Songs with/about Math

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I'll start:

aisler's set "long division"

― Johann (johann), Thursday, 4 August 2005 13:39 (twenty years ago)

"half a person"

― the goulash archipelago (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 4 August 2005 13:43 (twenty years ago)

Elvis Costello - Less than Zero (Spoofed well on the old PBS show "Square One TV")

― Bryan Moore (Bryan Moore), Thursday, 4 August 2005 13:44 (twenty years ago)

god bows to math

― Draw Tipsy, ya hack. (dave225.3), Thursday, 4 August 2005 13:44 (twenty years ago)

Come together: "one and one and one is three"

― Draw Tipsy, ya hack. (dave225.3), Thursday, 4 August 2005 13:45 (twenty years ago)

Grace Slick w/ Paul Kantner, "Epic #38": "one and one is two times more than you."

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Thursday, 4 August 2005 13:46 (twenty years ago)

kompressor's "adding up numbers"

― tiger vomitt, Thursday, 4 August 2005 13:47 (twenty years ago)

Mos Def "Mathematics"

― Big Loud Mountain Ape (Big Loud Mountain Ape), Thursday, 4 August 2005 13:49 (twenty years ago)

Wire: Three Girl Rhumba

― kornrulez6969 (TCBeing), Thursday, 4 August 2005 13:51 (twenty years ago)

dEUS, "Little Arithmetics"

― tissp! (the impossible shortest specia), Thursday, 4 August 2005 13:51 (twenty years ago)

"Distance Equals Rate Times Time" by Pixies.
Although that's really physics, isn't it?

― p.j. (Henry), Thursday, 4 August 2005 13:51 (twenty years ago)

Science Group - "Aleph Zero"

― Dominique (dleone), Thursday, 4 August 2005 13:54 (twenty years ago)

Linda Perhacs "Parallelograms" is on the geometry tip

― Beta (abeta), Thursday, 4 August 2005 13:58 (twenty years ago)

Pet Shop Boys, "Two Divided By Zero" and "One and One and One Makes Five"

― brittle-lemon (brittle-lemon), Thursday, 4 August 2005 14:00 (twenty years ago)

violent femmes - add it up

― Draw Tipsy, ya hack. (dave225.3), Thursday, 4 August 2005 14:01 (twenty years ago)

Boards of Canada: Music is Math
Pavement: 5-4=Unity

― bg (creamolafoam), Thursday, 4 August 2005 14:01 (twenty years ago)

"2+2=5" Radiohead
Leave it to Thom Yorke to use fuzza math.

― p.j. (Henry), Thursday, 4 August 2005 14:07 (twenty years ago)

Grass Roots, "Two Divided By Love"

also the whole Schoolhouse Rock series

and does J-Kwon's "Tipsy" serve as a counting lesson as he bounds between floors?

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Thursday, 4 August 2005 15:03 (twenty years ago)

Bob Seger System, "2+2=?"

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Thursday, 4 August 2005 15:37 (twenty years ago)

You and Me and (Baby|Bottle) makes three...

When 2 become 1

― Draw Tipsy, ya hack. (dave225.3), Thursday, 4 August 2005 15:53 (twenty years ago)

NoMeansNo
0+2=1

― BanjoMania (Brilhante), Thursday, 4 August 2005 15:55 (twenty years ago)

Dana Dawson '3 Is Family'

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Thursday, 4 August 2005 16:04 (twenty years ago)

Presaging Radiohead by quite a while, I think Ned's Atomic Dustbin also had a track called "2+2=5" on Are You Normal?

― BlastsOfStatic (BlastsofStatic), Thursday, 4 August 2005 16:06 (twenty years ago)

Death Cab for Cutie - Line of Best Fit

(xxxpost- Square One TV brings back the memories. Never saw the Elvis Costello parody, but I distinctly remember the Fat Boys in "One thousand times one million--that's one billion.")

― jedidiah (jedidiah), Thursday, 4 August 2005 16:10 (twenty years ago)

tiger vomitt OTMFM

― Fetchboy (Felcher), Thursday, 4 August 2005 16:13 (twenty years ago)

Soul Coughing - 4 out of 5

Spoon - My Mathimatical Mind

― rexdart, Thursday, 4 August 2005 16:36 (twenty years ago)

oh and uh, Numbers by Kraftwerk, obviously.

And it's cousin, Count 5 or 6 by Cornelius

― rexdart, Thursday, 4 August 2005 16:44 (twenty years ago)

x post yeah they did do that didn't they re: neds....cant seem to recall the tune right now, though

fugazi "long division"

and then theres the similarly titled low album

― b b, Thursday, 4 August 2005 16:45 (twenty years ago)

Multiply Jamie Lidell

― peepee (peepee), Thursday, 4 August 2005 17:10 (twenty years ago)

Hilary Duff - The Math
Tom Lehrer - New Math

― Captain Sleep (Captain Sleep), Thursday, 4 August 2005 17:26 (twenty years ago)

1) Eno's "The True Wheel" ("Looking for a certain ratio/someone must have left it underneath the carpet");
2) Hillary Duff's "The Math" ("You can spend your whole life analyzing, justifying, quantifying, and dividing till there's nothing anymore")
3) Black Flag's "My War" ("The area of the square built upon the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares upon the remaining sides/MY WAR...")

Those are the three main ones.

― merritt ranew (merritt), Thursday, 4 August 2005 17:26 (twenty years ago)

Presaging Radiohead by quite a while, I think Ned's Atomic Dustbin also had a track called "2+2=5" on Are You Normal?
I love it when Radiohead get presaged.

― p.j. (Henry), Thursday, 4 August 2005 17:35 (twenty years ago)

Beatles, "Come Together" "One and one and one is three"

― Truckdrivin' Buddha (Rock Hardy), Thursday, 4 August 2005 17:42 (twenty years ago)

Lots of Hum songs, but especially "Apollo":

"I'm thinking of a number between everything and two. / It's molecules of you."

― fauxhemian (fauxhemian), Thursday, 4 August 2005 17:52 (twenty years ago)

Love - 7 and 7 is.

― nickn (nickn), Thursday, 4 August 2005 18:03 (twenty years ago)

Ah, Faux, my ex used to play Hum, that's pretty much the only song I ever warmed up to. Nice memory, though.

I nominate Metric's "Calculation Theme" and Shellshag's "1 2 3".

― Laurel, Thursday, 4 August 2005 18:59 (twenty years ago)

whats that recent (last year or two, i think) indie song, where there the lyrics are multiplication tables, or something to that effect?

― astroblaster (astroblaster), Thursday, 4 August 2005 19:04 (twenty years ago)

Presaging Radiohead by quite a while, I think Ned's Atomic Dustbin also had a track called "2+2=5" on Are You Normal?

...presaging all these by quite a while:

"New Math" by Tom Lehrer

― declan zimmerman, Thursday, 4 August 2005 19:24 (twenty years ago)

"It's Not Right But It's Okay" by Whitney Houston:

"Friday night you and your boys went out to eat
Then they hung out, but you came home around three (yes you did)
If six of ya'll went out
then four of you were really cheap
Cause only two of you had dinner
I found your credit card receipt"

― dr. phil (josh langhoff), Thursday, 4 August 2005 23:12 (twenty years ago)

Breed's last verse on "Gotta Get Mine"

...I boasted, and roasted,
and coasted to the pinnacle because of what I do with a pen
it's vernacular precision
Connect the two lines in this division
Plus, when I add lutes and flutes
It's guaranteed to sell like prostitutes
I never had love for hoes, put it blunt
They want me in the back, but bitch I'm in the front
Don't front,
and really I don't need to reply
Pull yourself together as you pass the bomb
I'm on a whole nother level, them hoes that's left
Like I told you before, keep ya pussy to yourself
Goodbye,
some many niggaz lied to have
Funny what a motherfucker do's for math
I got fractions caught up in my everday actions
Points, equal to your real satisfaction
Buckin anybody that fuck wit mine,
When will they realize, I'm straight out to get mine

― tremendoid (tremendoid), Thursday, 4 August 2005 23:37 (twenty years ago)

corny undie egghead motherfucker

― tremendoid (tremendoid), Thursday, 4 August 2005 23:44 (twenty years ago)

"200 Bars" by Spiritualized & "Counting Backwards" by Throwing Muses

― Bong Boy (sgertz), Thursday, 4 August 2005 23:51 (twenty years ago)

Pocket Calculator

― peepee (peepee), Friday, 5 August 2005 00:02 (twenty years ago)

Outkast f/ Jay-Z, "Flip Flop Rock"
-- "One minus one / Negative one minus negative one is nothin'"

This is a stupid lyric. Big Boi also says "Penelope Ann Cruz" in this song, clearly confusing names of said actresses.

― Adam Harrison-Friday, Friday, 5 August 2005 00:05 (twenty years ago)

low - tired

― shine headlights on me (electricsound), Friday, 5 August 2005 00:06 (twenty years ago)

Run through visualization software, Track 2 off of Aphex Twin's "Windowlicker" EP creates this graph:

http://gecsub.noise.hu/images/aphex-symbol.jpg

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Friday, 5 August 2005 00:10 (twenty years ago)

six layer cake by unrest

― youn, Friday, 5 August 2005 00:59 (twenty years ago)

Bad math from Common's "Making A Name For Ourselves" -

And I'ma make the name Canibus a name you fear
Y'all niggaz is scared I'm your worst nightmare squared
That's double for niggaz who ain't mathematically aware

Also, Modest Mouse's "Neverending Math Equation"

― joygoat (joygoat), Friday, 5 August 2005 01:09 (twenty years ago)

"It's Not Right But It's Okay" by Whitney Houston:

Fuck my hat, I never paid attention to that lyric before! It's Story Problems With Whitney!

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Friday, 5 August 2005 01:19 (twenty years ago)

scrawl, "1=1"

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 5 August 2005 01:25 (twenty years ago)

bob dylan, "love minus zero/no limit"

(if you want to be a true math geek, you can read that one as "love minus zero" divided by "no limit")

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 5 August 2005 01:27 (twenty years ago)

roky erickson, "anthem (i promise)":

"the square root of zero/is something smaller than zero/which keeps getting smaller..."

which may be closer to philosophy than it is to math, but still...

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 5 August 2005 01:31 (twenty years ago)

"Add and subtract, but as a matter of fact/Now that you're gone, I still want you back." ABC, "All of My Heart."

― brittle-lemon (brittle-lemon), Friday, 5 August 2005 03:03 (twenty years ago)

"i would walk 500 miles/and i would walk 500 more/just to be the man who walked 1,000 miles to fall down at your door."

--the proclaimers

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 5 August 2005 03:16 (twenty years ago)

"99 bottles of beer on the wall"

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 5 August 2005 03:16 (twenty years ago)

"88 Lines About 44 Women" because you know you all counted.

― nickn (nickn), Friday, 5 August 2005 03:57 (twenty years ago)

Wrath of the Math - Jeru The Damaja

― r3000, Friday, 5 August 2005 04:28 (twenty years ago)

I AM INVISIBLE

― Captain Sleep (Captain Sleep), Friday, 5 August 2005 04:29 (twenty years ago)

The Shins "Your Algebra"

― Declan Zimmerman, Sunday, 7 August 2005 19:25 (twenty years ago)

Boards of Canada also gave us "The Smallest Weird Number", which is 70 apparently, and "A is to B as B is to C".

Iannis Xenakis deserves some sort of mention, for organising sounds according to Gaussian distributions etc in his 'stochastic' pieces, and for establishing the Centre d'Etudes de Mathématique et Automatique Musicales, not that this has much to do with 'songs' per se.

― Nag! Nag! Nag! (Nag! Nag! Nag!), Monday, 8 August 2005 05:27 (twenty years ago)

please tell me this means Center for the Study of Mathematics and Automatic Music. automatic music! who is this person? can you ysi any of his recordings?

― Susan Douglas (Susan Douglas), Monday, 8 August 2005 05:35 (twenty years ago)

sorry i have googled. wow, all music description of his work sounds wonderful. he's probably really well known but i'd never heard of him. so this is awesome. thx!

― Susan Douglas (Susan Douglas), Monday, 8 August 2005 05:42 (twenty years ago)

: )

― Nag! Nag! Nag! (Nag! Nag! Nag!), Monday, 8 August 2005 05:51 (twenty years ago)

"Bargain" by the Who, but that's more Boolean logic than actual math: "One and one don't make two. / One and one make one."

― Mr. Snrub, Monday, 8 August 2005 20:11 (twenty years ago)

I know my calculus
It says U + Me = Us

Sorry about bringing everyone back into the depths of hell

― joe schmoe (joeschmoe), Monday, 8 August 2005 20:34 (twenty years ago)

architecture in helsinki - its 5!

― jonathan - stl (jonathan - stl), Monday, 8 August 2005 20:58 (twenty years ago)

I'm still trying to figure out the equation that Tortelvis is laying down at the end of "Your Time Is Gonna Come". Something like "...4 out of 6, and you aint one of the two".

― Bobby Peru (Bobby Peru), Monday, 8 August 2005 21:01 (twenty years ago)

"Six" by The Neats

― Declan Zimmerman, Monday, 8 August 2005 21:21 (twenty years ago)

The Fall - Mr. Pharmacist

― Herbie Reality (Rob Uptight.), Monday, 8 August 2005 21:48 (twenty years ago)

five years pass...

Rhianna - What’s My Name?

"The square root of 69 is 8 somethin', right?"

― john. a resident of chicago., Saturday, 6 November 2010 15:58 (fifteen years ago)

her math checks out

― pusha t. washington (m bison), Saturday, 6 November 2010 16:50 (fifteen years ago)

Kate Bush - "Pi"

― Hideous Lump, Saturday, 6 November 2010 19:29 (fifteen years ago)

Wilson Pickett -- "Ninety Nine and a Half (Won't Do)"

― Brad C., Saturday, 6 November 2010 19:32 (fifteen years ago)

"The square root of 69 is 8 somethin', right?"

^^^ surprisingly good drake lyric!

― crut jones (crüt), Saturday, 6 November 2010 20:30 (fifteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H7JYwmM7vU

― Adrian Roosevelt "Adie" Mike (nakhchivan), Saturday, 6 November 2010 20:33 (fifteen years ago)

The Make-Up "I Am Pentagon"

― the who cares (okamax), Saturday, 6 November 2010 20:39 (fifteen years ago)

perhaps off topic but, i don't like or understand it when people say music is directly related to mathematics- aside john cage and stockhausen's anthems, since when have classic pop hooks or magic chord sequences or the raw power of rock and roll been derived through equations and number theory?

― jumpskins, Saturday, 6 November 2010 23:46 (fifteen years ago)

people say it because it's a fact, though

― Kiptok, Sunday, 7 November 2010 18:14 (fifteen years ago)

Can't believe no one's said The Magic Number.

― The referee was perfect (Chris), Sunday, 7 November 2010 19:25 (fifteen years ago)

Minutemen - Viet Nam

let's say i got a number
that number's fifty thousand
that's ten percent
of five hundred thousand

― 15-60-77 (S-), Monday, 8 November 2010 02:16 (fifteen years ago)

George Graham - "A Day in a Country School," whih is from 1899 and features a unique recording of chanted mathematical problems.

― Mr. Snrub, Monday, 8 November 2010 02:25 (fifteen years ago)

"If you can't do the maths, then get out of the equation" <- such an awesome line. Who does this song? Should probably ask rolling teenpop heads.

― Wheal Dream, Monday, 8 November 2010 10:40 (fifteen years ago)

one month passes...

Seems to be the appropriate thread for this all-time classic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMOWumBQh7o

― Tarzan Bot (seandalai), Saturday, 1 January 2011 17:19 (fifteen years ago)

Silver Jews: "in 27 years, i've drunk 50000 beers."

beers per year: 1851.851851851851851851 ad infinitum

― the bear in the bumper car (rip van wanko), Saturday, 1 January 2011 17:37 (fifteen years ago)

And of course God Bows to Math (Minutemen again)

― Dr X O'Skeleton, Monday, 3 January 2011 12:53 (fifteen years ago)

there is some 90s ska-core tune with the lyrics, "she knows about number systems from reading blaise pascal"....
...and then she gets knocked up and marries some knuckle dragging mook, breaking the heart of our sensitive rude boy baladeer......

― m0stlyClean, Tuesday, 4 January 2011 01:08 (fifteen years ago)

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