21 Odd and Fun Facts About Music
Posted on 7th January, 2008 by Albert T.Category: Musings on music
- The only guy in ZZ Top who doesn’t have a beard is Frank Beard.
- None of Elvis’s films got nominated for Oscar, but he did win three Grammy Awards - for his gospel recordings.
- John Lennon wrote “Good morning, good morning” after hearing a Corn Flakes commercial.
- Marilyn Monroe got a white poodle named Mafia from Frank Sinatra.
- The airplane that Buddy Holly died in was not called “American Pie”, that’s a myth. Actually the plane didn’t have a name. However Don McLean’s song “American Pie” is a about that plane crash among other things.
Edited: February 7th, 2008 - Duran Duran was named after a mad scientist from the Jane Fonda movie “Barbarella”.
- The first CD that was pressed in the U.S. was Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA”.
- Before composing Beethoven dipped his head in cold water.
- Like humans, birds can learn music while they are still in the egg stage.
- Mozart was five years old when he wrote his first piece.
- The first pop video was released in 1975. It was “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen.
- In 1976 Barry Manilow sang a chart topping song named “I write the songs”. The song wasn’t written by him.
- Termites will eat wood two times faster when listening to heavy metal.
- When Madonna was 15 years old, she got grounded for the whole summer, for sneaking out to see David Bowie in concert.
- In the year 1988 tenor Luciano Pavarotti received a record 165 curtain calls at a Berlin opera house.
- Make music not war: Monaco’s national orchestra is bigger that its army.
- Wham!’s hit single “Wake me up before you go go” was written by George Michael who was inspired by the note that was left to his hotel room by another band member Andrew Ridgeley. The note was mistakenly written as “Don’t forget to wake me up up before you go go, George”.
- “House of the rising sun” by The Animals was recorded with only 15 minutes because the band was on a tight budget. In spite of that the song went all the way to number one in 1964.
- The longest song title is 305 characters (including spaces): “The Sad But True Story Of Ray Mingus, The Lumberjack Of Bulk Rock City, And His Never Slacking Stribe In Exploiting The So Far Undiscovered Areas Of The Intention To Bodily Intercourse From The Opposite Species Of His Kind, During Intake Of All The Mental Condition That Could Be Derived From Fermentation” by Rednex.
- When Billy Crystal was a child, his babysitter was the legendary Billie Holiday.
- Suzanne Vega is considered the “mother” of the mp3 format. The creators of the mp3 used her voice from the song “Tom’s Diner” for analyzing the different sound spectrums when creating the compression algorithm.
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January 8th, 2008
Actually the Beatles started making music videos around 1966 because there was no way they could play live anymore because of all the screaming and hoopla surrounding their concerts
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January 8th, 2008
Thanks for pointing that out.
Even though Queen’s was the first pop-video, we did bit more digging on the subject and found this: “1975 Queen ordered Bruce Gowers to make promo video for their new single “Bohemian Rhapsody” to show it in Top Of The Pops. Video itself was nothing special even in mid 70s but unexpected popularity of the video made music video clips fashionable again and allowed to promoters of Queen even spread the false-myth that “Bohemian Rhapsody” is the first music video in the world!” (Wikipedia)
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January 8th, 2008
Louis Jordan made many music videos in the 40’s and from then on. Others did it also and most likely before him with the advent of film, and then film with sound.
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January 8th, 2008
Allegedly, The Big Bopper, rock’n'roll innovator, coined the phrase ‘music video’ in 1959, but as Steve mentioned, music videos themselves have been made long before that. But of course we were not talking about all kinds of music videos in Queen example, but specifically about pop-videos.
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January 8th, 2008
Regarding the longest song title that goes to The Proclaimers with 500 miles
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January 8th, 2008
Well, we can’t beat that
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January 8th, 2008
The plane that Buddy Holly died in was not named “American Pie”
see:
http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/americanpie.asp
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January 8th, 2008
Apparently, the plane had no name, however Don McLean’s song American Pie is a about that plane crash among other things.
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January 8th, 2008
How about The Rolling Stones with “2000 light years from home”?
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January 8th, 2008
Humans can learn music in the EGG STAGE!?!?!!?!?!?!
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January 8th, 2008
To clarify this, for humans, there is actually meant foetus stage, but basically, yes, humans can learn the music before the birth.
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January 8th, 2008
[...] 21 Odd and Fun Facts About Music The song wasn’t written by him. Termites will eat wood two times faster when listening to heavy metal. When Madonna was 15 years old, she got grounded for the whole summer, for sneaking out to see David Bowie in concert. … [...]
January 8th, 2008
Barry Manilow didn’t write either of his other #1 hits either(Mandy, Looks Like We Made It). He only wrote 3 of his 11 top 10 hits(Could It Be Magic, Copacabana, I Made It Through The Rain). The idea that he is an all time great songwriter is a myth.
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January 9th, 2008
I agree totally with this list, especially the last point.
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January 9th, 2008
Intersting article, I enjoyed reading those facts. Some of them were pretty interesting, some of them weren’t though.
- Dwayne Charrington.
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January 9th, 2008
these are pretty good, although I think a lot of tem aren’t true. The longest song title goes to the band Meatsauce, with their song: “maidens and ale relocate their arms with dark endless ranks of mail order bride’s fermented limbs; They wake and bake and charge into the abyss of self gratification of nuclear winter and motion for the new world attack order that kills, destroys, pillages, and rapes the cities of Argaroth and muse of inter-stellar launch sequence”
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January 10th, 2008
I heard Mozart compose his first piece (a sonata) at 3. Lost in legend, I guess we’ll never know.
I didn’t check to see which one wins, but another contender for longest song title was Hoagy Carmichael’s (sic) “I’m a Cranky Old Yank in a Clanky Old Tank on the Streets of Yokahama with My Honolulu Mama Doin’ the Neat-o, Beat-o, Flat on My Seat-o Hirohito Blues”. I’ve never heard it, but I’m betting it’s a 12-bar since I doubt you could shoe-horn that lyric into an 8-bar blues format.
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January 10th, 2008
Bruce’s album was the first ever cd to be released in every corner of the world lol, not just silly USA.
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January 10th, 2008
The first Compact Disc for commercial release rolled off the assembly line on August 17, 1982, at a Philips factory in Langenhagen, near Hanover, Germany. The first title released was ABBA’s The Visitors (1981). (Wikipedia)
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January 10th, 2008
first artist to be inducted into the rock and roll AND jazz hall of fame- frank zappa.
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January 10th, 2008
Nice find, Hellman!
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January 10th, 2008
How about “Across The Universe” by The Beatles…that’s even longer…can you top this?
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January 11th, 2008
How about Donovan’s “Intergalactic Laxative” ?
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January 11th, 2008
[...] WakeUpVibes Blog: Mornings, Music, Coffee & Waking Up » Blog Archive » 21 Odd and Fun Facts Ab… # Termites will eat wood two times faster when listening to heavy metal. [...]
January 11th, 2008
Yeah, it’s really true that termites chew two times faster when they are exposed to rock music. My professor before in College told us the reason behind. According to her, rock music sends vibration to walls which help termites concentrate more on their work.
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January 11th, 2008
Interesting tidbit about Billie Holiday / Billy Crystal! Subscribed, this blog is right up my alley, thanks for a good read.
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January 12th, 2008
Cool musical tidbits!`
hb~
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January 12th, 2008
Hi,
Love you site. I have it bookmarked and linked for my shot of music.
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January 15th, 2008
I think you’ll find it’s Mike Beard.
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January 15th, 2008
So far we haven’t found a ZZ Top with Mike Beard, but we still have one with Frank Beard
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January 15th, 2008
this article is really nice one thanx for sharing it
jasmine
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January 15th, 2008
This list is full of errors. Thus, it fails.
You should take it down so some of these rumors and lies don’t spread.
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January 16th, 2008
I hate to break it to you but most of these facts are true. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. However I do admit that some of them are debatable.
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January 16th, 2008
This is one cool list. And adding to the longest song title (albeit all the cool and very funny comments) is the longest CD title: Fiona Apple’s When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He’ll Win the Whole Thing ‘Fore He Enters the Ring There’s No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand and Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights and If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where to Land and If You Fall It Won’t Matter, Cuz You’ll Know That You’re Right. More proof that she was crazy. Talented, but crazy.
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January 18th, 2008
I hate to be pedantic but I really don’t believe The Big Bopper coined the phrase ‘Music Video’. Videos weren’t the primary recording medium until many years later and were recorded primarily on film - hence he term ‘music clip’.
The expression ‘Video’ in this context didn’t arrive until the 80s but if someone can provide an earlier citation, I’ll happily apologise.
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January 18th, 2008
Beethoven was 8 when he wrote symphony number 1
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January 18th, 2008
It’s really time to cease and desist with the beardless Frank Beard in ZZ Top. He often sports a beard, and indeed sported one during 2007’s VH1 Rock Honours, for example.
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January 18th, 2008
oh man, i’m going to be so impressive next time the topic of music comes up
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January 19th, 2008
paul:
Gerard Kenny wrote “I Made It Through The Rain”, not Manilow.
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January 20th, 2008
Great stuff and very interesting.:mrgreen:
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January 20th, 2008
Oh and it is Frank not Mike for ZZ!
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January 20th, 2008
Cool list. Thanks!
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January 21st, 2008
If any of you would have noticed, Queen of course didnt make the first music video.
It says,
“The first pop video was released in 1975. It was “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen.”
POP VIDEO.( i know some of you saw this)
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January 21st, 2008
As an addition, Kris Kristofferson wrote “Bobbie McGee” for a woman but Janice Joplin made it famous.
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January 21st, 2008
I don’t typically read these sort of fact things but I found the first couple intrigued me and then I read the entire post and was entertained and informed. Thanks
Monique Briand
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January 27th, 2008
where did you find the termite fact? i want to know what happens when termites listen to other types of music as well.
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January 27th, 2008
We came across this fact via Google, however, there was no additional info on other types of music.
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January 29th, 2008
I love to look stuff up in Wikipedia myself, but it is not a factual source for information. I’m not sure of any profession that would stake their reputation/jobs on quoting something from Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is an awesome source to find information, but it shouldn’t be quoted. Quotes should come from the source, not the media reporting on it.
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February 4th, 2008
the airplane was NOT called american pie. that’s a myth.
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February 7th, 2008
[...] Weird band facts [...]
February 8th, 2008
I Googled for something completely different, but found your page…and have to say thanks. nice read….
February 20th, 2008
This is nice musical tidbits!
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February 22nd, 2008
Those are some fun facts.
Thanks,
-Gilan of The Beatles Invasion
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March 17th, 2008
Very enjoyable list! Some of them I knew, others were pleasant surprises. A few notes though:
John Lennon got song ideas from a lot of kooky places. “For the Benefit of Mr. Kite” was based on an old circus poster he stumbled upon, and was quoted nearly word-for-word. He first heard the phrase “Happiness is a Warm Gun” while watching the news, and so on.
With all this chatter about the Big Bopper, I’m surprised nobody remembers he was on that “American Pie” plane, too.
Mozart -did- compose his first song at 5. It was “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”
Termites don’t actually “chew” wood. They secrete an acid that dissolves the wood into a deliciously slurpable pulp. I’d be interested in finding out exactly how Heavy Metal (or the vibrations it causes) increase the acid production. However, imagining the little fellas head-banging and chomping isn’t exactly accurate.
Thanks for the fun read! Hope my comments were more helpful than they were boring!
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March 30th, 2008
“Mozart -did- compose his first song at 5. It was “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”
Nope, he didn’t; he wrote variations on the already existing tune. Common misconception not helped by Trivial Pursuit propagating the error..
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April 26th, 2008
Umm… No offense, stu, but he DID write it, it was originally titled “Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman” written when he was 7 not 5, and translated, it means “Oh! Tell me, Mama”, for it was about his instrument gift of the year, and for he was curious about it.
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June 18th, 2008
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