If we’re talking about songs that are factually wrong, can I propose a Lifetime Achievement Award for Johnny Horton?
Because so many of his songs are just full of factual errors.
Comanche, the Brave Horse: “one lone survivor…” seems to me that a lot of the indians survived this battle.
North to Alaska: “Big Sam left Seattle in the year of ninety-two”. The Alaska Gold Rush was started by the strikes at Circle City in 1893, and the main one, Rabbit Creek in 1896. This song says “the rush is on”, but it appears that Big Sam started rushin’ a few years before that.
The Battle of New Orleans: “In 1814 we took a little trip…” – But the Battle of New Orleans (the climactic battle) was in January, 1815. “Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip” – the battleground was up river from New Orleans. “And we caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans” – no, they caught them outside New Orleans – preventing the British from taking the town was the point of the battle. “We looked down the river and we see’d the British come” – the British came by land, marching across from Lake Borgne. “they began to runnin’, On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico” – the British retreat was also by land, back across to Lake Borgne and into the Gulf.
Perhaps the highlight is his song Sink the Bismark, which has factual errors in nearly every line:
In May of nineteen forty-one the war had just begun
– the war began in 1939, 3 years earlier; hardly “just begun”.
The Germans had the biggest ship that had the biggest guns
– the biggest warships were the Japanese battleships Yamato & Musashi, bigger than the Bismark, and with much bigger (18.1" vs. 15") guns. If you discount them because they weren’t actually at sea until after the Bismark was sunk, then the German sister ship Tirpitz was larger than the Bismark.
The Bismark was the fastest ship that ever sailed the sea
– There were at least 4 faster battleships at the time, German Scharnhorst, French Richelieu, Italian Vittorio Veneto, and the antiquated British Hood, which Bismark sunk.
On her decks were guns as big as steers and shells as big as trees
– her largest guns (on the turrets, not on her decks) were 15"; most steers are quite a bit bigger than that. And many trees are much bigger.
Out of the cold and foggy night came the British ship The Hood
– May is springtime in the north Atlantic, not the cold time of the year. And the battle with the Hood took place in early morning.
Despite all the factual errors, I still love his songs.
Music doesn’t depend on facts!
Good one, Bippy! I love Kate and cut her all the slack I can, but there’s just no excuse for that song. The hell of it is, I like the song, but can’t sing along without gagging.
Luka, honey, you need to get your priorities in order. Instead of composing subtle lyrics about about how “he only hits until you cry” perhaps you should put that guitar to constructive use and crack it over his head when the bastard isn’t looking.
Or if you’d prefer something a a bit more subtle, listen to Shawn Colvin’s “Sunny Came Home” for advice about how to torch the house down around the creep.
Oh, and as for factually wrong songs, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald has this line:
“The old cook came on deck and said, ‘Fellows, it’s too rough to feed you.’”
Later Lightfoot sings that the cook, realizing that the ship is doomed, bids the crew a sweet adieu with the line, “It’s been good to know you.’”
In reality, the old cook was the only member of the Edmund Fitzgerald crew to survive the wreck. He had called in sick and missed the fateful voyage altogether.
Diceman, has it been pointed out to you, but this song title is taken from a well known expression? It’s along the lines of saying “No good deed goes unpunished.” It is an observation about life. For example, how many sober people get killed by drunk drivers who walk away unscathed? At times like this,
when people’s worlds are turned upside down, that such expressions are muttered as a way of making sense of the senseless.
Specific to the song, Billy Joel is using it as an argument for why “Virginia” should live for today. - Jinx
Are you certain, Bippy? I had to walk past that place every day for a week, and if the window display is anything to go by it’s so bent that the bartender probably opens the wine bottles with his dick.
Mind you, this is Frisco. “Straight” may well have a different meaning there.
Then there’s the ever-popular Patches by Dickie Lee:
*I hear a neighbor telling my father
He says a girl name of Patches was found
Floating face down in that dirty old river
That flows through the middle of old Shantytown
Patches, oh what can I do
I swear, I’ll always love you
and it may not be right
but I’ll join you tonight
Patches, I’m coming to you*
Boy meets girl.
Girl gets knocked up by another guy.
Boy dumps girl.
Girl becomes whore to support baby.
Girl leaves baby with boy.
Girl dies like a dog in the street.
Boy realizes he should have forgiven girl, “But it was too late”.
Luka’s a little girl. The song’s about child abuse. So yeah, it’s definitely a song about something wrong, but Luka’s got fewer choices than you imagine here.
I kill children.
I love to see them die.
I kill children
and make their mamas cry.
Crush them under my car.
I love to hear them scream.
Give them poison candy
and spoil their Halloween.
Dead Kennedys, “I Kill Children”
(Once cited during Congressional hearings in support of proposed laws requring warning labels on music.)
<Insert any random line here>
Chaos UK, “Kill Your Baby”
Steal the money from your mother.
Buy a gun.
Kill your mother and father.
Fear, “We Destroy the Family”
My kids live alone with a stranger.
Their mother’s dead, I killed her…
Residing in a squalid place, it can’t be too much fun.
Your brain is getting eaten away by the rat living in your skull.
A mutant at the age of one, a human rodent cabbage.
GBH, “City Baby Attacked by Rats”
And what about that country song “Fancy” about the woman who encouraged her young daughter to hook up with the old rich guy? Anyone remember that one?
Picked up a boy just south of Mobile.
Gave him a ride, filled him with a hot meal.
I was sixteen, he was twenty-one.
Rode with us to Memphis,
and Papa woulda shot him if he knew what he’d done.
How about the DNC using Lou Bega’s “Mambo No. 5” at their National Convention in 2000?
They killed the vocals, which include the phrase “A little bit of Monica in my life”, but c’mon guys… who could hear that tune in that context and not have those lyric instantly come to mind?
