Jimmy Buffett’s song “Volcano” was inspired by the then-dormant Soufrière Hills volcano on the island of Montserrat in the British West Indies where Buffett recorded the album in May 1979 at AIR Studios. It became very popular in the Pacific Northwest among those waiting for St. Helens to blow, especially for its infinitely-personalizable list of places the singer doesn’t want to land when the volcano blows. Among the ones Buffett listed were:
But I don’t want to land in New York City,
I don’t want to land in Mexico.
I don’t want to land on no Three Mile Island,
I don’t want to see my skin a-glow.
Don’t want to land in Camanche Skypark,
or in Nashville, Tennessee.
I don’t want to land in no San Juan Airport
or the Yukon Territory.
Don’t want to land in no San Diego.
Don’t want to land in no Buzzards Bay.
I don’t want to land on no Ayatollah.
I got nothin’ more to say.
Nashville International Airport is a public and military use airport in the southeastern section of Nashville in the U.S. state of Tennessee.ranks as the 32nd-busiest airport in the United States in terms of passengers. A total of 11,119,618 passengers traveled into and out of BNA in 2014, a 6.6 percent increase over calendar year 2013. The airport is currently served by 11 airlines and offers 385 daily arriving and departing flights with nonstop flights to more than 55 markets in the US, Canada, Mexico, Bahamas, Jamaica, Dominican Republic and Cuba.
Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas won the nickname “the Sledge of Nashville” for his smashing victory over the Confederate army of Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood at Nashville, Tenn. in December 1864. Thomas had been Hood’s instructor at West Point before the Civil War.
Debbie, Joni, Kathy and Kim Sledge were singing sisters from Philadelphia PA. In 1979 when their hometown baseball team Phillies were on their way to a middling and mediocre 84-78 season, their cross-state rival Pirates were heading to a first place 98-64 season. Sister Sledge’s hit song, We Are Family became the rallying song for the Pirates as they won the World Series that year.
The song “Our House” by Graham Nash refers to Nash’s two-year affair with folk singer Joni Mitchell at the time that Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young recorded the Déjà Vu album.
Joni Mitchell’s first name is Roberta. Also, she had polio. She started smoking cigarettes at 9 years old. She holds an honorary doctorate in music from McGill University.
Roberta Flack is the first and only solo singer to win the Grammy Award for Record of the Year two consecutive times. “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” won at the 1973 Grammys and “Killing Me Softly with His Song” won at the 1974 Grammys. Only the group U2, who did it in 2001 with “Beautiful Day” and in 2002 with “Walk On”, has done it since.
Francis Gary Powers was the center of international intrigue 55 years ago, when his U2 was shot down while engaged in high-altitude espionage over the USSR. Powers died later in a helicopter crash, while covering a forest fire for a Los Angeles TV station.
The Empress Matilda, only surviving child of Henry I, was known as “The Lady of the English” during her attempt to wrest the throne of England from her cousin, King Stephen.
Waltzing Matilda" is Australia’s most widely known bush ballad, and has been described as the country’s “unofficial national anthem”.
The title was Australian slang for travelling on foot (waltzing, derived from the German auf der Walz) with one’s belongings in a “matilda”, slung over one’s back.
The song narrates the story of an itinerant worker, or “swagman”, making a drink of tea at a bush camp and capturing a jumbuck (sheep) to eat. When the sheep’s owner arrives with three police officers to arrest the worker for the theft, the swagman commits suicide by drowning himself in a nearby billabong (watering hole), after which his ghost haunts the site.
Austrian-German actor Christoph Waltz is the latest to play kitty-stroking SPECTRE head Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film franchise. The only actor to play Blofeld twice was Anthony Dawson, in From Russia With Love and Thunderball, although only his hands and the back of his head appeared on-screen. Following him were Donald Pleasence, Telly Savalas, Charles Gray, John Hollis, Max von Sydow, and Waltz.
Veronica Lake was a 40s movie actress, best known for her “peek-a-boo” hair – a long lock that covered half her face, making her seem mysterious. During the war, the look became so popular that she was asked to cut it because women working in factories were getting hair caught in machinery. Lake obliged, but her career went downhill. A reputation for being difficult (and an alcoholic) didn’t help and by the 1960s she was out of films and working as a barmaid.
The idea that 80% of outcomes come from 20% of the causes (like 20% of students make up 80% of the referrals to the Dean) is known as the Pareto Principle.