# Songs with historical errors that bug you **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** music\ **Created:** [August 28, 2023, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-historical-errors-that-bug-you/989246 "2023-08-28T21:37:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-historical-errors-that-bug-you/989246/61 "2023-08-30T09:04:08Z")
> [@Ribeye](#): > > This has to be Iron Maiden’s worst groaner. Steve Harris should know better, and someone else in the band should have checked him. I went to school with Steve Harris, and (like me) he had a perfectly good grammar school education. So he should have known that the cavemen came before the dinosaurs. What? ---
**Author:** ![JoseB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/joseb/32/1530_2.png) [@JoseB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoseB)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-historical-errors-that-bug-you/989246/62 "2023-08-30T10:00:37Z")
If songs in other languages are acceptable, I would like to submit “Héroes de la Antártida” (“Heroes of Antarctica”) by the Spanish band “Mecano”. The song tells the story of the doomed 1912 expedition to the South Pole of Captain Scott and his companions, and I really like it. However, it has a tremendous (geographic) mistake in it that limits my enjoyment of the song: in it, the singer says that they found Amundsen’s Norwegian flag “when they reached the 0° latitude point”…………… **FACEPALM** ---
**Author:** ![bryanmaguire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d07c76/32.png) [@bryanmaguire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bryanmaguire)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-historical-errors-that-bug-you/989246/63 "2023-08-30T10:24:36Z")
NM. managed to confuse myself ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-historical-errors-that-bug-you/989246/64 "2023-08-30T13:25:43Z")
Well, obviously much of Boney M’s Rasputin song is, shall we say, historically inaccurate. One that particularly annoys me, though, is Waterloo, by Abba. > My, my > At Waterloo, Napoleon did surrender No he didn’t, he fled the scene and spent the next month trying to rally more support before finally getting the message and giving up. ---
**Author:** ![Falchion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a88e57/32.png) [@Falchion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Falchion)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-historical-errors-that-bug-you/989246/65 "2023-08-30T13:49:53Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > True enough, but why single out May 10? Just a matter of syllables? Jefferson Davis was captured on May 10, 1865. Which could be the night that they drove old Dixie down… taking place after “Richmond had fell”. (I might’ve originally read the lyrics as describing “Stoneman’s cavalry” – complaining that the narrator was “hungry” because Stoneman’s cavalry tore up the tracks and implying that it was unnecessary because Richmond had already fallen. But that doesn’t really explain May 10th – Stoneman’s raid ended in late April). ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-historical-errors-that-bug-you/989246/66 "2023-08-30T13:51:41Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Neil Young in Cortez The Killer completely ignoring that Montezuma was likely much more of a murderer than Cortez was bugs me a lot more. The song mentions human sacrifice, if that’s what you’re referring to? (Though I guess it portrays the people being ssacrificed as willing) ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-historical-errors-that-bug-you/989246/67 "2023-08-30T14:02:36Z")
I always get minorly triggered by the line about Roman cavalry in _Viva La Vida_. Maybe the reason you don’t rule the workd anymore is that you relied on the notoriously poor performing Roman mounted forces! Should have recruited some auxiliaries from territories where they know how to ride a horse, SMDH. Eta: unless the singer is a Byzantine, in which case he would both refer to himself as a Roman and have access to excellent Cataphract cavalry, in which case my objection is withdrawn. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-historical-errors-that-bug-you/989246/68 "2023-08-30T14:07:21Z")
[Once I was The King of Spain - Moxy Fruvous](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpGV1jOqk4I) I have not googled it, but I call bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-historical-errors-that-bug-you/989246/69 "2023-08-30T14:17:31Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > > [@John\_DiFool](#): > > > > Neil Young in Cortez The Killer completely ignoring that Montezuma was likely much more of a murderer than Cortez was bugs me a lot more. > > The song mentions human sacrifice, if that’s what you’re referring to? (Though I guess it portrays the people being ssacrificed as willing) Quick check of Wikipedia reveals a lot were prisoners from his many campaigns. Point being Montezuma was no less of a bloodthirsty warlord than Cortez. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-historical-errors-that-bug-you/989246/70 "2023-08-30T14:19:33Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > I like the song, but come on, Neil! “They offered life in sacrifice/so that others could go on”. They were butchers, not noble warriors doing what was necessary. I bet you wouldn’t like it if they thought ol Neil needed to be put down. Now this is a **very** loaded comment. I wouldn’t call the Aztecs “butchers”. Clearly they saw the world very differently from the way we do today, and geld very different values, but _so did the Spanish_. European wars of the era were far deadlier than Aztec ones, with far more people being killed overall, including more civilians. In the Aztec world, on the other hand, a smaller proportion of the population was involved in warfare, and fewer people died overall - however, this was because actual combat was often focused around capturing opponents, some of whom would be sacrificed at the end of the battle. Perhaps the fact that the Aztec way of war delays killing and turns death into a ritualized and drawn out process is sufficiently horrifying to outweigh the much smaller number of deaths. And perhaps it isn’t - historical sources tell us of plenty of “butchers” in the European and Middle Eastern world (and I am sure in East Asia or Sub-Saharan Africa as well, though I am less familiar with the sources there). I would count both Colombus and Cortez among them, but also many crusaders (Peter the Hermit comes to mind), Mongol Khans, etc… The idea that the Aztecs were uniquely bloodthirsty is one intentionally planted in the public consciousness by the Spanish, starting with Cortez himself, as they intentionally and effectively destroyed the native culture. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-historical-errors-that-bug-you/989246/71 "2023-08-30T14:27:45Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > The idea that the Aztecs were uniquely bloodthirsty I see your point, I just didn’t want to write as much as you. 🙂 The song is Cortez the killer, not Cortez and Montezuma the Killers. I think they were both killers, but Neil seems to be saying that the Aztecs were doing it for the greater good. It was noble and necessary. Or something. THAT I have issue with. Tell it to the people that had their hearts cut out that it was for the greater good. They were both bad. “Plenty bad man!” But I still like the song. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-historical-errors-that-bug-you/989246/72 "2023-08-30T14:28:56Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Quick check of Wikipedia With such thorough research as this, who could possibly debate you? > [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Quick check of Wikipedia reveals a lot were prisoners from his many campaigns. Yes - that’s how the Aztec system of warfare functioned. Rather than pitched battle or siege, as was common with other sedentary societies, the Aztecs and their neighbors primarily settled disputes through a ritualized form of conflict called a “Flower War”. At a prearranged time and place combatants would engage in combat whose primary goal is to capture, not kill. At the end of the battle prisoners would be exchanged and some portion would be retained by the winning side to be sacrificed. Is that more or less barbaric than burning all the villages (and villagers) around so the lord in his castle starves to death in six months to two years? Is that more or less barbaric than dropping thousands of tons of explosives on an enemy city every day until they surrender? Is that more or less barbaric than travelling to Jerusalem in order to kill all the infidels there and burning some villages on the way? Warfare sucks, for everyone involved, no matter how it’s done. I don’t particularly like the Aztec system, and if transported back in time to live in one of the villages under their rule, I’d probably resist. At the same time, I urge you to think about why it might be that the portrayal of Aztecs is so uniquely bloodthirsty. Does it seem oddly convenient that everything we knew about the Aztecs (until other people got suspicious and did a bit more digging) came from sources written by the very people who wiped out the Aztec culture entirely in a very intentional way? ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-historical-errors-that-bug-you/989246/73 "2023-08-30T14:31:49Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > The song is Cortez the killer, not Cortez and Montezuma the Killers. I think they were both killers, but Neil seems to be saying that the Aztecs were doing it for the greater good. It was noble and necessary. Or something. THAT I have issue with. Tell it to the people that had their hearts cut out that it was for the greater good. I doubt NEIL YOUNG supports human sacrifice to appease the Aztec Sun God (I always thought he was Jewish - I guess he is not - so maybe he does follow the Nahuatl faith, who knows 😛 ), but I think the song is from the perspective of the Aztecs, who _would_ have believed it was necessary. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-historical-errors-that-bug-you/989246/74 "2023-08-30T14:42:43Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > At the same time, I urge you to think about why it might be that the portrayal of Aztecs is so uniquely bloodthirsty Straw man. I was only concerned with the song seeming to imply M. was some sort of enlightened ruler of a utopian paradise, when he was nothing of the sort. That European revisionists then went too far in the other direction, for their own culture war purposes (which seems to be the undercurrent now flowing into this thread), may indeed have been disingenuous sure (and the resulting genocide was undeniably tragic), but that doesn’t change the nature of the society he lorded over. That he and his neighboring kingdoms came up with a mutually-agreed on organized system of sacrifice doesn’t make such deaths any less barbaric. I keep thinking of the Trek ep. where desginated victims walk meekly into disintegration chambers… Annnd do you _really_ expect me to go rummaging in the primary literature?! ---
**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-historical-errors-that-bug-you/989246/75 "2023-08-30T14:43:39Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > Well, obviously much of Boney M’s Rasputin song is, shall we say, historically inaccurate. Are you implying that his kazachok was **not** really wunderbar? ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-historical-errors-that-bug-you/989246/76 "2023-08-30T14:44:21Z")
In Eminem’s “Stan,” Stan is an obsessive fan who keeps trying to get into contact with Eminem. One part of Stan’s message to Eminem goes: You know the song by Phil Collins “In the Air Tonight” About that guy who could’ve saved that other guy from drowning But didn’t, then Phil saw it all, then at a show he found him? That’s kinda how this is, you could’ve rescued me from drowning Now it’s too late. This was a popular urban legend about “In the Air Tonight”, but it never actually happened. This error doesn’t detract from how great the song “Stan” really is, though. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-historical-errors-that-bug-you/989246/77 "2023-08-30T14:51:16Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > That he and his neighboring kingdoms came up with a mutually-agreed on organized system of sacrifice doesn’t make such deaths any less barbaric Maybe the rules aren’t drawn out as clearly or meant to be handed down from the gods, but a “mutually agreed on system of sacrifice” could describe the battlefields of the first World War. Even if such a system doesn’t _at all_ appeal to me, I would hesitate to describe it as inherently less moral than levy-based warfare as practiced in Europe (especially if it ends up with a much smaller percentage of warriors dead and essentially no civilian casualties). > [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Annnd do you _really_ expect me to go rummaging in the primary literature?! Don’t be silly, Cortez and his successors (including the Catholic Church) made sure we don’t _have_ any primary literature. The exaggerated bloodthirstiness of the Aztecs was used to justify the complete erasure of Aztec culture - or at least, as complete as they could manage at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-historical-errors-that-bug-you/989246/78 "2023-08-30T14:54:25Z")
All this arguing whether there is an east side of Chicago or not completely overlooks the fact that there was never a shoot out between the cops and the gangsters in the streets where over a hundred cops were dead. The mobsters tried very hard NOT to shoot cops and mostly shot each other in individual, small shootings. The Night Chicago Died is not an historical song at all. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-historical-errors-that-bug-you/989246/79 "2023-08-30T15:05:06Z")
> [@Ponch8](#): > > This was a popular urban legend about “In the Air Tonight”, but it never actually happened. This error doesn’t detract from how great the song “Stan” really is, though. I feel like it kind of adds to it? ---
**Author:** ![I.Dunno](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9f8e36/32.png) [@I.Dunno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I.Dunno)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-historical-errors-that-bug-you/989246/80 "2023-08-30T15:16:14Z")
Lightfoot, in an interview I read years ago, said that Cleveland fit better in that line, and that the ship WAS going there to spend the winter after unloading in Detroit. The interview was touching on how he crafted the song and some of the speculation, mainly regarding why it sank, that he had to use to complete it. Regarding the Mariner’s Church, he said during concerts that when he paid a visit to the church, the Rector mentioned that it’s not the “Maritime Sailor’s Cathedral”, simply the Mariner’s Church. And an older woman nearby, (Rector’s wife, cleaner, flower lady, I don’t remember) sarcastically chimed in “And it’s not MUSTY either!” I’ve only seen pictures of it but it appears to me to be a handsome stone structure, not something I’d call “rustic” at all. I think musty was the better line. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-historical-errors-that-bug-you/989246.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-with-historical-errors-that-bug-you/989246.md?page=5)