“The Battle of New Orleans” by Johnny Horton (1959) references then Major General Andrew Jackson.

My favorite trivia question, until the Blackberries became popular around 2002, was, “where was the Battle of New Orleans fought and in which year was it fought?”.

“Sink the Bismarck” by Johnny Horton (1960) references Winston Churchill who told the people "put every ship a-sail”.

Johnny Horton also had an album released in July, 1960 entitled “Johnny Horton Makes History” which has songs about several historical people.

In honor of Veteran’s Day, here is an easy trivia question from “Pink Shoelaces” by Dodie Stevens (1959).

When Dooley had a feeling we were going to war, he enlisted in the United States Military.  In which branch of the Military did Dooley enlist as strongly suggested by the song?

Please include the clues in the song that led to your conclusion.

Since the answer is a no brainer for us Veterans, we are asking the Veterans not to provide the answer.  Still, it should be very easy for the rest.

I agree with you, aflem, that the Billboard Hot One-Hundred is the bible of the music industry but, in my humble opinion, its Top One-Hundred for the year is a bunch of poop.

Your mention of 1965 is one good example.  One can speculate how a two-hit wonder’s song that peaked at number two could beat out, as you alluded to, the Beatles’ “Yesterday”, which spent four weeks at Number One and at some times was the most played song on the radio. ( However, it only spent nine weeks on the Top Forty starting in October.)  More outrageous is that “Yesterday” did not even make the Top On-Hundred for the year 1965 as far as I can tell.

I consider the Number One song of 1965 to be “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones.  It also spent four weeks at Number One and was in the Top Forty for twelve weeks.

It appears the Billboard’s mathematical calculations give astonishing weight to the number of weeks in the Top Forty.

However, the main procedure which makes its Top One-Hundred for the year a bunch of poop is Billboard’s insane practice of dividing the points earned over each of the two years when a song’s run involves two years.

For example, “Singing the Blues” by Guy Mitchell was probably the Number One song for 1957 instead of “All Shook Up” by Elvis Presley.  “Singing the Blues” spent ten weeks at Number One where “All Shook Up” spent nine weeks.

But, “Singing the Blues” spent eight weeks in the Top Forty in 1956, resulting its landing at Number Forty for 1956 and fourteen weeks in the Top Forty in 1957, resulting its landing at Number Seven for 1957.

Totally insane!

Good selection, 45adaptor.  The story is that when Johnny Cash was writing “Folsom Prison Blues“ in 1953, he wanted to come up with the worst possible reason for a person to kill another person and he came up with the lyrics you posted.

The big question about “Folsom Prison Blues” is, if Johnny Cash shot and killed a man in Nevada, why is he serving time in a California prison?

The other liberty with “Folsom Prison Blues” is that by the time Johnny Cash wrote the song, due to low ridership, the passenger train from Sacramento to Folsom had become a freight train and certainly was not on its way to San Antonio with rich people possibly eating in a fancy dinning car.  However, the lyrics were heavily based on the train in “Crescent City Blues” written by Gordon Jenkins who won a copyright infringement suit against Johnny Cash in 1969

Just to include some trivia, Ray Charles (Charles Raymond Offenberg) of the Ray Charles Singers sang the theme song to “Three’s Company” along with Julia Rinker-Miller.  The story is that after hearing John Ritter, Suzanne Somers and Joyce DeWitt sing the theme song, the producers immediately hired two professional singers.

The linked Pleasant Valley Sunday article from March 30, 2023 contains an egregious error.

As anyone who was paying attention to the record charts at that time knows, no singles were released from the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album.  Therefore, no song from the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album ever made the Billboard Hot 100 and Johnny Rivers could not have possibly heard “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band” on the juke box.

Lucille Barilla list the top five songs on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending August 26, 1967 EXCEPT she says “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band” was the Number Two song.  The actual Number Two song was “All You Need Is Love” by the Beatles.  The Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album was Number One on the Billboard 200 album chart that week.

I am astounded that such an error could have been made.  I did a Google search and did not find any reference to the Billboard Hot 100 that was not accurate.  Does anyone know how this error could have been made? 

I would also like to add that Meghan Trainor is currently in the Billboard Top Twenty with her song "Made You Look" which sounds very Sixties girl group like with the background singers singing like the background singers did in the Sixties and the music video prominently features a pink 1964 Ford Mustang convertible

Mroldies, your post made me recall a post I did several years ago about “Roll Over Beethoven” and thought since we were on the subject, the board might find it interesting to see it again, or, maybe not.
 
What I posted was what I remembered from a “news brief” published in the Wall Street Journal in the late nineteen seventies.  While the Wall Street Journal “news brief” is not inaccurate, it compresses a complicated chain of events that took place over several years.  Here’s my original post:
 
In the early Seventies, New York City had two Classical Music (classical as in Beethoven, Bach and Brahms) radio stations.  The second place one was struggling with a low but very loyal listenership.  The second-place radio station finally was sold and the new owners changed the station’s format to Rock ‘n’ Roll Oldies.  The second-place radio station’s loyal listeners were, of course, very displeased with this outcome, but resigned to accept it.  However, the first song the new radio station played in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Oldies format was “Roll Over Beethoven” by Chuck Berry.  This angered the loyal listeners so deeply that they became militant, organized and sued in court, and got their original format back.

If I may, I would like to amend my above post to say that I am ninety-nine percent certain that the sweet nothings being whispered into her ear is “my, my baby, you have a perfect derriere” and that I am one hundred percent certain that actual English words are being spoken.

Understand Bob Dylan at age 81 was scheduled to perform this week at the Los Angeles Pantages Theater.

This is a list composed of the songs posted from this post and the last couple times this subject was posted.  Generally limited to Billboard Top Forty songs.  Also, compiled in accordance with “Alex Trebek Standards” (meaning that close does not count).  Songs with part of the title in parenthesis must have each sung, but not necessarily together.
 
Alvin's Harmonica - The Chipmunks with David Seville
Annie’s Song - John Denver
A Summer Song – Chad and Jeremy
Badge - Cream
Bad Man’s Blunder - Kingston Trio
Ballad of a Teenage Queen
Ballad of the Green Berets - S/Sgt. Barry Sadler
The Ballad of John and Yoko - Beatles
The Battle of New Orleans - Johnny Horton
Black Dog – Led Zeppelin
Blues Part II – Blood Sweat and Tears
Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen
The Chipmunk Song - The Chipmunks
Come Softly to Me - the Fleetwoods
Concrete and Clay – Unit Four Plus Three
Creeque Alley - the Mommas and the Papas
Danny's Song - Anne Murray
A Day in the Life - Beatles
D'yer Maker (also true with original title: “Did You Make Her?”)- Led Zeppelin
Epistle to Dippy - Donovan
Excerpt From A Teenage Opera - Keith West
The Exodus Song - Pat Boone
Feel So Good - Johnny Preston
Fingertips, Part 2 - Stevie Wonder
Fifth Dimension - the Byrds
59th Street Bridge Song - Simon and Garfunkel / Harpers Bizarre
For What It’s Worth - Buffalo Springfield
He Will Break Your Heart - Jerry Butler
I’ll Save the Last Dance For You – Dimitra Jo
Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me – Mel Carter
Homesick Blues - Bob Dylan
Inside Looking Out - Animals
In the Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus) – Zager and Evans
Jamaica Farewell - Harry Belefonte
Jenny Take a Rider-Mitch Rider and the Detroit Wheels
Land of 1000 Dances - Cannibal and the Headhunters
Lightnin’ Strikes – Lou Christy
Long Train Running - Doobie Brothers
Lovers Concerto – Toys
MacArthur Park – Richard Harris
Marian Boogie - Brownsville Station
Mercy, Mercy, Mercy – The Buckinghams
Mr. Moon, Mr. Sun-Paul Revere and the

YES!  I was one of those kids when I was nine in 1955 and did not know that and thought I was getting a bargain when I bought several TOPS label records.  As much as I love TOP FORTY songs, I have come to terms that the record industry is not very honest.

Just to add some clarification, when The Challengers changed their name to The Olympics, they named themselves after the Olympic Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles because they thought that would be a good thing for a Los Angeles singing group to name themselves after.  However, the Olympic Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles was built with the help of the Los Angeles Olympic committee for the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
 
I am surprised that none of us had mentioned that they had been standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona.

My all time favorite instrumental is "I Will Follow You" by Percy Faith ("I Will Follow Him" by Little Peggy March) from the Theme for Young Lovers album.  Close second is "Rock Around the Clock" by Sandy Nelson from the Be True to Your School album.  Cannot play these two enough.  Also, cannot believe that it has been over twenty-seven years since an instrumental has made the Top Forty - "Forever in Love" by Kenny G from 1993, as concluded by a recent discussion on this board (any further information welcomed).  

I believe the last instrumental to make the Top Forty was "Chariots of Fire" by Vangelis which was Number One for one week in May 1982.  Open to discussion