# Scientifically inaccurate songs
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [October 12, 2005, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882 "2005-10-12T12:54:04Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/1 "2005-10-12T12:54:04Z")
I need some examples.
I can think of two:
“Saved the Best for Last,” when Vanessa Williams sings “sometimes the sun goes 'round the moon.”
And Coldplay’s “Speed of Sound,” which says, “birds go flying at the speed of sound,” and also mentions that “planets are moving at the speed of light.”
What else?
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/2 "2005-10-12T13:07:06Z")
Scientific accuracy? From songs? What’re _you_ on?
“Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars…”
"Would you like to swing on a star?’
“Came the dawn
She was gone
18 billion miles away…” (“Eight Foot Two” by Allan Sherman)
And Zager and Evans’ “In the Year 2525” gets special mention for being bad science, bad science fiction, and a _loathsome_ song
That said, I think Christine Lavin does something or other that’s accurate with Sedna. You can order a booklet on Sedna that she put together from her website!
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/3 "2005-10-12T14:19:29Z")
> [@Superdude](#):
>
> And Coldplay’s “Speed of Sound,” … mentions that “planets are moving at the speed of light.”
Granted that it’s probably not what they had in mind, but I think they’re correct. The universe flying apart and all that.
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### Author:  [@Nancarrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nancarrow)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/4 "2005-10-12T14:32:52Z")
Well a sort of scientific-historical example… that Sinatra song with the lyrics ‘They all laughed at Christopher Columbus, when he said the world was round’. No they bloody didn’t.
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### Author:  [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/5 "2005-10-12T14:35:23Z")
“Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket…”
The next line would be:
“…watch it burn a hole in your leg…”
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### Author:  [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/6 "2005-10-12T14:43:55Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> That said, I think Christine Lavin does something or other that’s accurate with Sedna. You can order a booklet on Sedna that she put together from her website!
Not Sedna, but her song _Planet X_ is about the debate over whether Pluto should even be considered a planet. And it is accurate.
_Amoeba Hop_, not so much.
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### Author:  [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/7 "2005-10-12T14:51:24Z")
“The Martian Hop.”
“We have just discovered an important note from space. The Martians want to throw a dance for all the human race.”
No reliable researcher will admit to reception of any such transmission, and there is significant doubt as to even the existence of a creature on that planet capable of hosting such an event.
And they don’t even have trees on Mars. No trees, no paper. No paper, no streamers. No streamers, let’s face it: No party. Reports indicate there would similar obstacles to procuring punch.
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### Author:  [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/8 "2005-10-12T14:53:22Z")
“Doing the neutron dance!”
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### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/9 "2005-10-12T14:56:07Z")
When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s _amore_.
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### Author:  [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/10 "2005-10-12T15:05:08Z")
“Dancing on the Cieling”
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/11 "2005-10-12T15:28:49Z")
_It’s the end of the world as we know it_.
Because actually, it _isn’t_.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/12 "2005-10-12T15:36:53Z")
> [@scotandrsn](#):
>
> And they don’t even have trees on Mars. No trees, no paper. No paper, no streamers. No streamers, let’s face it: No party. Reports indicate there would similar obstacles to procuring punch.
And it ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids. In fact, it’s cold as hell, and there’s no one there to raise them if you did.
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### Author:  [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/13 "2005-10-12T15:38:04Z")
Joan Baez in Diamonds and Rust:
“And here I sit, hand on the telephone
hearing the voice I’d known
a couple of light years ago
headed straight for a fall”
Apparently she’d been dating this guy from Alpha Centauri…
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### Author:  [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/14 "2005-10-12T15:39:50Z")
“They took a donor’s body cell and fertilized a human egg and so I say,
‘I think I’m a clone now’”
- _I Think I’m a Clone Now_ by Alfred Yankovic
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### Author:  [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/15 "2005-10-12T15:51:19Z")
And the later verse implying that Marconi invented radio (“They told Marconi, wireless was a phony”) ignores the fact that he didn’t – [Tesla did.](http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_whoradio.html)
Although, since Marconi’s patent stood until 1943, George and Ira may have been at least legally correct when they wrote “They All Laughed” (I’m not sure what year it was).
> [@Nancarrow](#):
>
> Well a sort of scientific-historical example… that Sinatra song with the lyrics ‘They all laughed at Christopher Columbus, when he said the world was round’. No they bloody didn’t.
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### Author:  [@mrklutz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrklutz)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/16 "2005-10-12T15:55:29Z")
I’ve always been a little partial to one of Jefferson Starship’s more obscure tracks, “Freedom at Point Zero”, because it starts with the lyrics:
I like to move at the speed of light.
Albert says I can’t but I can.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/17 "2005-10-12T15:58:52Z")
> [@Finagle](#):
>
> Joan Baez in Diamonds and Rust:
>
> “And here I sit, hand on the telephone
> hearing the voice I’d known
> a couple of light years ago
> headed straight for a fall”
>
> Apparently she’d been dating this guy from Alpha Centauri…
She’s using “light year” like it’s a measure of time? That’s pretty bad. Kind of a Star Wars-ish mistake.
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### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/18 "2005-10-12T16:10:11Z")
But Marconi made up for it by playing the mambo. Listen to the radio. Don’t you remember? We built this city on rock and roll.
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### Author:  [@hlanelee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hlanelee)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/19 "2005-10-12T16:15:51Z")
Garth Brooks believes that the thunder rolls then the lightning strikes,
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### Author:  [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/20 "2005-10-12T16:20:13Z")
Every hymn, gospel and “Christian rock” song ever written.
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