Incorrect music "facts" you used to believe

Elton was hired by the management to sing on In the Wake of Poseidon, until Fripp heard Elton's first record and said "no". Elton was paid, anyway.

 

I even recall a CD reissue in the '90s that proudly proclaimed this on the packaging. Granted, there was an "Oz" Osborne in the band and one member (not sure if it was Osborne or not) that looked somewhat like a young Ozzy.

 

When I was a kid, I heard the urban legend that the scream on the Ohio Players song "Love Rollercoaster" was the sound of a woman being stabbed to death. I believed that until I was in my late 20s.

 

Elton dean wound up in Soft Machine, too(That is an actual fact, not fake news!)

 

A friend of mine insists on believing that the Robert Smith that did the soundtrack to the cinematic dungheap known as Manos: the Hands of Fate is THAT Robert Smith, and explanations that "Robert Smith" is a textbook case of a common name fall on deaf ears.

No, THAT Robert Smith didn't write the Torgo Theme.

Torgo Sometimes.
Close to Torgo.
Why Can't I Be Torgo?
Pictures of Torgo.

...OK, maybe the idea has some appeal. But it TAINT TRUE.

 

Joe Strummer was covering his face on the cover of Combat Rock because he was wanted by the police in the US.

 

Wendy was born male, and used to have a different first name. she is trans, however, meaning that she is and has always known herself to be female--except in her physical anatomy. she began to rectify this issue sometime in the early 70s, which also marks the time she changed her name.

Wendy is very sensitive about this, by the way. in addition to the situation itself, which surely must be extraordinarily difficult to come to terms with (in the 70s, no less), she has endured a lot of grief from others over the years. I have a feeling this is the underlying cause of her extremely reclusive lifestyle. it saddens me deeply.

Dean never played with crimson. he does have two associations with the band--he was in Keith Tippett's group, some of whom appear on the second through fourth KC albums, but Dean wasn't included likely because they already had a saxophonist (the brilliant Mel Collins). then, when he was in soft machine, Dean played in centipede with Fripp and some other islands-era KC members.

 

Oh man you are right, for some reason I always put him on those Crim records, but of course he wasn't actually on them.

 

Not so obviously. From: Hit songs often credited to the wrong artist ...

See also: What are George Harrison's 3 signature Beatles songs?

 

I once believed that Cliff Richard had been fitted with a colostomy bag. This was one of those 'facts' that somehow became true because no one challenged it for a long time.

 

Yes, the fact that it's always exactly the same quote from Sinatra was always an indication that he only really said it once, if at all.

One reason why that myth took root might be that John and Paul supposedly once said they'd know they had made it as songwriters when Sinatra recorded a Beatles song. Which would be an amusing irony, but I have a hard time believing Lennon would wish for a thing like that. In any event, Sinatra did also record "Yesterday".

 

And he recorded "Yesterday" first, in 1969. He recorded "Sonething" twice, 1970 and 1979.

 

John did say in interviews that he wrote "Nobody Loves You (When You're Down Out)" hoping that Sinatra would cover it.

Great song on the extremely underrated (IMO) album, Walls and Bridges.

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Actually, I'm pretty sure that ZZ Top picked their name so that they'd be the last band in the bins so that their albums would be more likely to be spotted by record buyers.

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Given the crap Ted says, seems likely to me that he does!

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Although tbh, it seems more plausible than the official explanation, which could have been ad hoc to avoid admitting this alternate idea.

 

For years I thought that David Bowie was Australian. Took me almost as long to realize where I "learned" that from. The Young Ones is still my favorite sitcom of all time.

 

I used to think Billy Joel was black.

I'd got him confused with Billy Paul.

 

That may have been part of it, although the explanation I heard from Billy Gibbons was that he thought BB King had a cool name and wanted something similar for his band.

 

FACT: Billy Paul is married to the fishstick woman!

 

FWIW, here's what Wiki says:

"The name of the band was Gibbons' idea. The band had a little apartment covered with concert posters and he noticed that many performers' names utilized initials. Gibbons particularly noticed B.B. King and Z.Z. Hill and thought of combining the two into "ZZ King", but considered it too similar to the original name. He then figured that "king is going at the top" which brought him to "ZZ Top"."

 

And supposedly it was the cover model who was upset because she'd been hurt by the goo used to represent honey!

 

I always thought they named themselves ZZ Top after Zig-Zags and Top rolling papers.....that occurred to me and a buddy one day while we were rolling spliffs. Guess I'm still not too old to learn something new, thanks!

 

Roger Moore had a similar urban legend; that the charge in his chair when Stromberg fires at him under the table in "The Spy Who Loved Me" went off early and caused irreparable damage to his back end.

It did go off too early (and according to Roger, blew multiple holes where he should only have one!) but no colostomy bag.