Author Topic: Factual errors in songs.  (Read 48089 times)

Really Ancien

Factual errors in songs.
« on: 18 February, 2009, 07:55:57 pm »
To a pedant like me these are like fingernails on blackboards. The latest is from 'The Killers'.
Quote
My global position systems are vocally addressed
They said the nile used to run from east to west
They said the nile used to run… from east to west

That's even worse than Toto.
Quote
Sure as kilimanjaro rises like olympus above the serengeti
I seek to cure whats deep inside, frightened of this thing that Ive become

Damon.

Re: Factual errors in songs.
« Reply #1 on: 18 February, 2009, 08:08:58 pm »
There is the obvious "Isn't it ironic" by Alenas Morisette where every example she gives is not ironic.
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Re: Factual errors in songs.
« Reply #2 on: 18 February, 2009, 08:18:27 pm »
Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now", leaving aside the obvious bit about travelling at the speed of light (Freddie Mercury with infinite mass in timeless space?) has the annoying

Quote
I'm burning through the skies Yeah!
Two hundred degrees
That's why they call me Mister Fahrenheit

I'm sorry, Freddie, but 200 degrees Fahrenheit is probably not enough to set you on fire, although it would give you a nasty blister.
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

Tourist Tony

  • Supermassive mobile flesh-toned black hole
Re: Factual errors in songs.
« Reply #3 on: 18 February, 2009, 08:20:19 pm »
Mr Young's "Cortez the Killer" where he rhapsodises about the, er, peaceful, gentle and cooperative Aztecs....

gonzo

Re: Factual errors in songs.
« Reply #4 on: 18 February, 2009, 08:25:19 pm »
There is the obvious "Isn't it ironic" by Alenas Morisette where every example she gives is not ironic.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/nT1TVSTkAXg&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/nT1TVSTkAXg&rel=1</a>

Brilliant!

andygates

  • Peroxide Viking
Re: Factual errors in songs.
« Reply #5 on: 18 February, 2009, 08:28:36 pm »
There are not nine million bicycles in Beijing.
It takes blood and guts to be this cool but I'm still just a cliché.
OpenStreetMap UK & IRL Streetmap & Topo: ravenfamily.org/andyg/maps updates weekly.

Eccentrica Gallumbits

  • Rock 'n' roll and brew, rock 'n' roll and brew...
Re: Factual errors in songs.
« Reply #6 on: 18 February, 2009, 08:31:28 pm »
Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now", leaving aside the obvious bit about travelling at the speed of light (Freddie Mercury with infinite mass in timeless space?) has the annoying

Quote
I'm burning through the skies Yeah!
Two hundred degrees
That's why they call me Mister Fahrenheit

I'm sorry, Freddie, but 200 degrees Fahrenheit is probably not enough to set you on fire, although it would give you a nasty blister.

If you were going to pick a rock star capable of travelling at the speed of light through sheer rockgoddery, it would be Freddie.
My feminist marxist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard.


rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Re: Factual errors in songs.
« Reply #7 on: 18 February, 2009, 08:32:46 pm »
"The Diary of Horace Wimp" by ELO misses out Saturday when chanting through the days of the week, presumably because it doesn't scan.
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

Re: Factual errors in songs.
« Reply #8 on: 18 February, 2009, 08:32:58 pm »
And you cant "Cry me a river".  A small damp patch perhaps.
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

Bluebottle

  • Everybody's gotta be somewhere
Re: Factual errors in songs.
« Reply #9 on: 18 February, 2009, 08:35:16 pm »
Mr Billy Bragg, there are no alpha particles that hide a neon nucleus.
Dieu, je vous soupçonne d'être un intellectuel de gauche.

FGG #5465

Eccentrica Gallumbits

  • Rock 'n' roll and brew, rock 'n' roll and brew...
Re: Factual errors in songs.
« Reply #10 on: 18 February, 2009, 08:39:12 pm »
Busted, you did not go to the year 3000, and if you had, and everyone lived underwater, then it would be wrong to say not much had changed.

Also, you're rubbish.
My feminist marxist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard.


red marley

Re: Factual errors in songs.
« Reply #11 on: 18 February, 2009, 08:40:36 pm »
Kate Bush - "Pi". Great song, but really...

Quote
Sweet and gentle sensitive man
With an obsessive nature and deep fascination
For numbers
And a complete infatuation with the calculation
Of PI

Oh he love, he love, he love
He does love his numbers
And they run, they run, they run him
In a great big circle
In a circle of infinity

3.1415926535 897932
3846 264 338 3279

Oh he love, he love, he love
He does love his numbers
And they run, they run, they run him
In a great big circle
In a circle of infinity
But he must, he must, he must
Put a number to it

50288419 716939937510
582319749 44 59230781
6406286208 821 4808651 32

Oh he love, he love, he love
He does love his numbers
And they run, they run, they run him
In a great big circle
In a circle of infinity

rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Re: Factual errors in songs.
« Reply #12 on: 18 February, 2009, 08:40:46 pm »
And you don't drive a Mitsubishi Zero, Mr Bragg, whatever your Sexuality.  You fly one.
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

Bez

  • Carpe Cerevisi.
Re: Factual errors in songs.
« Reply #13 on: 18 February, 2009, 08:46:24 pm »
There's something on the web for virtually every topic.....

Inventory: Seven Songs With Factual Or Logical Mistakes In The Lyrics |  | A.V. Club

Not very comprehensive but quite nerdy.

jellied

  • skip to the end
    • Ealing Bike Hub
Re: Factual errors in songs.
« Reply #14 on: 18 February, 2009, 08:50:34 pm »
Do they know it's Christmas? Yes they probably do.
Fat Bottomed Girls do not make the world go round any more than slim bottomed girls do.
A shitter and a giggler.

andygates

  • Peroxide Viking
Re: Factual errors in songs.
« Reply #15 on: 18 February, 2009, 09:23:28 pm »
Ms Mitchell, they may well have paved paradise, but you don't put up a parking lot, it's just tarmac.  You lay it down.
It takes blood and guts to be this cool but I'm still just a cliché.
OpenStreetMap UK & IRL Streetmap & Topo: ravenfamily.org/andyg/maps updates weekly.

Bluebottle

  • Everybody's gotta be somewhere
Re: Factual errors in songs.
« Reply #16 on: 18 February, 2009, 09:27:03 pm »
...unlike a Bridge Over Troubled Waters, which you put up, Messrs Simon and Garfunkel.
Dieu, je vous soupçonne d'être un intellectuel de gauche.

FGG #5465

LittleWheelsandBig

  • Whimsy Rider
Re: Factual errors in songs.
« Reply #17 on: 18 February, 2009, 09:31:32 pm »
Ms Mitchell, they may well have paved paradise, but you don't put up a parking lot, it's just tarmac.  You lay it down.

According to the Yanks, you can put up a parking lot. Here is a bicycle version.

/pedant
Wheel meet again, don't know where, don't know when...

Re: Factual errors in songs.
« Reply #18 on: 18 February, 2009, 09:41:26 pm »
Doing a little research it seems that it was not oswald's head which jack spot hit (men they couldn't hang, ghosts of cable street). Wishful thinking perhaps?

Re: Factual errors in songs.
« Reply #19 on: 18 February, 2009, 09:57:26 pm »
Busted, you did not go to the year 3000, and if you had, and everyone lived underwater, then it would be wrong to say not much had changed.

Also, you're rubbish.

Plus, I'm sure my great, great, great granddaughter will look pretty fine, but I'd be astonished if she still looks that way in the year 3000, seeing as she'd be about 850 years old by then...

PaulF

  • "World's Scariest Barman"
  • It's only impossible if you stop to think about it
Re: Factual errors in songs.
« Reply #20 on: 18 February, 2009, 10:03:34 pm »
Things can only get better

rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Re: Factual errors in songs.
« Reply #21 on: 18 February, 2009, 10:12:36 pm »
When the levee breaks, apparently,

Quote
If you're goin' down South
They got no work to do,
If you don't know about Chicago.

Has Robert Plant ever studied a map of the USA?
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

jellied

  • skip to the end
    • Ealing Bike Hub
Re: Factual errors in songs.
« Reply #22 on: 18 February, 2009, 10:16:47 pm »
I'm Leaving on a jet plane.

No Mr Denver, you didn't leave on a jet plane, you left this earth in a Rutan Model 61 Long-EZ
A shitter and a giggler.

Rob S

Re: Factual errors in songs.
« Reply #23 on: 18 February, 2009, 10:19:35 pm »
The world, is just, a great, big onioooooon!!!

No it isn't.

Wascally Weasel

  • Slayer of Dragons and killer of threads.
Re: Factual errors in songs.
« Reply #24 on: 18 February, 2009, 10:19:44 pm »
I'm Leaving on a jet plane.

No Mr Denver, you didn't leave on a jet plane, you left this earth in a Rutan Model 61 Long-EZ

*sings*

"Come let me crash land, like a plane in the ocean
Come let me crash land, come drown me again
You fill up my nostrils, with cold salty water
Come let me crash land, come drown me again"