen of London for that matter. The whole fucking island, in fact.

Wouldn't it be odd if people referred to Barack Obama as the President of Kentucky?
We all know that foreigners routinely refer to her as the Queen of England, but it is still incorrect and does jar slightly to British ears.

[AaronX]

Big Bang Theory theme:
We build the Wall (we built the Pyramids)

They don't say it's in chronological order, but we built the pyramids before the wall. Unless you're talking about the Aztec pyramids.

[JKellyMap]

Originally Posted by AaronX

Big Bang Theory theme:
We build the Wall (we built the Pyramids)

They don't say it's in chronological order, but we built the pyramids before the wall. Unless you're talking about the Aztec pyramids.

Or the walls of Jericho (or, say, Cätal Höyuk).

[AaronX]

But they say wall, not walls

[DrDeth]

Originally Posted by Ximenean

We all know that foreigners routinely refer to her as the Queen of England, but it is still incorrect and does jar slightly to British ears.

It's not incorrect, she IS Queen of England. But she has chosen not to make this one of her "styles", instead preferring Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith

[Nava]

Originally Posted by Annie-Xmas

Nobody in the NYC area would ever say "up" to Baltimore. Baltimore is always down.

And as everybody knows, there isn't anybody in the NYC area who's not from NYC.

[Ximenean]

Originally Posted by DrDeth

It's not incorrect, she IS Queen of England. But she has chosen not to make this one of her "styles", instead preferring Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith

You're making me labour this point more than I wanted -- I am not suggesting that Jack White needs to rewrite the lyrics of Seven Nation Army or anything -- but the crowns of England and Scotland were merged in the Act of Union in 1707. Since then there have been kings and queens of the United Kingdom, but not of England or Scotland per se. There is no political entity "England" for her to be queen of. No English government, no England-only jurisdiction.

I don't want to give the impression that this is something British people actually get upset about. It's just a little factual nitpick. This thread is full of them.

[MikeF]

Indian Sunset - Elton John - Geronimo was not "laying down his weapons when they filled him full of lead." He died of complications from pneumonia at age 80. To be fair, the narrator attributes the news to passing renegades and we all know they can't be trusted.

Snoopy vs the Red Baron - The Royal Guardsmen - Snoopy didn't shoot down the Red Baron. He wasn't even there.

[Eutychus]

Originally Posted by MikeF

Snoopy vs the Red Baron - The Royal Guardsmen - Snoopy didn't shoot down the Red Baron. He wasn't even there.

He did too! It was even in the newspaper!