# 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:** 4
### Author:  [@deevee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deevee)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/61 "2005-10-12T22:42:13Z")
referring to the assasination of Martin Luther King
“early morning April 4 a shot rings out in the Memphis sky”
although I saw them last month and Bono sings “afternoon April 4” but it doesn’t feel right since half a beat is missing.
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### Author:  [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/62 "2005-10-12T22:52:10Z")
“Eight Days a Week”
What calendar are **you** looking at?
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### Author:  [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/63 "2005-10-12T22:55:45Z")
> [@pravnik](#):
>
> Carbon 14 is deadly?
It is if you get Black Lung: espousing nuclear power over coal is not exactly a scientific inaccuracy by Mr Sumner, but he’s certainly romanticising the reality of coal mining. This being CS I don’t need cites {what fun!}, but I’m willing to bet that far more coal miners than nuclear power palnt workers have died as a result of their employment.
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### Author:  [@Bob\_Scene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob_Scene)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/64 "2005-10-12T22:57:08Z")
From the Spinal Tap song _Stonehenge:_
> [@](#):
>
> In ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history
> There lived a strange race of people: the Druids
> No one knows who they were, or what they were doing
> But their legacy remains
> Hewn into the living rock of Stonehenge
This has so many inaccuracies that I don’t even know where to start. For example, Stonehenge wasn’t built by Druids and it isn’t living rock. I think Spinal Tap should stick to singing about things they know about, like the size of their girlfriends’ butts.
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### Author:  [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/65 "2005-10-12T23:08:24Z")
I’m forgetting The Rolling Stones’ **2000 Light Years From Home** : “See you on Aldebaran”. Uh, Mick? Aldebaran is a star, not a planet, and is actually quite hot this time of year. I doubt you’ll be seeing anyone _on_ it for very long at all.
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### Author:  [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/66 "2005-10-12T23:20:42Z")
Simon Singh being [rather cosmologically pedantic](http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1581445,00.html) about Katie Melua’s song _Nine Million Bicycles_.
The song’s writer, Mike “Wombling Free” Batt, being rather snotty and overly grammatically pedantic [in reply](http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1585879,00.html).
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### Author:  [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/67 "2005-10-12T23:29:58Z")
> [@Case Sensitive](#):
>
> I’m willing to bet that far more coal miners than nuclear power palnt workers have died as a result of their employment.
That was badly expressed: let’s say that miners are proportionately more likely to suffer potentially fatal injury or ill-health.
On the other hand, Mr Bowie has no such recourse in **Ashes To Ashes** : “Ashes to ashes, funk to funky/We know Major Tom’s a junky”. Presumably Nasa _does_ have a mandatory drug-testing policy, and as such are highly unlikely to send a heroin addict into orbit. To suggest otherwise is libellous.
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### Author:  [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/68 "2005-10-12T23:39:56Z")
> [@rowrrbazzle](#):
>
> 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.
Of course the nearest star is 0.000015 ly away, anyway.
From what I know, you’re correct **Case Sensitive**. Uranium mining isn’t great work, either, but you don’t need to mine as much of it. Vaguely speaking, coal power presents a moderately high risk to a small number of people, nuclear power presents a rather low risk to a much larger number of people.
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### Author:  [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2005, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/69 "2005-10-12T23:51:13Z")
[QUOTE=panamajack]
Of course the nearest star is 0.000015 ly away, anyway.
That should be more like 0.000016, or 0.0000158 light years.
According to the Talking Heads,
“From the age of the dinosaurs
Cars have run on gasoline”
There have been numerous alternative means to power your car, including steam, horse, and even feet, the last of which is believed to have been used by neolithic families.
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### Author:  [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2005, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/70 "2005-10-13T00:14:20Z")
> [@Case Sensitive](#):
>
> It is if you get Black Lung: espousing nuclear power over coal is not exactly a scientific inaccuracy by Mr Sumner, but he’s certainly romanticising the reality of coal mining.
Well, yeah, that’s not the scientific inaccuracy I’m talking about. The assertion that “nuclear power is dangerous” is not a scientific inaccuracy, but the assertion that “nuclear power is dangerous because it produces Carbon 14, which will be deadly to man for 12,000 years” goes beyond scientific inaccuracy into complete horseshit (necessary to the meter of the song, admittedly, but still horseshit). Carbon 14 is a naturally occurring isotope found in all organic compounds, including our bodies in an exact equilibrium with the Carbon 14 content of the CO2 in the atmosphere until we die and quit ingesting it, hence Carbon 14 dating. It’s created by nuclear reactors, but for that matter so is steam that could give a nasty scald. Neither one is what actually makes nuclear power dangerous.
Now, if he’d said “but the process of turning Uranium 239 into enriched Uranium 235 is a dangerous one, and the creation of transuranic waste from processing Uranium 238 into synthetic Plutonium 239 in so called ‘breeder’ reactors poses significant problems with disposal and possible contamination” he’d have a much more scientifically accurate song, albeit a much crappier one.
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### Author:  [@NoPretentiousCodename](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoPretentiousCodename)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2005, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/71 "2005-10-13T00:28:14Z")
> [@Otto](#):
>
> Every hymn, gospel and “Christian rock” song ever written.
Hey, _A Mighty Fortress is our God_ is totally scientifically accurate. Literally.
We’re talkin’ like Castle Greyskull here.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2005, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/72 "2005-10-13T00:46:02Z")
Contrary to what we hear from the Hollywood Argyles, there is a zero probability that a caveman by the name of Alley Oop, rode a “genuine dinosaur”.
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### Author:  [@FaerieBeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FaerieBeth)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2005, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/73 "2005-10-13T01:13:39Z")
I think that perhaps having _Drops of Jupiter_ in one’s hair would not be quite as uplifting an experience as we are led to believe. Certainly not on par with Mozart and Tae-bo.
> [@](#):
>
> At the top of Jupiter’s atmosphere, hydrogen is in the form of molecules, which do exist as a gas. Moving downwards, the pressure increases, and the gas becomes more and more liquid-like. At 10 000 kilometres (6 000 miles) beneath the top of the clouds, the atmospheric pressure has risen to one million bar (one bar is the pressure on Earth at sea level), and the temperature is **6 000 kelvin**. Under these conditions, hydrogen forms a liquid metal (similar to the state in which we find the metal mercury on Earth)
[Link](http://www.bnsc.gov.uk/learningzone.aspx?nid=4752)
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### Author:  [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2005, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/74 "2005-10-13T01:23:51Z")
> [@Mr. Blue Sky](#):
>
> “Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket…”
> The next line would be:
>
> “…watch it burn a hole in your leg…”
Hmm, if I recall the Simpsons got praise for doing just that because it was scientifically accurate.
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### Author:  [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2005, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/75 "2005-10-13T01:42:36Z")
Gerry Rafferty’s **Right Down the Line**
> [@](#):
>
> You’ve been as constant as the Northern Star, the brightest light that shines
If he’s saying that the Northern Star is the brightest light (or star) he’s wrong. If he’s referring back to his woman, well, whatever.
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### Author:  [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2005, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/76 "2005-10-13T01:43:42Z")
> [@Bob Scene](#):
>
> This has so many inaccuracies that I don’t even know where to start. For example, Stonehenge wasn’t built by Druids and it isn’t living rock. I think Spinal Tap should stick to singing about things they know about, like the size of their girlfriends’ butts.
To be fair, the idea that Druids built Stonehenge is a very common one, even if it is wrong. It’s not like Spinal Tap was pulling this out of their asses.
I’m not going to try to defend the living rocks, however. They’re on their own.
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### Author:  [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2005, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/77 "2005-10-13T02:10:19Z")
In The Police’s _Walking in Your Footsteps_, Sting asks:
“Hey, mighty brontosaurus, don’t you have a lesson for us? You thought your rule would always last, there were no lessons in your past.”
Scientists have recently concluded that what they had previously called the brontosaurus was actually a mix of pieces from two other species. While one could argue that this simply means the answer to Sting’s first question is “No,” it must still be acknowledged that the second part of the song is impossible. Never having existed, the brontosaurus could not have had any thoughts on the length of its rule, and in any case we can be fairly certain, based on the cranial size of comparable dinosaurs, that even if it did exist it was not sufficiently intelligent to consider matters of long-term global climate change.
On the other hand, in _The Vigil_, The Blue Oyster Cult claims:
“We see them coming, faster than the speed of light.”
While on the surface this looks laughably innacurate, it is in fact quite possible. It’s true that we know of no way for an object to surpass the speed of light, but it _is_ possible to percieve an object as moving faster than the speed of light. For example: a ship leaves a planet 10 light years from Earth at a speed of .75c, heading straight for us. The light coming from the moment of lift-off, and therefore our information that the event has taken place, does not arrive at Earth until 10 years later. By that time, however, the ship has travelled 7.5ly and only has 2.5ly to go. To observers on Earth, it would then appear that the ship had travelled the full 10ly in only 3-1/3 years, thus achieving a speed of 3c.
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### Author:  [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2005, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/78 "2005-10-13T02:30:16Z")
> [@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…
Uh… folks, we might want to allow for literary devices like metaphor and hyperbole.
Obviously, Joan wasn’t being serious or literal. It’s a song about Bob Dylan, with whom she once had a relationship. In the song, HE’S still trying to be part of her life, but she now considers him ancient history, someone from long ago and far away.
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### Author:  [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2005, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/79 "2005-10-13T02:31:52Z")
I don’t know if thgis is science, but gravity is involved…
In “End of the Innocence,” Don Henley sings:
“Lay your head back on the ground,
And let your hair fall all around me.”
Huh?
If she’s lying back on the ground, how is her hair supposed to fall all around him? Does her hair fall upwards?
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### Author:  [@zagloba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zagloba)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2005, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientifically-inaccurate-songs/325882/80 "2005-10-13T03:25:21Z")
> [@Diceman](#):
>
> To be fair, the idea that Druids built Stonehenge is a very common one, even if it is wrong. It’s not like Spinal Tap was pulling this out of their asses.
>
> I’m not going to try to defend the living rocks, however. They’re on their own.
And Stonehenge is not, in fact, 12 inches tall.
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