# 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:** 3
### Author:  [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/41 "2005-10-12T19:30:25Z")
> [@bouv](#):
>
> Maybe I’m being wooshed here but…isn’t it? I mean, AFAIK, that song is accurate. Things might be simplified down a bit, but I thought it was correct.
Yeah, wooshity wooshity woosh woosh.
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### Author:  [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/42 "2005-10-12T19:42:29Z")
> [@Shodan](#):
>
> From **We Are the World**
For purposes of the OP, I couldn’t get past the title, myself…
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/43 "2005-10-12T19:48:14Z")
How the _fuck_ did Janet get an autograph _from the sun?!_ That paper would’ve burned right up!
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### Author:  [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/44 "2005-10-12T19:55:26Z")
From an engineering standpoint, a stairway to heaven is impossible.
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### Author:  [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/45 "2005-10-12T19:56:24Z")
Coast to coast, L.A. to… Chicago?
Okay, so it’s geographically inaccurate. Not quite the same thing, then.
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### Author:  [@Max\_Carnage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Carnage)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/46 "2005-10-12T20:01:52Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#):
>
> How the _fuck_ did Janet get an autograph _from the sun?!_ That paper would’ve burned right up!
Well, she is from a future world. Paper is undoubtedly more resilient then/there.
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### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/47 "2005-10-12T20:02:59Z")
Every time it rains, it rains pennies from heaven.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/48 "2005-10-12T20:06:16Z")
In _Airegin_, on The Manhattan Transfer’s classic album _Vocalese_ (music by Sonny Rollins, lyrics by Jon Hendricks) Cheryl Bentyne sings:
> [@](#):
>
> Millions o’ years ago
> There was a paleolithic age on earth
> An’ the whole world was young
> And full o’the vim of constant rebirth
> Brontosauruses ’n dinosaurs ’n pterodactyls
> Ever’where abounding that was the case
> ’n plus the millions o’ mammoths here ’n there
> An’ in addition there were lots o’men everywhere
Leaving aside the quibble that brontosauruses did not, technically, exist, Mr. Hendricks erred in placing dinosaurs contemporaneous with both mammoths _and_ with men.
I do not wish to entertain rebuttals from Dr. Gish.
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### Author:  [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/49 "2005-10-12T20:09:07Z")
A song from the justifiably forgotten Disney film, “Moon Pilot” - “Seven Moons Of Beta Lyrae”. Beta Lyrae is a star, and has planets, not moons.
From Raymond Scott’s “By Rocket to the Moon” - “Six million million miles away, that’s the nearest star.” That number is about 1 light-year. The Centauri system is 4.3 ly away.
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### Author:  [@Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Only_Mostly_Dead)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/50 "2005-10-12T20:12:19Z")
One that is on the radio right now (not to mention just a lame “Og this woman is out of original ideas” tune):
> [@Sheryl Crow "Good is Good"](#):
>
> And everytime you hear the rolling thunder
> You turn around before the lightning strikes
Seems like you’re gonna fail every time. Light traveling faster than sound and all. (Plus with rolling thunder, being a more sustained sound, you’re going to have quite a bit of time to react before you can even begin to define it properly as “rolling”)
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/51 "2005-10-12T20:14:29Z")
> [@](#):
>
> A song from the justifiably forgotten Disney film, “Moon Pilot” - “Seven Moons Of Beta Lyrae”. Beta Lyrae is a star, and has planets, not moons.
God help me, I remember that movie, and that song:
"Seven moons above
Seven times the love."
I don’t think anyone has shown a linear correlation between the amount of moonage and the amount of lovin’.
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### Author:  [@Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Only_Mostly_Dead)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/52 "2005-10-12T20:27:39Z")
> [@hlanelee](#):
>
> Garth Brooks believes that the thunder rolls then the lightning strikes,
Going to pick nits here. The lyric is “The thunder rolls, **and** the lightning strikes.” (cite: a guitar tablature book I own of Mr. Brooks’ songs) If anything, the lyric implies simultaneous action, which is technically correct (even if distance mars perception).
Feel like clarifying since I posted the same error for a different song (see above).
Timed out, so there may be a double (triple?) post. Let’s do the time warp again (oh my what fun we could have with the songs from that show in this thread)
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/53 "2005-10-12T20:59:03Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> I don’t think anyone has shown a linear correlation between the amount of moonage and the amount of lovin’.
I dunno, if you get mooned by the right person…
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/54 "2005-10-12T21:11:06Z")
> [@scotandrsn](#):
>
> “Dancing on the [Ceiling]”
Is that Fred Astaire’s version, or Lionel Ritchie’s?
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### Author:  [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/55 "2005-10-12T22:04:09Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> So that would be a _Theologically_ inaccurate song, then.
>
> (Or maybe _Scripturally_ inaccurate)
Pretty much any way you slice it. If the Bible account is true, then the song is inaccurate. If the Bible account is false, then the song is still inaccurate.
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> But Science would seem irrelevant to a miracle, in any case.
What miracle? That’s the point. Either way, God did not turn stones to bread.
Regards,
Shodan
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/56 "2005-10-12T22:16:11Z")
_In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey_
which also happens to be one of my all-time favorite lines. It screws up the science, but gets the sentiment exactly right. Hey, they oughta call stuff like that “art”!! 🆒
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### Author:  [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/57 "2005-10-12T22:16:14Z")
OTOH, Monty Python’s Galaxy Song pretty much got everthing right
> [@](#):
>
> Just remember that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving
> and revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
> that’s orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it’s reckoned,
> a sun that is the source of all our power.
> the sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
> are moving at a million miles a day
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### Author:  [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/58 "2005-10-12T22:29:08Z")
The Ramone’s **Lobotomy** : “Now I guess I gotta tell 'em/That I got no cerebellum” is not, to coin a phrase, brain surgery. Great lyric, though.
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### Author:  [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/59 "2005-10-12T22:30:54Z")
> [@Max Carnage](#):
>
> Well, she is from a future world. Paper is undoubtedly more resilient then/there.
I also have to take issue with the claim that “There’s never been a planet Janet hasn’t seen.” Given the billions of years it would likely take for a race of humanoids with jet-propulsive colons (as indicated on Janet and her “Comet Team”) to evolve, I have no trouble imagining a solar system forming and at least some of its members subsequently being destroyed by its central star’s giant, supergiant or supernova phase, while Janet’s ancient ancestors were still in the rocket-butt-simian stage of development.
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### Author:  [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/60 "2005-10-12T22:36:08Z")
“One day in a nuclear age
They may understand our rage
They build machines that they can’t control
And bury the waste in a great big hole
Power was to become cheap and clean
Grimy faces were never seen
**But deadly for twelve thousand years is Carbon 14…** ”
“We Work the Black Seam” by Sting, a little ditty about how nuclear power is dangerous and is going to put coal miners out of work. Fine, but…
Carbon 14 is deadly? Forget about nuclear power and _quit eating plants_. Hell, there’s Carbon 14 _in the coal_. :smack:
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