Geographical annoyances in pop and rock

[Eggchaser]

Toto - Africa


Also, you may be able to see Kilimanjaro from the Serengeti on a clear day but it's at least 200km away. Hardly "above".

My father-in-law was born in Kenya and always rants about the geographical inaccuracy of this.

[gjt]

My Spanish is rusty as fuck, but catorce is a Spanish number.

Yes, but the count in translates to "One, Two, Three, Fourteen!"

[Sporting]

Yes but one two three fourteen?

[Sporting]

Sorry...too late

[Hot Pepsi]

My father-in-law was born in Kenya and always rants about the geographical inaccuracy of this.

The song is about longing for a place one has never been to, so the inaccuracy isn’t a problem.

[3 Colours Red]

The song is about longing for a place one has never been to, so the inaccuracy isn’t a problem.

I've never been there either but at least I know what an atlas is.

[ad hoc]

I'll probably get spam from easyjet and Ryanair for the next year for finding this out but Belfast to Glasgow is 45 minutes and Belfast to Liverpool is 1 hour and 5 minutes so Belfast isn't half a bloody hour away.

No no no. If Easyjet or whoever say that the scheduled flight time from Liverpool to Belfast is 45 minutes that means it is definitely at most 30 minutes. That factors in the taxi time and the 5-10 minutes they always add to the actual time to ensure that their stats look better as to on time arrivals. There is no way that the flight time from Liverpool to Belfast is more than half an hour unless you;re in a glider or something.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Yes, but the count in translates to "One, Two, Three, Fourteen!"

Yes, but he's not mixing his languages at least. Just Bonio being arch. Or a homage to Wooly Bully.

[wittoner]

Roger Whittaker - Durham Town ( The Leaving)

"When I was a boy, I spent my time
sitting on the banks of the River Tyne"

Yes,that's the TOWN of Durham, on the River Tyne.

[Jah Womble]

'The ISLE of Greece...'

A fairly obvious one there from Charlene.

[Aitch]

In the Dutch Mountains by, say no more, The Nits

[andrew7610]

Why call your band Japan and then write tracks called Visions of China, Canton, Communist China and Cantonese Boy? And also Suburban Berlin, European Son, Rhodesia, and Taking Islands in Africa.

Having said that, Life in Tokyo is one of my favourites of theirs.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

.

Also a Texan acquaintance told me Amarillo was a "shithole".

Call me one-track minded, but I don't believe the aesthetic merits of the city in question were the point of those lyrics.

One of my more whimsical drunken moments many years ago involved walking into an off-licence with my gf after dinner and singing to the guy behind the counter "Where can I find your Amaretto?" [For the gf, obv, I wouldn't have bought the over-sweet stuff for myself.]

[Nocturnal Submission]

Did he sing back, "Over there, just behind the pillar"?

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Sadly he failed to engage with the musical aspect.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Call me one-track minded, but I don't believe the aesthetic merits of the city in question were the point of those lyrics.

Well, he's claiming Sweet Marie and Amarillo are pretty. My Texan acquaintance claimed otherwise.

Neil Sedaka happily admitted he'd never been to Amarillo; he just went through the road atlas until he found a town that rhymed with 'pillow'.

[Sporting]

It always kinda bugged me that Las Vegas seems to be pronounced by many folk as if "Las" were "Los"...or am I wrong?

[Snake Plissken]

That's an accent thing. Elvis did it for instance. Besides, it has to be "Las" because it translates from the original German to "Whale's Vagina"

[Sporting]

So did Elvis pronounce "last" as "lost"?

[Jah Womble]

The way Cher pronounces 'Memphis' as 'Mem-fuss' instead of 'Memphis' in her version of Marc Cohn's Walking in Memphis continues to irritate me.

On the rare occasion that I might hear it, like.

[ursus arctos]

Not uncommon in general conversation, I'm afraid.

As is the conflation of the first word of Los Angeles and Las Vegas, particularly by those from outside the region.

[Sporting]

Lookee upthread!

[ursus arctos]

That's what I was referencing

Unlike Snake, I don't think it is just an accent thing (though it sometimes is).

"Real Americans" regularly mangle place names of Spanish or French origin, with the formal adoption of ridiculous pronunciations of French names being particularly rife.

[Sporting]

Ah sorry

[ad hoc]

"Real Americans" regularly mangle place names of Spanish or French origin, with the formal adoption of ridiculous pronunciations of French names being particularly rife.

Brits are fairly good at that too, to be fair. My paternal grandparents lived for much of the time I knew them in the Sheffield suburb of Beauchief. Pronounced Beechiff.