I have to hand it to the TV show “Mythbusters” and to “Snopes dot com”. It’s nice to see that some people are taking the initiative to teach others to stop and think about something, namely the issue of “myth versus reality”. It’s a sad thing that we have progressed in such a way that we accept things at face value without taking just a few minutes to research a even a couple of facts that may or may not support a claim. I thought the Internet was going to solve this problem, what with its lightning-fast ability to call up pages and pages of possible facts and all – but I guess I was wrong. Instead of stopping (or at least stemming) the problem, it’s only gotten worse.

And music is no longer an exception to the problem.

I was browsing “Snopes” for fun recently, took a look at their music section, and was surprised to find how out incomplete it is. They hit on a lot of the bigger myths and misconceptions but they overlook a lot of smaller ones. So I hereby throw my hat into the helping ring. With this article, let’s try to clear some things up in rock music!

Before we get going, let me say that I don’t want to come off in here as being elitist or classist. I’m no god, encyclopedia, or walking trivia bank of music. I’m just a guy who: loves music, has found ways to incorporate that love into his life for fun and profit, and has a knack for memorizing lyrics the first time he hears them; I’m no better or worse than your average dude on the street. I’m just a guy who wanted to clear up some things – all I did was sit down, think about the most common misconceptions I could in rock music and then went hunting down some answers.

Now, for those of you about to rock smartly, I salute you…

Misconception #1: The popular bluegrass rendition/cover of Snoop Doggy Dogg’s “Gin and Juice” was performed by Phish.

Truth: It was NOT done by Phish, but a Texas-based group called The Gourds. It appears on their album “Shinebox”.

Misconception #2: The song “Stuck in the middle with you” was done by Bob Dylan.

Truth: It was done by the band Stealer’s Wheel. I would think more people would know this since it appears on the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack.

Misconception #3: The Bob Dylan song “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” is about smoking marijuana.

Truth: This is the myth that always ticks me off the most. Though it can still be debated by fans and non-fans alike, it’s my opinion that Dylan is NOT talking about marijuana in the “everybody must get stoned” song. I’m sure he was aware of the double connotation when writing it, but he seems too smart of a guy to be that, pardon the pun, blunt. The song is about women – bitchy women who verbally attack their man. The singer notes how they strike at the most inconspicuous times and that he needs to know others have dealt with the same thing (“I would not feel so alone”). When you take Dylan’s religious works into consideration, it’s quite possible that “stoning” is used in the Biblical sense – pelting someone with [verbal] rocks until they’re dead. Plus the title itself lends to this analysis: A “rainy day woman” is a woman who is only happy when it rains. I refer you to Waylon Jennings’ “Rainy day woman” and Garbage’s “I’m only happy when it rains” for added knowledge about that.

As for the stories of two women walking into the studio from a rainstorm when Dylan was writing, I’ll leave to others to debate.

Misconception #4: The Police song “Every breath you take” is about a stalker/cold war paranoia in the 1970s and 1980s, particularly in regard to the rise in spy satellites and the tandem loss of privacy/The USA breaking away from Britain in the 1700s.

Truth: Sting wrote this song at the time he was divorcing his first wife, Frances Tomelty. Reportedly he has said in interviews this song is about her or (it is said by some fans) about his kids (assuring them he’d still be their father). There is still a lot of confusion about this song and as such this “truth” isn’t very good – so here’s the REAL TRUTH: Regardless what the song is about, it is not a good song for a wedding; your “wedding song”.

Misconception #5: The popular wedding/dance song “Electric slide” is titled “The Electric Slide”.

Truth: The song is actually called “Electric Boogie” and it’s performed by Marcia Griffiths.

Misconception #6: The Wham song “Wake me up before you go-go” is about the Vietnam War.

Truth: It’s not. That was a joke written and used on an episode of “Mystery Science Theater 3000”. I need to take some of the blame for this one – I mention the line aloud whenever I hear that song.

Misconception #7: GWAR will eat your car.

Truth: Despite what their song “GWAR Theme” might say, I don’t think they will. There’s too many lawsuits to be had by doing that. Plus, I’ve seen them live and they did not eat my car – therefore I can infer they won’t do it to yours either.

Misconception #8: The “American Pie” in Don Mclean’s “American Pie” is also the name of the plane Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and “The Big Bopper” died in/on.

Truth: No it’s not. Don has been very coy about what the “American Pie” is or was, but upon investigation, it was not the name of the plane. The pilot’s logs mention no such name – if anything, it was called “N3794N” (its wing registration number).

Misconception #9: Steve Vai and/or Joe Satriani covered Beethoven’s “Fifth Symphony. Also, Metallica covered the “Imperial March” from Star Wars

Truth: Like numbers 1 and 2 above, the source of this misconception is the Internet. With the rise of digital music, people began mislabeling songs and artists left and right (taking things at face value without doing any homework).

As for the misconception: Though it does sound like something Vai or Satriani would do, both being classically trained guitar players, my research has uncovered that the song is performed by Danny Alkana and that he labeled the MP3 as “Steve Vai” so he would get more downloads. A good tactic or idea, I must admit, but it seems to have had the opposite effect – Danny Alkana is still relatively unknown and Vai’s name has gotten even more exposure than it already had.

Metallica has been known to cover the “Imperial March” in concert but, to date, they’ve never made a studio version. The actual artist(s) are still disputed but many Metallica fans have noted that Lars Ulrich is a more inventive drummer than the one on the track – only furthering the case that it’s not Metallica.

Misconception #10: The proper spelling of southern rockers Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Truth:When spelling the name of Lynyrd Skynyrd, note that all the vowels are the letter “y” – meaning there are four of them in the name.

Misconception #11: Speaking about names – the proper spellings of some other bands.

Truth: While it is acceptable to spell them without it, the following bands ALL have the German umlauts (a vowel with two dots above it) in them: Blue Oyster Cult (over the “o”), Motorhead (over the second “o”), and Motley Crue (over the “o” and the “u”).

The reason it is acceptable to spell them without the umlaut is that they are a stylish thing and do not actually change the band name’s pronunciation. Also, many computer programs (such as blogs) do not accept “special characters”. But you should know they exist – especially when formally using or writing about them.

Misconception #12: Um, I can’t think of how to write this as a misconstruction. This is more of a clarification.

Truth: “Emo” music is very whiney – but whiney is not an emotion. Whiny is an action. Pissed off is an emotion.

There may be some merits to what people now classify as “emo”, but all I’ve heard to date is a bunch of guys singing overtly whiney things like “she doesn’t like me and now I’m upset”. I know a lot of artists in the past have sung songs saying the same thing, but they never said it so overtly and that’s the whole issue here. If I may paraphrase one of the greatest philosophers of our time, Butthead: “He’s singing ‘I want a woman’. Yeah, well, I want a woman too but I’m not on stage, singing a crappy song about it.”

Yeah, I know this last “truth” isn’t like the other ones…but dangit, I felt it needed to be said. As I see it, it’s a “truth”…

That’s enough debunking for now but before I dismiss you from here, I must acknowledge the following sites which were used in the writing of this article:
www.artistfacts.com
www.songfacts.com
www.allmusic.com

Now, until later – “Class dismissed”!

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