# Historical and or factual inaccuracies in song lyrics **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 22, 2008, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473 "2008-04-22T23:21:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Khampelf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Khampelf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khampelf)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/41 "2008-04-25T04:22:04Z")
[QUOTE=slanted zipper] Rotten rhymes with forgotten. [/QUOTE] The King is gone, and so’s my Missus, This is the story of Sidney Vicious 😛 ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/42 "2008-04-25T12:22:14Z")
“As God has shown us by turning stones to bread…” from _We Are The World_. Um, no. Jesus (to whom they are obviously referring) refused to turn stones to bread. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/43 "2008-04-25T12:24:40Z")
My my at [Waterloo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterloo_(song)) Napoleon did surrender. No he didn’t ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/44 "2008-04-25T12:35:56Z")
_Galveston Flood_ (about the 1900 hurricane, with Tom Rush recording possibly the best known version), has a part that goes: _Galveston built a seawall just to keep the water down But a high tide from the ocean blew the water all over the town_ Galveston didn’t build the seawall until _after_ that hurricane. ---
**Author:** ![zamboniracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9a140/32.png) [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/45 "2008-04-25T13:09:31Z")
[QUOTE=robardin] Well, I at least can believe I’m defending this song as I do it, since I did like it a lot when it was a hit (I even bought it on a 45 RPM record) and still do. JFK died on November 22, 1963. So these lyrics refer to the winter following his assassination as a period of bleak despair for the denizens of a small town in the American North, into which came The Beatles. Spot on factually, really. [/QUOTE] I dunno. Didn’t January 1963, February 1963 and part of March 1963, all well before JFK’s assassination, more properly count as being part of the “winter of 1963”? ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/46 "2008-04-25T13:25:45Z")
[QUOTE=robardin] JFK died on November 22, 1963. So these lyrics refer to the winter following his assassination as a period of bleak despair for the denizens of a small town in the American North, into which came The Beatles. Spot on factually, really. [/QUOTE] What makes you think that an [English group](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_in_a_Northern_Town) would be singing about a town in the northern United States, or that their reference point for Beatlemania would be the American outbreak in winter 1964? ---
**Author:** ![BaneSidhe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c5a1d2/32.png) [@BaneSidhe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BaneSidhe)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/47 "2008-04-25T13:27:02Z")
The unofficial state song, “Almost Heaven West Virginia” has a couple boo-boos in it. First, none of the Blue Ridge mountains run thru WV, and only a weensy bit of the Shenendoah River flows thru the state. Despite that, it’s still a nice song. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/48 "2008-04-25T14:00:03Z")
[QUOTE=Freddy the Pig] What makes you think that an [English group](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_in_a_Northern_Town) would be singing about a town in the northern United States, or that their reference point for Beatlemania would be the American outbreak in winter 1964? [/QUOTE] But as Wikipedia notes, they still managed to fuck up the actual place they were singing about, Tanworth in Arden, which is neither a town, nor northern. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/49 "2008-04-25T14:01:08Z")
I know we’ve debated this to death, but I still say the correct expression is “You’ve got another **think** coming”(\*) regardless of what Judas Priest has to say about it. (\*) For anyone who missed the previous threads on this, it’s a deliberately ungrammatical way of saying “think again”. ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/50 "2008-04-25T14:09:45Z")
Can we have poems? From Philip Larkin’s _Annus Mirabilis_: _Sexual intercourse began In nineteen sixty-three (Which was rather late for me) - Between the end of the Chatterley ban And the Beatles’ first LP_ According to my records (Wiki) the Beatles’ first album _Please Please Me_ was released on 22 March 1963. The writer is therefore trying to tell us that sexual intercourse began between 1 January and 22 March 1963. I haven’t got a cite but I’m pretty sure that sexual intercourse began a lot earlier than Larkin would have us believe. ---
**Author:** ![It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/it_s_not_rocket_surgery/32/312_2.png) [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/It_s_Not_Rocket_Surgery)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/51 "2008-04-25T14:10:45Z")
The Doors song **Five To One** opens with: _Five to one, baby, one in five_ Uh, Jim? Five to one equals one in six. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/52 "2008-04-25T14:10:49Z")
I used MapQuest to try to find 16 Parkside Lane (_Taxi_) in San Francisco. Didn’t find it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/53 "2008-04-25T14:26:52Z")
Charlemagne’s knight [Roland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland) was killed in Spain by Basques. In high-school we read the Twelfth-Century (period of the Crusades) poem [“The Song of Roland,”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Song_of_Roland) which changes the Basques to “Saracens.” ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/54 "2008-04-25T14:34:16Z")
[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.] I used MapQuest to try to find 16 Parkside Lane (_Taxi_) in San Francisco. Didn’t find it. [/QUOTE] Harry Chapin, in his epic “30,000 Pounds of Bananas” claims that folks in Scranton ate about 30,000 pounds of bananas “each day”. That seems a bit high to me. So… The song came out in 1974. [Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scranton,_Pennsylvania) gives several population estimates for Scranton, but none for 1974. The 1950 estimate is 125,536, and the 1990 estimate is 81,805. Assuming the population decline was more or less linear, that gives a 1974 population of around 99,297. According to the USDA (via [Google answers](http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=445055)), the average per capita consumption of bananas in the US in 1976 (the oldest year for which I find data) was 19.3 pounds/year. I’ll use that figure for 1974. Close enough. So, 99297 Scrantonians X 19.3 lbs/Scrantonian/year X year/365 days gives us an estimate of only about 5250 pounds/day for the city. We’ll bump it up a bit, assuming that Harry is including the whole Scranton MSA. Still, 30,000 pounds a day? Pfft! I think not! Oh, Harry, how you let me down! ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/55 "2008-04-25T14:51:54Z")
[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.] I used MapQuest to try to find 16 Parkside Lane (_Taxi_) in San Francisco. Didn’t find it. [/QUOTE] You’re probably one of those guys who calls 867-5309 and asks for Jenny, aren’t you? ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/56 "2008-04-25T14:55:25Z")
**The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down - The Band** _By May the 10th, Richmond had fell_ (Well yeah, by May 10th Richmond sure had “fell.” Because it fell back on April 3.) _Back with my wife in Tennessee when one day she said to me “Virgil quick come see There goes Robert E. Lee”_ Lee never fought in Tennessee, and likely never visited the place after the war. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/57 "2008-04-25T15:04:06Z")
[QUOTE=Biffy the Elephant Shrew] You’re probably one of those guys who calls 867-5309 and asks for Jenny, aren’t you? [/QUOTE] Nope, never have. This isn’t historical or factual, but grammatical. In D.I.'s _Richard Hung Himself_ the last line (as sung) is ‘Your answer is non- **seglitur** ’. Drives me nuts. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/58 "2008-04-25T15:22:25Z")
[QUOTE=spoke-] Lee never fought in Tennessee, and likely never visited the place after the war. [/QUOTE] I like the way Joan Baez kind of stutters it out as “_the_ Robert E. Lee”, which was a steamboat, and did in fact travel the waters of Tennessee. ---
**Author:** ![priapus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@priapus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/priapus)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/59 "2008-04-25T15:23:07Z")
Sorry Duke of Earl,there is no dukedom ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/60 "2008-04-25T19:14:26Z")
[QUOTE=zamboniracer] Didn’t January 1963, February 1963 and part of March 1963, all well before JFK’s assassination, more properly count as being part of the “winter of 1963”? [/QUOTE] Yes, I’ve always thought the expression “winter of XXXX” referred to the winter at the _beginning_ of XXXX, as January & February are typically the most “wintry” months of the year (obviously this is from a northern-hemisphere POV). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473.md?page=4)