65million was the number I learned as a kid born in 1980.
While you're fact-checking Was (Not Was), be aware that some of the historical events alleged in "I Feel Better Than James Brown" may not have occurred literally as described.
I was attending Mardi Gras with Fidel Castro
Buxom cross-dressers threw fake gold coins at our feet
As we discussed the fate of the Revolution.
Suddenly, CIA men dressed in bikinis
Tried to stab us with fountain pens
But Fidel blew mustard gas through his cigar
And immobilized the lot of them.
Nineteen tequilas later, we had a deal:
Havana goes back to the Mob,
And Fidel and I open up a chain of Kentucky Fried Chicken shops.
It is, alas, unknowable whether Mr. Was actually felt better than James Brown. How do you feel?
I feel pretty good!
Like I knew that you would!
I feel nice.
Like sugar and spice?
I'm going to go out on a limb and say, Was (Not Was) did not fact-check their lyrics while writing Walk the Dinosaur. The whole song is basically an acid trip stream of barely-consciousness. One of the writers has said it was about nuclear armageddon, so there's that.
Elvis landed in a rocket ship
Healed a couple of lepers and disappeared.
But where was his beard?
One of the writers has said it was about nuclear armageddon, so there’s that.
To be clear, it was the '80s. Everything was about nuclear Armageddon.
Yeah, I've heard the nuclear interpretation from there. The number still could have a meaning tho...
In the 80's you believed anything anyone told you because there was no convenient way to look it up. Oh, you want to verify it? Better take the bus across town to the library, spend 30 minutes finding 4 dinosaur books, and then 3 hours pouring through them to see if they mention when they went extinct.
I subscribed to all sorts of newsletters, and at least one was dinosaur specific. I would also write professors at local colleges with questions and usually get a response.
Also worked at the library and could order just about any book available. At that point most libraries would order books if they didn't have them already.
But mostly newsletters and science journals until BBS became more common and user friendly when we first started having available computers.
My mom bought us an encyclopedia set, and I read it cover to cover. A lot of people didn't have those though.
Why aren’t all musicians paleontologists?
Man I have tried so often to play them but in the almost three years of her existence my kid just hated recorded music. Sometimes I am allowed to sing mammal and that's it.
The first song I ever sang to my daughter on the day she was born was "Oh Do Not Forsake Me" and she ate that shit up.
It probably just rhymed better.
I don't understand this at all but I'm upvoting it anyway.
We did not have the level of wanton ignorance and denial of evolution that we have now. Back then, I wouldn't have believed you if you told me that half the country turned out to be so stupid.
The difference in 40 vs 60 years is big but 4 million vs 6 million is not. For 40 million vs 60 million, most people probably didn't notice unless they were pretty tuned into dino history.
2 million years isn't big? Pssssshhhhh!!!! Doubt YOU'LL live that long.
Like did we believe in dinosaurs in the 1980s? Yes. Yes we did. Was our dinosaur theory up to today’s current science, no. But we knew dinosaurs existed.
most people knew about geological ages and the dinosaurs where in some millions of years ago but the average person did not know how many.
Try "11 miles an hour", I think they're right on with that one.
But "Elvis's Rolls Royce", not so much.
What other band had Ozzy and Mel Torme on the same album? And Mel sang about an accidental strangulation.
No Stupid Questions
No such thing. Ask away!
!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules (interactive)
Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.
All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.
Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.
If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.
Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.
If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Credits
Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!
The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!