Things you were shockingly old when you learned

first time i saw it as a kid (on my stepmother's 8-track!) i assumed everyone on the cover was in the group, and i was like dang that is one big, tough-looking band

I definitely never realized that their faces were just pasted in there

same

also xxp that is amazing, ty

I think the first physical LZ release I saw was also an 8-track, circa 1975

LZII was the second album of theirs I bought (after HoTH). The label on side 1 was off-center, so the end of "Thank You" had an added "tsss . . . tsss . . . tsss." I can still hear it, even in digital format.

It's Christopher Lee, James Coburn and Michael Parkinson

Joe Cocker sang the co-lead on "Up Where We Belong"

The Louvin Brothers and John D. Loudermilk were cousins (the Louvins' real name was Loudermilk).

!

I knew this but not surprised others are shockingly old when they learn it.

Joe Cocker sang the co-lead on "Up Where We Belong"

among his many crimes

I didn't realize until about a year ago that the chorus of Run-DMC "It's Tricky" was interpolating the chant from Toni Basil "Hey Mickey"[...]

— jay smooth (@jsmooth995) September 3, 2018

Me, last week

It me as well.

yeah, despite hearing both songs a million times since I was a child, this somehow never occurred to me

Similarly I recently realised that on Money For Nothing, Sting sings “I want my MTV" to the tune of Don't Stand So Close To Me. Is this common knowledge to other people?

Turns out I am entirely deaf to tunes being reused elsewhere. Thanks, these last couple of posts, for blowing my mind.

I had no idea about both “Money For Nothing”/“Don’t Stand So Close” nor “It’s Tricky”/“Mickey” until just now.

It was a dirty trick by Sting, since he later got royalties and songwriting credit for that.

Wikipedia says that Knopfler wrote that line with that melody, thought it would be funny if Sting sung it so he asked him and he agreed.

And MTV used that bit as an ident for I don't know how long. Did they share the perf monies?

Sting blames his publishing company. OK, Sting.

the Wise Man in Army of Darkness is Pitt from Seinfeld

Today I learned that Sting sings the "I want my MTV" parts of "Money For Nothing"

That's shocking.

LOL indeed

I mean, that song is a bit before my time and I never paid much attention to it (I remember seeing and liking the video as a kid though). I guess it would be super obvious and well known to people ~3 years older than me.

i listened to it absolutely loads as a kid and never knew until now!

Sting singing it with Dire Straits at Live Aid kinda spelled it out, but only at the time — it’s not a performance many have regularly referenced or returned to in the years since.

If you listen to the album version, you can hear Sting doing some extremely in character vamping during the fade out.

"Stew Copeland's
An asshole
That prick is
Dead to me"

Willie Nelson’s name is Willie. It’s not short for William or Willard or anything. So that means 90 years ago there was a newborn baby named Willie Nelson. Happy birthday @WillieNelson

— Jason Isbell (@JasonIsbell) April 29, 2023

Damn, I did not know that! Thanks Josh and by extension Jason.

One of my childhood friends was named Max (pointedly NOT Maxwell) but he is also a professional actor whose stage name is Maxwell, for sonic reasons.

I love that and Stevie being short for "Steveland" re: Stevie Wonder

ditto Frank Zappa, he thought his name was "Francesco" but it turned out to just be "Frank" on his birth certificate

I love when pretentious people in convo try to be faux-professional and calling celebrities by their perceived full name, only to get it wildly wrong when the celebrity's name either isn't short for anything or isn't short for what they thought it was

Mickstopher Jagger

Pinktopolous McFloydison

I find it funny that songwriter Fred Ebb of Kander and Ebb was just named Fred Ebb. No middle name. Just a seven letter full name.

In the fictional realm, I’ve noticed that Bobby Ewing on Dallas is just a Bobby, no one calls him Robert, and on official documents his name just reads Bobby.

Also J.R.s name was actually pronounced JER

Jerry Tolkien

Pauldo McCartney

Lemmington Kilmister

Hahaha!

I have a friend called Paddy and I always lengthen it to Paddington because that's a way better name than Patrick.

Re: Sting, I can't find evidence for it, but I recall a story wherein Stewart Copeland was venting, in an interview, about how frustrating it was that Sting collected the immense royalties for "I'll Be Missing You" (Puff Daddy) despite the fact that it was Stewart's guitar part that constituted the actual sample. Stewart said, "Sting has his Italian villa. Where is my Italian villa?" Sting's response: "first of all, it's not a 'villa', it's a palazzo"

lmao

I know this seems ridiculous to be shockingly old to learn, but having never owned a pet who has had a litter of anything, I only learned this past week that dogs (for example) typically have a two-month-and-a-bit duration of pregnancy. Being the human-centric shithead I am, I guess I just assumed dogs and cats were, like us, pregnant for nine month periods

Andy Summers wrote the guitar part surely?
also whoever wrote that Crickets song that Leo Sayer covered should get at least a small pension in Italy for the bridge that Sting pinched

Yes, it was Andy Summers.