# 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:** 4
**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, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/61 "2008-04-25T20:36:24Z")
[QUOTE=BaneSidhe] The unofficial state song, “Almost Heaven West Virginia” … [/QUOTE] The name of the song is actually “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” ---
**Author:** ![Scupper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Scupper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scupper)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/62 "2008-04-25T21:14:36Z")
Sting’s “We Work the Black Seam” contains the following line: > [@](#): > > But deadly for twelve thousand years is carbon fourteen This is wrong on so many levels… [ul] [li]Carbon 14 is naturally-occurring, and hardly deadly.[/li] [li]He seems to want to equate C-14 with nuclear power, confusing it with the C-14 that was produced by nuclear weapons tests in the mid-to-late 20th Century.[/li] [li]He doesn’t seem to understand half-life, either. 12,000 years is (very roughly) double the half-life of C-14, but that doesn’t mean it’s \*\*all \*\*gone. It means 3/4 of it is gone. [/li] [/ul] ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/63 "2008-04-25T21:22:24Z")
[QUOTE=TWDuke] 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). [/QUOTE] I always think of winter starting in November or December. YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/64 "2008-04-25T22:31:41Z")
[QUOTE=pinkfreud] Merle Haggard, in “Okie from Muskogee,” sings “We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee.” Well, I been there, and Merle’s mighty wrong about that. [/QUOTE] That one is generally understood to be an an ironic (or sarcastic, or whatever) song, and ol’ Merle smoked plenty of marijuana. He said it’s a good place to be “from.” Yes, Young was wrong about the Aztec lifestyle, but Cortez was still a greedy, bloodthirsty bastard. Rhyming forgotten with Johnny Rotten is not the only part that lets Neil off the hook. In a strange, vague song, he sings “the king is gone,” not dead, and he doesn’t quite say Rotten was the king. After the Sex Pistols, John[ny Rotten] Lydon didn’t do much to hit the headlines, unless you read _Rolling Stone_, so he’s pretty much gone, as I am. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/65 "2008-04-25T23:05:31Z")
Not an error per se , but more evidence of a shaky grasp of US geography - it’s always bugged me that the Kim Wilde song “Kids in America” goes New York to East California There’s a new wave coming I warn ya East California? So this new wave travels all the way across the USA only to stop in what, Death Valley? Yosemite? Kim was badly advised. She should have paid more attention to west coast markets. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/66 "2008-04-26T01:06:27Z")
“In the winter of '65, We were hungry, just barely alive.” Au contraire. Joan Baez was not alive until 76 years later. ---
**Author:** ![Intravenus\_De\_Milo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Intravenus\_De\_Milo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intravenus_De_Milo)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/67 "2008-04-26T04:46:24Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > From [You Give Me] Fever: “Captain Smith and Pocahontas/had a very mad affair…” > and if they had a call would have been made/and CPS would soon have been there/ because Pocahontas was of course a child and was never involved romantically with John Smith. My sister and I were once in a store that had piped-in music, and this song was playing. When it came to the part about Captain Smith and Pocahontas whatever whatever, we both, independently of one another yet in perfect unison, went, “NO, THEY DIDN’T!” Sticklers for detail are we. BTW, I really hate this song, and one of the reasons is the apparent lack of logic on the part of the narrator. Okay, so your two best examples of ‘fever’ being a time-honored tradition are Romeo & Juliet, and Capt. Smith & Pocahontas? The former two committed suicide at the age of 13, and the latter two not only didn’t end up together, but Pocahontas married another man and died of smallpox in her 20s. I’d say ‘fever’ is a bad thing. ---
**Author:** ![Lisa-go-Blind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Lisa-go-Blind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lisa-go-Blind)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/68 "2008-04-26T06:51:15Z")
[QUOTE=spoke-] **The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down - The Band** [/QUOTE] Likewise, “Up On Cripple Creek”: “Straight down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico/to Lake Charles, Louisiana” - Lake Charles is on neither the Mississippi River nor the Gulf of Mexico, and it’s certainly nowhere near any place called Cripple Creek. That said, I’ll buy the explanation that the geography is purposely muddled for effect. To all those discussing “Hey Hey, My My”: “The King is gone” refers to the death of Elvis. > [@Wikipedia](#): > > With the explosion of punk in 1977, some punks felt that Young and his contemporaries were dinosaurs, and that such artists now seemed too content to rest on their laurels and release halfhearted material. Young worried that these punks were right. The death of Elvis Presley that same year seemed to sound a death knell for rock, as The Clash gleefully cried, “No Elvis, Beatles or The Rolling Stones in 1977!” ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/69 "2008-04-26T09:15:48Z")
[QUOTE=It’s Not Rocket Surgery!] The Doors song **Five To One** opens with: _Five to one, baby, one in five_ Uh, Jim? Five to one equals one in six. [/QUOTE] Surely he’s singing about a ratio, or odds. 5:1 - which means you have a one-in-five chance of [whatever it is he’s on about - survival?]. ---
**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 26, 2008, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/70 "2008-04-26T10:14:58Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] Surely he’s singing about a ratio, or odds. 5:1 - which means you have a one-in-five chance of [whatever it is he’s on about - survival?]. [/QUOTE] Nope. 5-1 against something happening represents one chance in six that the event will come to pass. ---
**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 26, 2008, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/71 "2008-04-26T12:52:19Z")
Eva Peron did not sing-and-dance her way through Argentina. ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/72 "2008-04-26T13:16:12Z")
Meat Loaf/For Cryin’ Out Loud _And I will receive somebody with open arms, open eyes, Open up the sky and let the planet that I love shine through_ If he’s referring to the sun, he means “star.” ---
**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 26, 2008, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/73 "2008-04-26T13:23:51Z")
[QUOTE=Siam Sam] “In the winter of '65, We were hungry, just barely alive.” Au contraire. Joan Baez was not alive until 76 years later. [/QUOTE] Wait a minute. Joannie sings a song with the lyric “Back with my _wife_ in Tennesee,” and you’re have a problem about her age? The concept of gay marriage had not been invented then. Indeed, a woman and her wife would both have been stoned or hanged or burned. ---
**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/74 "2008-04-26T16:13:59Z")
[QUOTE=lobotomyboy63] Meat Loaf/For Cryin’ Out Loud _And I will receive somebody with open arms, open eyes, Open up the sky and let the planet that I love shine through_ If he’s referring to the sun, he means “star.” [/QUOTE] This is a love song, right? Perhaps he’s referring to “Venus”. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/75 "2008-04-26T18:38:28Z")
[QUOTE=Kizarvexius] From _Life in a Northern Town_, by one-hit wonder The Dream Academy: _In winter 1963 It felt like the world would freeze With John F. Kennedy And the Beatles_ By winter of 1963, John F. Kennedy was dead. [/QUOTE] I think that was the point. His death, and the subsequent memorializing, was in the news in the winter of 1963–64. Even in northern English towns. ---
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/76 "2008-04-26T22:39:10Z")
[QUOTE=The Sonoran Lizard King] The King is gone, and so’s my Missus, This is the story of Sidney Vicious 😛 [/QUOTE] The King is gone, my butt is itchy This is the tale of John Simon Ritchie\* \*(i.e., Sid Vicious’ real name) ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2008, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/77 "2008-04-27T03:46:16Z")
[QUOTE=It’s Not Rocket Surgery!] The Doors song **Five To One** opens with: _Five to one, baby, one in five_ Uh, Jim? Five to one equals one in six. [/QUOTE] Let me guess: you also have problems with Jimi Hendrix’s _If 6 Was 9_ (on both grammatical and mathematical bases). ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2008, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/78 "2008-04-27T03:59:47Z")
[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] Because then it makes no sense… If the song isn’t from an American perspective why reference JFK? Don’t tell me the whole generational “I remember where I was when I heard JFK was shot” thing is a phenomenon in Britain as well! …And whaddyaknow, Wikipedia has [an entry about this very song](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_in_a_Northern_Town), and dammit, it _is_ about a town in England and not the US. Yet another cherished illusion shattered by the Dope! Will you animals leave me with nothing?! ---
**Author:** ![Grendel\_s\_Father](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grendel\_s\_Father](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grendel_s_Father)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2008, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/79 "2008-04-27T07:37:32Z")
“Emily” by Joanna Newsom, about her astrophysicist sister. It’s a great song but includes a few variations on this: > [@](#): > > promised you I‘d set them to verse so I’d always remember > > That the meteorite is a source of the light > And the meteor’s just what we see > And the meteoroid is a stone that’s devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee She got meteorite and meteroid backward… ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2008, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473/80 "2008-04-27T08:16:24Z")
“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” is a surprisingly accurate song. Gordon Lightfoot was inspired to write the song by a Newsweek article and got most of the facts correct. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-and-or-factual-inaccuracies-in-song-lyrics/446473.md?page=5)