"Kids in America" references "LA to east California." East California?
Springsteen's "Glory Days" inexplicably calls a fastball a speedball, a term I don't think anyone had ever used before or used ever since, at least not in a baseball context.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 23 February 2011 18:24 (thirteen years ago) link
(xpost) Blame Leadbelly for "Cotton Fields" though, not Fogerty.
― Hodge Podge Bodge, Peo-PLE! (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, 23 February 2011 18:30 (thirteen years ago) link
Him too.
― http://tinyurl.com/lil-shits (Pleasant Plains), Wednesday, 23 February 2011 18:38 (thirteen years ago) link
Oh, yeah, "The Night Chicago Died," the narrator says his dad was a cop on "the east side of Chicago." Which is Lake Michigan. Chicago has north and south sides.
― Du Musst Calamari Werden (Phil D.), Wednesday, 23 February 2011 18:39 (thirteen years ago) link
And a West Side!
I've been to plenty of big hip-hop shows where the act goes through all the directions, ending with "where all my east siders at!?" With a response of one or two yelps.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 23 February 2011 18:43 (thirteen years ago) link
The rest of them are drowning?
― sonofstan, Wednesday, 23 February 2011 18:48 (thirteen years ago) link
ok, not so famous, but it's funny how in "Walter Johnson," Jonathan Richman says, "he pitched for the Washington Senators in about 1924" but immediately corrects himself — "no, 1906." he was right the first time though, since Johnson pitched for the Senators between 1907 and 1927.
― administratieve blunder (unregistered), Wednesday, 23 February 2011 19:03 (thirteen years ago) link
i like the hokeyness of speedball! i can't even imagine the word "fastball" in that line.
― fact checking cuz, Wednesday, 23 February 2011 19:07 (thirteen years ago) link
I don't understand people nitpicking about east California, south Detroit etc. These places might not be named such, but there is quite obviously an eastern part of California, a southern part of Detroit. What the hell are you all talking about?
― emil.y, Wednesday, 23 February 2011 19:17 (thirteen years ago) link
If you're from East Chicago, then Mitch Daniels is your governor.
― http://tinyurl.com/lil-shits (Pleasant Plains), Wednesday, 23 February 2011 19:21 (thirteen years ago) link
x-post Oh, come on - there's an east everything, wherever you go. But just because there is an east in California does not mean there is an East California.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 23 February 2011 19:50 (thirteen years ago) link
Yeah, it's like referring to Greenwich Village as being on the South Side of Manhattan. It's geographically accurate, but still wrong.
― Du Musst Calamari Werden (Phil D.), Wednesday, 23 February 2011 20:06 (thirteen years ago) link
just because there is an east in California does not mean there is an East California.
Yeah, but how do you know they're singing East California (a title of a place) rather than east California (a loose geographic indication)? Surely this is one's own interpretation? I mean, if someone started singing about 'East Nottingham' I wouldn't blink an eye - there's nowhere called that, but it makes perfect sense to me.
― emil.y, Wednesday, 23 February 2011 20:19 (thirteen years ago) link
In the Chicago sense, you'd say he worked in the Loop or in Lakeview or Lincoln Park. It's like saying you're from East New York and meaning Long Island or Albany.
― http://tinyurl.com/lil-shits (Pleasant Plains), Wednesday, 23 February 2011 20:29 (thirteen years ago) link
You can say east or west, but it betrays the song's narration.
"South Detroit" is indefensible. South of Downtown Detroit is Windsor, Ontario and the city spreads out West, North and East from Downtown. No one would say that they were born and raised in "South Detroit" instead of "Downtown Detroit". An argument could be made for Mexicantown being South Detroit, but it's really more west of downtown than south. The correct term for all communities south of Detroit and north of Toledo is "downriver".
― BrianB, Wednesday, 23 February 2011 20:56 (thirteen years ago) link
"South Detroit" was actually one name that was suggested when Windsor became a city!
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Wednesday, 23 February 2011 21:13 (thirteen years ago) link
Ha! I wonder if the Canadians would've changed it when Detroit collapsed - like the suburb formerly known as East Detroit which renamed themselves Eastpointe to allign with another suburb Grosse Pointe rather than the city. Anyway, to steer things slightly back to the thread topic...
It's more of a bad simile than an outright factual error and it's not a hit at all, but one lyric that has always bugged me is "Black Throated Wind" by the Grateful Dead (Barlow) where Weir sings "The busses and semis plunging like stones from a slingshot on mars" when Mars' gravity is 38% that of Earth. I guess the "plunging" is the part that kills it. It would've been just as easy and more factual to say "flying by like stones from a slingshot on Mars"
― BrianB, Wednesday, 23 February 2011 21:31 (thirteen years ago) link
Here's some lyrics to "Jimmy" by Boogie Down Productions:
Here is a message to the Super-Hoes Just keep in mind when Jimmy grows It grows and grows and grows, so let it But keep in mind about the epidemic When Jimmy releases, boy it pleases But what do you do about all these diseases? Jimmy is Jimmy, no matter what So take care of Jimmy cos you know what's up 'cos now in winter AIDS attacks So run out and get your Jimmy Hats It costs so little for a pack of three They're Jimmy Hats for the winter attack
Okay, it was released in 1988, but still...
― Tuomas, Wednesday, 23 February 2011 22:25 (thirteen years ago) link
like bono screwing up the time of day
― What You Know Is POLLS!: The Orson Welles Poll (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 24 February 2011 02:41 (thirteen years ago) link
the judges decline to judge bono for that one.
― fact checking cuz, Thursday, 24 February 2011 04:20 (thirteen years ago) link
lawyers work pro bono
― http://tinyurl.com/lil-shits (Pleasant Plains), Thursday, 24 February 2011 05:29 (thirteen years ago) link
did Snoop really quit school because of recess?
― muntjac wagner (Neanderthal), Monday, 24 August 2020 01:46 (three years ago) link
https://www.alphr.com/science/1008020/physicists-have-finally-fact-checked-the-ludicrous-lyrics-in-the-proclaimers-500/
Of course, while it’s possible in a physics sense, it’s hugely inadvisable in a medical capacity. Assuming a speed of four miles per hour, a person (Proclaimer or otherwise) would cover 96 miles in a 24-hour period, meaning you’d need over five days of solid walking for the first leg to be completed. It’s been suggested that humans can go for over ten days without sleep, but probably not while walking 500 miles (and then 500 more) without food. More work is required in this burgeoning field of research.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Monday, 24 August 2020 19:58 (three years ago) link
Let's face it, any hit song that goes on about doing "it" (or anything, really) "all night long" needs to issue a correction.
― henry s, Monday, 24 August 2020 20:34 (three years ago) link
I meant if you define "night" as the daily period of ambient darkness, we're talking 8 hours minimum. When was the last time you did anything for 8 straight hours? Even work gives you a lunch break.
― henry s, Monday, 24 August 2020 20:37 (three years ago) link
Depends on where you live and what time of year it is.
― Lily Dale, Monday, 24 August 2020 20:45 (three years ago) link
Wonder if it has ever been performed at the Bukta Tromsø Open Air Festival
― Anti-Cop Ponceortium (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Monday, 24 August 2020 20:54 (three years ago) link
I just heard "Love Train" by the O'Jays and it contains the lines:
All of you brothers over in AfricaTell all the folks in Egypt, and Israel, too
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 19 November 2020 14:58 (three years ago) link