Things you were shockingly old when you learned

More from the fun fact department, but… there are 41 (or maybe 42) buildings in Manhattan that have their own Zip Code. And that’s not the +4 Zip Code extension, that’s the traditional 5-digit Zip Code.

It's Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, not Bob Willis

how did you not know that?

I have no idea! I guess the double Ls threw me off, and while I have been aware of both the man and his music for most of my life (thanks, Bob Dylan), I'm not sure I have ever heard his name spoken aloud. I'd have gone on believing that his last name was "Willis" if I didn't notice the spine of some Rhino comp I just found

>>>Giorgio Moroder composed and produced "Danger Zone" and "Take My Breath Away"<<<

Perhaps everyone knows this; I didn't.

"I Want Candy" by Bow Wow Wow is a cover

yeah its by the Strangeloves 3 brothers from Australia

It was also a hit for the Count Bishops in 1978.

... well, not sure if it was a hit but they got on TOTP with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HntZDao0Tkg

Singer had been with these guys before. They were from Australia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0ZbENMWVzM

The Strangeloves were not 3 brothers from Australia. They were a fake studio band created by three NY songwriter/producers including Richard Gottehrer, who has one of the longest running careers in the music biz.

Bert Berns too. Insane careers. And not based on some dancer but the Terry Southern novel Candy.

that the count bishops had hits

They didn't.

A surprising place to learn some of the history of I Want Candy is the Astral Weeks episode of The History of Rock-n-Roll in 500 songs, because co-songwriter Bert Berns was deeply involved in Van Morrison's early career, from Them to Brown Eyed Girl. You also learn a bunch about Neil Diamond. All before getting to Astral Weeks itself.

https://500songs.com/podcast/episode-170-astral-weeks-by-van-morrison/

*eighteen minutes shockingly older* that the count bishops didn't have hits

The Strangeloves were not 3 brothers from Australia. They were a fake studio band created by three NY songwriter/producers including Richard Gottehrer, who has one of the longest running careers in the music biz.

― dan selzer, Friday, May 31, 2024 11:27 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

whose press bio was that they were 3 brothers who grew up on a sheep farm in Australia.
Apparently they couldn't do a good British accent convincingly.

Yup.

wow, so many versions of I Want Candy! We can add Brian Poole and the Tremeloes, Melanie C, Aaron Carter and the Candy Girls.

The Stray Cats are/were American.
I'd folded them in with all the terrible Ted-revival Brit-rockers at the turn of the '80s.

Except the Stray Cats were great!

How do you feel about The Polecats?

Brian Setzer (no relation) had previously been in an arty New York area new wave band called the Bloodless Pharoahs who played Maxs and similar clubs.

They were strayt outta Massapequa iirc.

"Font" is related to 'foundry', where early type sets were cast in metal

I listened to a History Hit podcast Gone Medieval talking about Whisky a few days ago that had various forms of spirits appearing as ersatz wines in the 11th or 12th century directly from attempts to market wine in areas that didn't have the main ingredients growing naturally and then introducing the distillation techniue due to similar local conditions.
I had thought that variation in local forms of alcohol were more natural and based on what had been observed to ferment through chance observation. So things would have evolved much earlier.

Fermentation definitely happened naturally lots of places, but distillation as we know it was an Arab invention that spread by trade and/or conquest: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/distillation-alcohol-invention-muslim

(Fun fact: "alcohol" is an Arabic word)

Tug McGraw started 39 games during his career--most of them his first two years (21), but then scattered around the rest of the way, including a start in 1983 for the Phillies. He wasn't very effective: 7-23, 4.81 (during a good era for pitchers; his lifetime ERA as a reliever was 2.86).

(Many people will die never having learned this.)

Apparently they couldn't do a good British accent convincingly.

How convincing were their Australian accents?

i was just washing dishes and for whatever reason Will Smith's "Men in Black" came on and i realized it was pulled from Patrice Rushen's "Forget Me Nots"

Despite being a regular cinema goer never spotted until tonight that Natasha Kaplinsky is president of the BBFC.

Diogenes was the original G.G. Allin

I know this has mostly turned into a thread for "fun ephemera we only just became aware of".

But recently there are a few things that I remember just assuming about the world when I was much younger that I was completely wrong about.
Mostly extremely naive stuff about pop culture, that was in my head but never really questioned.

For example:

- Until I actually got into reggae in my late adolescence, I assumed it was a long-standing folk tradition that went back centuries, and that Bob Marley etc were just part of that line. So I was surprised to read in a copy of Q one day that reggae as a style of music was younger than rock music. It's not entirely wrong: Reggae does come from a lineage that goes way back. Also that some of my earliest exposures to reggae-style music was stuff like "Rivers of Babylon" (which was written in the 70s but sounds like it should be a hymnal); and the children's song "Mango Walk".

- Speaking of which, I thought "Obladi Oblada" was some sort of Black spiritual song that the Beatles had repurposed and covered. This was based on us being taught to sing it in school assemblies next to a bunch of Christian hymns.

- In a similar fashion, there are songs like "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life", which I thought was an old Vaudeville or music hall tune from the 1930s. Even when I watched The Life Of Brian, I assumed Monty Python were covering it with some added risque verses.

- The first time I heard black metal (Emperor - Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk), it just didn't occur to me that this music could be made by humans. I didn't know how it was made, or who made it, but certainly not a bunch of young men only a few years older than me

BREWSTER'S MILLIONS (1985) was directed by the director of THE WARRIORS (1979)

Speaking of which, I thought "Obladi Oblada" was some sort of Black spiritual song that the Beatles had repurposed and covered. This was based on us being taught to sing it in school assemblies next to a bunch of Christian hymns.

Amongst the songs we had to sing at school were Yellow Submarine and Octopus's Garden. As a 5-year-old I assumed these were songs that had been around for ages. I had no idea they were by The Beatles and had only been released a decade earlier.

in the town where I was born
Lived a man from Gallilee
and he told us of his life
Then they nailed him to a tree

similarly growing up in Scotland I thought Flower Of Scotland was some old Burns era thing, not a 60s folk song

Or that "Scotland the Brave" was written by Cliff Hanley.

similarly growing up in Scotland I thought Flower Of Scotland was some old Burns era thing, not a 60s folk song

I'll not hear a word against the sainted Corries, you heathen.

I guess this kind of thing is common. I was surprised when I learned "Puff, the Magic Dragon" was from 1963 and was a Top 40 hit.

I was well into my 20s I think when I discovered that I should not scratch my balls and then rub my eyes.

i learned that yesterday, hence why i no longer have eyes

that and because it is the year 4545

some of my earliest exposures to reggae-style music was stuff like "Rivers of Babylon" (which was written in the 70s but sounds like it should be a hymnal)

1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.

2 We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

3 For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

4 How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?

via wikipedia:

A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, based on the misbelief that the Cape was the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian oceans. In fact, the southernmost point of Africa is Cape Agulhas about 150 kilometres (90 mi) to the east-southeast.[1] The currents of the two oceans meet at the point where the warm-water Agulhas current meets the cold-water Benguela current and turns back on itself. That oceanic meeting point fluctuates between Cape Agulhas and Cape Point (about 1.2 kilometres (0.75 mi) east of the Cape of Good Hope).

The Portishead song "Wandering Star" has these lyrics -

Wandering stars, for whom it is reserved
The blackness of darkness forever

I found the same phrasing (or close to it) in Mark Twain's "The Innocents Abroad."

Upon looking further it is from the Bible (Jude 1:13):

Raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever

You're not supposed to drink the Alka-Seltzer while it's fizzing, you drink it once it's stopped.

have you actually drunk a fizzing alka-seltzer?

"we hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof"

this line is why psalm 137 was never going to chart unadjusted