music trivia for the kids

October 10, 2005 11:27 AM

The most interesting pieces of pop music trivia (that you know are 100% false.) For example,

With the exception of 1990's Fourth of July, every Galaxie 500 song released has the exact same opening five seconds.

"American Pie" songster Don McLean is ironically both Canadian, and allergic to pastry.

Rapper 50 Cent Blasts Colonel Oliver North for role in Iran Contra Affair

posted by The Jesse Helms (65 comments total)

ILILM.
posted by keswick at 11:47 AM on October 10, 2005

How the hell do you end up allergic to pastry? I can see being allergic to wheat flour in it, or other ingredients, but pastry specifically?
posted by Kickstart70 at 11:49 AM on October 10, 2005

Is it wrong that I lauged at this? .33. The original cover of "Street Survivors" by Lynyrd Skynyrd featured them in an aeroplane crashing into the side of a mountain.
posted by NoMich at 11:51 AM on October 10, 2005

Michael and Janet Jackson are the same person.
posted by ericb at 11:53 AM on October 10, 2005

In 1965, John Denver boarded a Pacific Air 727, while at the same time on Gilligan's Island, Bob Denver planed a board while enjoying the Pacific air at latitude 7.27 N. Coincidence?
posted by rolypolyman at 11:58 AM on October 10, 2005

Henry Rollins is a homosexual.

Oh wait--FALSE trivia.
posted by scratch at 12:04 PM on October 10, 2005

75. The Flaming Lips, sans Wayne Coyne, are the Residents. Coyne doesn't know.

-- joseph cotten (josephcotte...), July 12th, 2005.

hahahaha
posted by angry modem at 12:06 PM on October 10, 2005

Led Zep didn't screw Abe Vigoda with a mackerel, it was a (delicious) bass. They followed that up with the champagne bottle thing.



Didn't Bob Denver have the#2 highest kill ratio as sniper in Vietnam? (Listen to "Rocky Mountain High" -'He was born in the summer of his 27th year coming home to a place he'd never been before...')



Actually, the one I heard about Van Halen wanting all the blue or red or green, whatever, M&M's removed from their M&M bowl had some excellent rationale. Apparently they want their lighting/sound/electrical/etc. instructions followed exactly so they avoid accidents and so everything works the same way at each show. If they see the M&M thing they know the instructions were read and followed. Don't know if that's true, but it sounds plausible.
posted by Smedleyman at 12:08 PM on October 10, 2005

Sorry "John" Denver. Brainfry.
posted by Smedleyman at 12:09 PM on October 10, 2005

When Brian Jones died, the Rolling Stones first offered his place in the band to the then-unknown Michael Palin.

Aerosmith wrote "Love in an Elevator" after encountering Arthur Lee on the way up to a meeting at the offices of Sony Music in New York.

Great!
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 12:13 PM on October 10, 2005

"Just like a Woman" is Bob Dylan's loving recollection of his turid affair with Hubert Humphrey. A recording engineer later changed the lyrics from "he makes love just like a woman..." to "she makes love..." but it's not like you know what he's saying anyway.
posted by allen.spaulding at 12:16 PM on October 10, 2005

Actually, Carlos Hathcock does vaguely resemble Bob Denver in his later years...
posted by alumshubby at 12:28 PM on October 10, 2005

The big suit was actually a very snug fit on David Byrne, who wore an all body corset the rest of the time.

You're So Vain is actually about either Marc Bolan or Marc Almond. She can't remember which.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 12:30 PM on October 10, 2005

Don Mclean isn't Canadian.
posted by Hildegarde at 12:32 PM on October 10, 2005

Yellow Submarine is the original name given to the hero sandwich each member of The Beatles urinated on before stuffing it down Ringo's throat after replacing Pete Best in a form of ritualistic initiation into the band. Ringo asked for more.
posted by Mach3avelli at 12:32 PM on October 10, 2005

Rapper Ludacris is a huge fan of novelist Umberto Eco. In 2001 he recorded a track for his hit album Word of Mouf based on Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, but after record company pressure he opted to retitle the song "Move Bitch".

muahahahahaha. This is soooo wrong. Ludacris is a huge fan of Italo Calvino.
posted by beelzbubba at 12:32 PM on October 10, 2005

Oh oh right FALSE trivia. I was just so stuck on the idea that Don Mclean might be Canadian, I found myself disappointed that he wasn't. Wah. This post makes me sad.
posted by Hildegarde at 12:38 PM on October 10, 2005

What about the Rod Stewart/jizz one? Please let that one be true. I want to believe.
posted by wakko at 12:39 PM on October 10, 2005

Damn it.
posted by wakko at 12:42 PM on October 10, 2005

Lola was actually a woman. Ray Davies just made the transgender stuff up so that his friends would stop teasing him about being unable to get her number.
posted by allen.spaulding at 12:43 PM on October 10, 2005

Rapper T.I. was originally known as TI-86. He was given the nickname by his friends because he was the best student in his AP Calculus class.

Hence, "You know they call me T.I., but you don't know"

Coincidentally, calculus also provided the inspiration for Master P.'s No Limit record label.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 12:44 PM on October 10, 2005

The one that got me for some reason:

"492. The old joke about the ignorant A&R man thinking Skunk Anansie were a duo called 'Skunk and Nancy' actually isn't a joke. The lead guitarist really was called Skunk and the lead singer really was called Nancy. The rest were just session men."

Did something non-music-related, but similar to this, a while back.
posted by Captaintripps at 12:49 PM on October 10, 2005

What about the Rod Stewart/jizz one? Please let that one be true. I want to believe.
posted by wakko at 12:39 PM PST on October 10 [!]


Patently and ridiculously false. Sorry. The human stomach cannot hold a gallon of jizz.
posted by beelzbubba at 12:49 PM on October 10, 2005

In the late eighties, Lionel Richie spent $500,000 on a series of custom built perspex tubes to create a raccoon run throughout his house.
posted by flashboy at 12:51 PM on October 10, 2005

Michael and Janet Jackson are the same person.

No, actually it's Michael & Rebie Jackson
posted by mike3k at 12:51 PM on October 10, 2005

And anyway I heard it was Lil' Kim.
posted by ChasFile at 12:51 PM on October 10, 2005

my favorite:

86. Aretha Franklin is 35% nachos.
posted by subclub at 12:53 PM on October 10, 2005

In the song "Suicide Solution" by Ozzy Ozzbourne he was sued by parents who said their son took his own life after hearing Ozzy sing: "I tell you to end your life." Ozzy proved in court that he was actually singing "I tell you to enjoy life." But the truth is that Ozzy wanted that kid dead ever since he found out that he sat through his encore at a 1983 show.
posted by any major dude at 12:59 PM on October 10, 2005

"The human stomach cannot hold a gallon of jizz."

But is Rod Stewart human?

I understand Roy Orbison is just one of our alien overlords posing as a musician.
(yeah, that's right posing - present tense, you don't think he's really dead do you?)
posted by Smedleyman at 1:01 PM on October 10, 2005

Roy isn't dead. He just went home.
posted by lodurr at 1:04 PM on October 10, 2005

GIS for "gallon of jizz" is pretty much what you'd expect.
posted by wakko at 1:05 PM on October 10, 2005

Contrary to popular urban myth, "Mama" Cass Elliot did not, in fact, choke to death on a ham sandwich. It was a quadruple-decker Dagwood on pumpernickel comprising, in part, a full pound of turkey pastrami, half a pound of chopped liver and half a pound of chive cream cheese, but ham was not among the copious ingredients.

The pilot of the "American Pie," the small plane that crashed and claimed the lives of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Richie Valens, survived that fatal accident, only to be ironically killed in another small plane crash many years later. The pilot's name? John Denver.

Elvis Aron Presley's twin brother, Jesse Garon Presley, was not actually still-born as many have been led to believe. In truth, the infant was lost in a maternity ward mix-up and adopted by another couple. Only a few hospital employees ever knew the truth. The child grew up in New Orleans and make a respectable living as a studio musician, never knowing that he had a famous sibling. Sadly, Sidney Liebowitz has not been heard from since Hurricane Katrina, and is assumed dead.

This is fun!
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:15 PM on October 10, 2005

Approved by the Iraqi Secretary of Information.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 1:19 PM on October 10, 2005

Conor Oberst is in fact a huge Art Garfunkel fan; before making fame with his hallmark introspective bleeding-heart emo folk, he recording an entire album of Simon & Garfunkel covers.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 1:23 PM on October 10, 2005

This is soooo wrong. Ludacris is a huge fan of Italo Calvino.

Yah! Everyone knows the current crop of rappers are crazy about postmodern italian literature, but find the semiotics-based approach of Eco to be over-contrived and under-reified. Though many of the Death Row posse will insist Baudolino has its moments.
posted by freebird at 1:24 PM on October 10, 2005

...the man engulfed in flames--who died in the plane crash--is memorialized as the ghostly apparition in the balcony on the back cover of the Eagles' "Hotel California."

And that man grew up to be...the president of the United States of America. Page 2?
posted by NoMich at 1:26 PM on October 10, 2005

Jim Morrison faked his own death with the help of his father who was big brass navy. Morrison was actually an agitprop expert and began to gain weight while still in rock to develop his new deep cover assignment. Unfortunately after his redeprogramming he became useless as an agent and is now a shoe salesman in Akron, OH who obessively collects lizards.



Yeah. It's like ping pong.
posted by Smedleyman at 1:39 PM on October 10, 2005

Back in the day, a friend had me believing that Leon Redbone was an alter ego created by Frank Zappa so he could get away with peforming something totally different.
posted by alumshubby at 2:49 PM on October 10, 2005

ILILM

Is this a new one, or am I just not cool enough?
posted by afroblanca at 2:57 PM on October 10, 2005

goodnewsfortheinsane writes "Conor Oberst is in fact a huge Art Garfunkel fan"

That's just nonsense now. There's no such thing as an Art Garfunkel fan.

As for the Michael and Janet thing, I always thought Jacko looked more like Latoya.
posted by clevershark at 3:16 PM on October 10, 2005

22. Noel Gallagher originally planned to take Oasis in a Free Jazz/post-Krautrock direction, but abandoned the idea when he discovered that he was an imaginationless cloth-eared churl.

I thought they were supposed to be surreal & untrue?

Ho hum.
posted by dash_slot- at 3:29 PM on October 10, 2005

Sparks' Ron Mael was once mistaken for Hitler by an elderly Nazi whilst touring Uruguay in 1977.



80s star Nik Kershaw once turned up at a casualty ward in London with his knob stuck in a glass Heinz Ketchup bottle. Doctors had to smash it open to rescue his engorged member.
posted by ClanvidHorse at 3:31 PM on October 10, 2005

Boutros Boutros-Ghali played bass on the Egyptian leg of Hot Chocolate's African tour whilst studying for his masters in Islamic cuisine. After losing a finger in a freak kebab mishap, he took english lessons from noted internationalist Benny Ulvaeus and ultimately became swedish.
posted by dash_slot- at 3:43 PM on October 10, 2005

Grandmaster Flash, Glen Matlock & Larry Love of the Alabama 3 are credited with the invention of the pyramid teabag. To date, only Glen is accepting his lifetime's supply of PG Tips, though Larry takes a smaller, equivalent value in London Underground Oyster cards, whilst Flash is suing for sole rights at the WIPO in Geneva.
posted by dash_slot- at 4:00 PM on October 10, 2005

Freddie Mercury's real name was Albert Mercury.

Many believe David Bowie has one green and one blue eye. In actual fact, he has one blue and the other one is green.
posted by John Shaft at 4:19 PM on October 10, 2005

I had a threesome with Sheryl Crow and P.J. Harvey.
posted by Decani at 5:20 PM on October 10, 2005

I had a threesome with Sheryl Crow and P.J. Harvey.

That is, of course, a lie. Decani actually had a threesome with Cameron Crowe and Paul Harvey.
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:37 PM on October 10, 2005

John Lydon (nee Rotten) became close friends with Andy Rooney whist both were recovering from hip replacement surgery at the same rehabilitation center. Since 1989, approximately half of Rooney's lovable, codgerish observations about modern life have actually been ghostwritten by his rocker pal from across the pond!
posted by freshwater_pr0n at 5:49 PM on October 10, 2005

spellcheck, you done let me down.

*whilst*
posted by freshwater_pr0n at 5:50 PM on October 10, 2005

freshwater_pr0n writes "John Lydon (nee Rotten)"

It's just nitpicking, but you have that one backwards.
posted by clevershark at 5:53 PM on October 10, 2005

Okay, okay. . . John Lydon nee Rotten nee Lydon.
posted by freshwater_pr0n at 5:58 PM on October 10, 2005

I had a threesome with Sheryl Crow and P.J. Harvey.

That is, of course, a lie.

Nonsense. With my own one and a half hands, I myself helped Dwight Yoakam grease up the wombat for them.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:13 PM on October 10, 2005

hands*


*Let's just say that you shouldn't get between Steven Tyler and a Ho-Ho.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:14 PM on October 10, 2005

For pop music trivia thats TRUE, tune into Crap from the Past. "There's a lot of crap on the radio but there's only ONE Crap from the Past!
posted by wheelieman at 6:16 PM on October 10, 2005

Heeelarioius. thanks.
posted by fungible at 7:57 PM on October 10, 2005

ILILM = I Laughed/Larfed. I Like/Love Metafilter/McLean.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 9:39 PM on October 10, 2005

For some reason it's the really mundane ones that make me howl with laughter. For example:

61. Aerosmith wrote "Love in an Elevator" after encountering Arthur Lee on the way up to a meeting at the offices of Sony Music in New York.

71. Kraftwerk had originally intended to write a song about the Giro D'Italia (NOT the Tour de France). However, the idea was scrapped following a series of band-only meetings during which the foursome realized that none of them could speak a word of Italian.

75. The Flaming Lips, sans Wayne Coyne, are the Residents. Coyne doesn't know.

84. Aphex Twin is actually an octet.

93. If you play "Helter Skelter" backwards, it sounds really cool.
posted by Kattullus at 11:30 PM on October 10, 2005

79. According to a secret newsletter that was leaked to the blogosphere in February 2005, Godspeed You! Black Emperor will change their name to Godspeed, You Black: Emperor the night before the next winter solstice.

Aaaah. Priceless. And entirely plausible.
posted by tim_in_oz at 5:03 AM on October 11, 2005

I had a threesome with Sheryl Crow and P.J. Harvey.

That is, of course, a lie.

Nonsense. With my own one and a half hands, I myself helped Dwight Yoakam grease up the wombat for them.

That is, of course, a lie. It was a coypu.
posted by Decani at 5:39 AM on October 11, 2005

It wasn't a coypu when Rob "Mengele" Halford was done with it.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:12 AM on October 11, 2005

spellcheck, you done let me down.

*whilst*

It still let you down. That should be spelled "while."

Just tryin' to help. And oh yeah, #75 is the best.
posted by soyjoy at 10:00 AM on October 11, 2005

Under the name "Owsley", Avril Lavigne runs a side project in which old Kinks songs are re-recorded in 7/8.

Using a time machine, DJ Shadow constructed track 2 of "Endtroducing" to sample itself. There is no original recording.

That guy from Lost is actually Bob Mould.

"La la" is based on Song of Solomon.

Because of a childhood phobia, Rick Wakeman has never touched the G# key in any octave, even in "Awaken" which circumnavigates the circle of fourths. You'll notice his E chords and so on are always sus4, etc. to avoid that note. A-flat, however, is OK, and he is able to write an E chord that way.

Yes filled in for "Deja Vu" whilst CSN recorded "Led Zeppelin III".

Rush were killed by doppelgangers in October 1983.

Eleven cable-stayed bridges in the United States were designed by Norah Jones.

(none of these are as good as the Gwen Stefani tidbit
posted by kurumi at 11:20 AM on October 11, 2005

dash_slot, when you said "the pyramid tea bag" I immeadiately thought of a three person teabagging. Suffice to say, I did not actually want to think of that and I *certainly* didn't want to think of those three people doing it.

My mind is even more unclean than normal. I shall now have to wash it with alcohol.

That is all.
posted by afflatus at 8:38 PM on October 11, 2005

Oh, and I think my favorite was number 63...

63. The 'keyboard sound' on Saint Etienne's version of 'Only Love Can Break Your Heart' was actually a looped sample of Pete Wiggs honking the horn of his Citroen BX outside Neil Tennant's house at 3AM on Christmas morning 1987 in a mildly petty act of revenge for the Pet Shop Boys having kept 'Fairytale Of New York' off the Christmas number one. However, Tennant was not home at the time, and Wiggs therefore decided to incorporate the sound in one of his records "just so the bastard knew." To date, Neil Tennant has never knowingly listened to a Saint Etienne record.
posted by afflatus at 8:48 PM on October 11, 2005

> it was a (delicious) bass

Surely it was a Mudshark?

> The human stomach cannot hold a gallon of jizz.

You need to watch more bukakke. Seeing is believing.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:57 AM on October 12, 2005