Songs With Historical Errors In Their Lyrics

There's a "math errors" thread, let's have one for the social sciences. (A search for thread titles with "historical" didn't show a thread like this one. Apologies if I missed a synonym.)

A couple of examples for starters. U2, "Pride (In the Name of Love)." Bono sings "early morning, April fourth" while recounting a tragic event that actually occurred in the early evening.

"Rip Van Ruben," a demo recorded by Andy Partridge as a candidate for the Nonsuch album. The lyric "Dream you're Frank L. Richards and this is the great land of Oz" arose from Andy's misremembering the name of author L. Frank Baum, as he has subsequently recalled with some embarrassment.

 

Toto - Africa

Kilimanjaro is really nowhere near the Serengeti.

 

"Nashville Cats" – The Lovin' Spoonful

"And the record man said every one was a yellow Sun record from Nashville."

Sun Records was/is located in Memphis.

 

Motörhead - Jack the Ripper. Nearly everything.

 

David Johansen, "Swaheto Woman." He meant Soweto.

 

The original version of Jan and Dean's TAMI Show theme "From All Over the World" mentioned that "The Rolling Stones from Liverpool" would be there. This was corrected to "London town" for the commercial release.

 

"The Walrus was Paul"

 

Dylan's John Wesley Hardin(g)

 

FORGOTTEN YEARS
" Our shoreline was never invaded, our country was never in flames
This is the calm we breathe, this is a feeling too strong to contain
Still it aches like tetanus, it reeks of politics
Signatures stained with tears, who can remember
We've got to remember"

Midnight Oil forgot that during WW2, Darwin was bombed repeatedly by Japanese aircraft with the loss of many lives and great destruction.
Japanes mini-submarines infiltrated Sydney Harbour with intent to destroy shipping.
Still, never let history get in the way of a good lyric eh!

 

My daddy was a cop on the east side of Chicago
Back in the U.S.A. back in the bad old days

 

I recall from another thread lou reeds 'the day john kennedy died' used some artistic license (his university football team ws not playing on tv when the announcement came)

 

Zager and Evans, "In the Year 2525", hopefully everything.

 

A Day In The Life - the line about a politician crashing his car while on drugs was from an article about Tara Browne, a Gueniss heir, dying in a car crash. Tara was neither in the House of Lords nor on drugs or alcohol while crashing the car.

 

should be "factual errors", no? your first example is "historically inaccurate", the second is not.

 

The Band - The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.

"In the winter of '65, we were hungry, just barely alive
By May the tenth, Richmond had fell, it's a time I remember, oh so well".

Richmond was captured on April 3rd, 1865.

 

Well, I think Paich explained that he had never been to Africa when he wrote those lyrics. He probably deserves a pass, just as Sade, who was born in Africa, should probably get a pass for writing “Coast to Coast, LA to Chicago”

 

The Battle Of New Orleans (Lonnie Donegan )
Three mistakes- the battle took place in 1815, not 1814 as stated in the song, and the American forces were led by General Jackson, not Packenham who actually led the British forces, and he was a general not a colonel.
" In 1814 we took a little trip
Along with Colonel Packenham down the mighty Mississip"

 

Paul McCartney claimed that the 'blew his mind out in a car' reference was not about Guinness heir Tara Browne but about a politician whose mind was 'blown' on drugs and didn't move their car in London traffic when the light changed. Lennon's version of the origin was more to do with Tara Browne 'running' a red light at speed resulting in the wreck that killed him. It's a sad story; his girlfriend and co-passenger at the time, Suki Potier, later dated Brian Jones until his death. She herself was killed in another car crash in 1981.

 

Well, you don’t have to go to Africa in order to find out where the Kilimanjaro is in relation to the Serengeti. You just need a map.

 

The reggae classic "Ark of the Covenant" by the Congos, where they're actually singing about Noah's Ark ('A pair of everything was saved in the ark').

 

I believe Gordon Lightfoot subsequently changed a particular line in 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' for live shows after it was pointed out to him by the families of the crew who died in that tragedy that his lyric on the studio version regarding an unclosed hatch causing the sinking was inaccurate in all likelihood.

Does that count...?

 

Some historian shall please correct me if I am incorrect...

ABBA sings that...At Waterloo, Napoleon did surrender.

He was defeated at Waterloo, but the surrender was later and somewhere else, was it not?

 

"Jesus Was A Cross Maker" (Judee Sill).

Arguable. Many think even the idea he was a carpenter is flawed as the original Greek word "tekton" could easily mean "builder", "stone mason" or even handyman.

I realise I may be misinterpreting the lyrics here...

 

creative licence rather than an error. the narrator is pointing out that the protagonist is a "heartbreaker" and will eventually have his own heart broken.
the "cross maker" reference is to make clear the analogy (i.e. jesus was a carpenter but was later crucified). had she said "jesus was a carpenter" the comparison becomes too vague.
at least that's what i take from the song.