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

[BN9 BHA]

Listening to my parents records as a kid I also learnt

Trevor wasn't that clever

Patricia from Plaistow was in a bad way

Blockheads have black and orange cars, they've sometimes got roll bars.

An inkling as to what I might do if I was with a woman.

and waking up . . . . . Well I didn't get that bit till much later.

Van Gough did some eyeball pleasers
He must have been a pencil squeezer
He didn’t do the Mona Lisa
That was an Italian geezer

Your parents gave you a good musical education

 

[carlzeiss]

Without the Toy Dolls would never have know that Deirdre was a slag

 

[jcdenton08]

Unfortunately, I still don’t know who “Alice” is

 

[marlowe]

Of course. Boney M were very educational, they had a song about Belfast as well

In those days we relied on bands like Boney M to provide us with a broad and varied education of our socio-political history which we might not have been so receptive to in our school history lessons

Rivers of Babylon: a song expressing the lamentations of the Jewish people in exile following the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BC

Rasputin: A song chronicling the influence of a Russian peasant mystic/holy man on the Russian Imperial family in the years prior to the Russian Revolution. Ironically he was assassinated by a group of nobles because of the the perceived threat he posed to Imperial Russia. However, just three months after his assassination the Russian Revolution began, which inflicted far more lasting damage on Imperial Russia than Rusputin ever did.

Ma Baker: a tale of the effects of living in depression era America, the desperation of which led some families such as the Barkers, (spelt Baker in the song) to resort to a life of crime, with sometimes devastating consequences.

Mary's Boy Child: A song chronicling the birth of Jesus and the everlasting impact that momentous event would have on the world.

Belfast: A song about the effects of the sectarian religious division in Ireland

 

[Winker]

Some facts about the Earth:

Maximum distance from the sun: 94 million 537 thousand miles
Minimum distance from the sun: 91 million 377 thousand miles
Mean distance from the sun: 92 million 957 thousand and 200 miles
Mean Orbital velocity: 66000 miles per hour
Orbital eccentricity: 0.017
Obliquity of the ecliptic: 23 degrees 27 minutes 8.26 seconds
Length of the tropical year: equinox 365.24 days
Length of the sidereal year: fixed star fixed star 365.26 days
Length of the mean solar day: 24 hours and 3 minutes and 56.5555 seconds at mean solar time
Length of the mean sidereal day: 23 hours and 56 minutes and 4.091 seconds at mean sidereal time
Mass: 6600 million million million tons
Equatorial diameter: 7927 miles
Polar diameter: 7900 miles
Oblateness: one 298th
Density: 5.41
Mean surface gravitational acceleration of the rotating earth: 32.174 feet per second per second
Escape velocity: 7 miles per second
Albedo: 0.39

 

[PeterT]

Phil Collins taught me that you can’t hurry love (I appreciate he was just reinforcing the message from the previous generation).

 

[Poyningsgull]

Tommy Cooper taught me that jumping off the roof would kill me.

 

[Eeyore]

I learnt that the kid in the school called Gordon was in for a hard time.

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

Not sure how useful it was really, but our science teacher played us this once in a GCSE physics lesson.



I was going to make a joke about the Sperm Song being played in a Soc Ed class about contraception, but I just remembered that we actually were shown Amish Paradise to teach us about Amish people (or possibly stereotypes, I forget what the actual point was meant to be).

 

[Theatre of Trees]

Speaking of Weird Al, given the atrocious grammar of some of you on here, you may gain some knowledge watching this:

 

[zefarelly]

Van Gough did some eyeball pleasers
He must have been a pencil squeezer
He didn’t do the Mona Lisa
That was an Italian geezer

Your parents gave you a good musical education

The B side of a single they also had!

They did.

 

[North of Robertsbridge]

On Nebraska, Bruce Springsteen sings about dancing “as the band played Night of the Johnstown Flood”. Apparently there was no such song at the time of his album - reading about the Johnstown disaster is fascinating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnstown_Flood

 

[Man of Harveys]

Always a big Luther Vandross fan, but never knew that he was a backing singer for Bowie and Chaka Khan.

The great man was also the crucial component of the so-called “Chic choir”: not just on Chic albums but Sister Sledge. You can hear it’s him quite clearly on backing vocals on stuff like My Forbidden Lover, Good Times, We Are Family etc.

 

[AmexRuislip]

The great man was also the crucial component of the so-called “Chic choir”: not just on Chic albums but Sister Sledge. You can hear it’s him quite clearly on backing vocals on stuff like My Forbidden Lover, Good Times, We Are Family etc.

Also sounded superb with Change

 

[chickens]

Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle is one hell of an opera - goes into a lot of gory detail about the very specific character.

Thank you, I will listen (and read) I’m afraid I can be a bit of a philistine about opera, generally finding that there is some excellent music that is entirely spoilt when someone starts singing over it. I will try it though, I retain eternal optimism that I just haven’t found the right opera yet.

At present I tend to wander off, thinking “it’s no Oliver! is it?” I do appreciate that the fault is entirely mine.

 

[marlowe]

The haunting "Lord Franklin" by Pentangle / John Renbourne / taught me about the fatal 1845 Franklin Expedition and their failed attempt to cross the North West Passage. The expedition ended with the deaths /disappearance of the entire expedition crew.

So when the wreck of their ship HMS Erebus was discovered in 2014 and the wreck of their other ship HMS Terror was discovered two years later I was already familiar with the story, and similarly when the TV series "The Terror" was broadcast which was a fictionalised supernatural retelling of the story.

... Ive just discovered Sinead O'Connor did a version....

 

[Gwylan]

Thank you, I will listen (and read) I’m afraid I can be a bit of a philistine about opera, generally finding that there is some excellent music that is entirely spoilt when someone starts singing over it. I will try it though, I retain eternal optimism that I just haven’t found the right opera yet.

At present I tend to wander off, thinking “it’s no Oliver! is it?” I do appreciate that the fault is entirely mine.

Hmm ... I'm not sure Bluebeard's Castle will fit the bill. I love it - it's definitely in my Top Ten operas but it's certainly no Oliver.

My recommendation of an opera for beginners is La Boheme - stonking tunes and a nice death at the end.

 

[El Presidente]

In 1655 the good people of Eyam in Derbyshire barricaded themselves in their own village after one of them caught the plague and many died, but chose to do so rather than spread the disease. An act of great selflessness .
The I Like Trains SNOG “We all fall down“ schooled me on this previously unknown act.

 

[marlowe]

In 1655 the good people of Eyam in Derbyshire barricaded themselves in their own village after one of them caught the plague and many died, but chose to do so rather than spread the disease. An act of great selflessness .
The I Like Trains SNOG “We all fall down“ schooled me on this previously unknown act.

It appears you can learn quite a lot about history from I Like Trains albums as their album "Elegies to Lessons Learnt" which that song comes from and also their previous album "Progress Reform" feature quite a few songs about historical events:

"Twenty Five Sins" is about the Great Fire of London in 1666

"The Voice Of Reason" refers to the attempted assassination of George III by James Hadfield in 1800.

"Remnants of an Army" is about William Brydon, the only European survivor of the Massacre of Elphinstone's Army on the retreat from Kabul in 1842.

"We Go Hunting" is about Samuel Parris, the Puritan Minister in Salem, Massachusetts during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692.

"Come Over" is about Conrad Schumann, the 19-year-old East German soldier who defected by jumping across the Berlin Wall while it was being built in 1961.

"Spencer Perceval" tells of the only ever assassination of a British Prime Minister, from the point of view of the murderer John Bellingham.

"I Am Murdered" is about the same assassination from Spencer Perceval's own point of view. The title consists of Perceval's last words.

"Terra Nova" – Robert Scott's doomed mission to the South Pole in 1912.

"A Rook House for Bobby" – tells the story of Bobby Fischer's 1992 chess match against Boris Spassky in Yugoslavia, after which Fischer was unable to return to the USA. The song's video includes a high-speed animation of their final game.

"The Beeching Report" – the effects of Dr Richard Beeching's report.

Elegies to Lessons Learnt - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Progress Reform - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[El Presidente]

It appears you can learn quite a lot about history from I Like Trains albums as their album "Elegies to Lessons Learnt" which that song comes from and also their previous album "Progress Reform" feature quite a few songs about historical events:

"Twenty Five Sins" is about the Great Fire of London in 1666

"The Voice Of Reason" refers to the attempted assassination of George III by James Hadfield in 1800.

"Remnants of an Army" is about William Brydon, the only European survivor of the Massacre of Elphinstone's Army on the retreat from Kabul in 1842.

"We Go Hunting" is about Samuel Parris, the Puritan Minister in Salem, Massachusetts during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692.

"Come Over" is about Conrad Schumann, the 19-year-old East German soldier who defected by jumping across the Berlin Wall while it was being built in 1961.

"Spencer Perceval" tells of the only ever assassination of a British Prime Minister, from the point of view of the murderer John Bellingham.

"I Am Murdered" is about the same assassination from Spencer Perceval's own point of view. The title consists of Perceval's last words.

"Terra Nova" – Robert Scott's doomed mission to the South Pole in 1912.

"A Rook House for Bobby" – tells the story of Bobby Fischer's 1992 chess match against Boris Spassky in Yugoslavia, after which Fischer was unable to return to the USA. The song's video includes a high-speed animation of their final game.

"The Beeching Report" – the effects of Dr Richard Beeching's report.

Elegies to Lessons Learnt - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Progress Reform - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Great band and great guys in it too. I joined in the crowdfunding for them and ended up as a roadie on one of their gigs and an associate producer on the ILT film.