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[Music] Knowledge you've acquired through songs or band names.



marlowe

Well-known member
Dec 13, 2015
4,264
From the Deep Purple song "Smoke on the Water" I learnt about the fire which burned down the Montreaux Casino in Switzerland in 1971.

I also learned that the fire was started by some stupid with a flare gun.

Another thing I learned from the song was that Frank Zappa and the Mother's of Invention were playing there when the fire broke out.

From a geography perspective I learnt that Montreaux is on the Lake Geneva shoreline, a fact I would probably still be completely ignorant of had I not heard that song.....

 






























Pogue Mahone

Well-known member
Apr 30, 2011
10,935


stewart12

Well-known member
Jan 16, 2019
1,899
So what do you make of the lyrics? I always assumed it was about a man and a woman trying to understand each other.
Wonder if they're thinking of Cloudbursting?
 


AIT76

The wisdom of a fool
Jul 29, 2004
470
The band name Joy Division made me aware of the brothels set up in the nazi concentration camps where the female prisoners were forced into prostitution and sexual slavery...


Ian Curtis and Bernard Sumner were interested in WW2 history and both had read 'House Of Dolls' where they saw the name.

The lyrics to Warsaw mention '31G' and '350125', which was the pow number assigned to Rudolf Hess upon his capture.
 
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Happy Exile

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Apr 19, 2018
2,119
Quite a few UK rappers use references that I have to look up. A genre it's easy to dismiss but is full of articulate, smart people with enviable language and wordplay skills.

I went down a rabbit hole learning about Christian Rosenkreuz, Rudolf Steiner, Paracelsus and German renaissance philosophy after listening to a Chester P song.

Jehst had me reading up about Charles Bukowski.

There've been many other examples too.
 


Grassman

Well-known member
Jun 12, 2008
2,609
Tun Wells
Thanks to you I have learned to spell Apocalypse now
But can you pronounce it? I had a work colleague once who came in one day and said: “Anyone see that great film last night? Apocalypse Now?” We all laughed as he had managed to pronounce it: ‘ App Ho Calip Cee’!
indeed that’s what I call it to this day.
 


Herr Tubthumper

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jul 11, 2003
62,454
The Fatherland
Good thread this, I'm listening to Bob Dylan's Desire album.....a great long player.
 


AIT76

The wisdom of a fool
Jul 29, 2004
470
Spandau Ballet was the name given to the jerky death throes of the prisoners that were hung at Spandau Jail.
 








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