The American Civil War is bracketed by two songs with lyrics that are familiar to most people. The metaphorical end of that war has become associated with The Band’s 1969…
Category: Music quotations
“Silent Night” – the origin and evolving words of the famous Christmas carol…
In 1818, during the annual Christmas Midnight Mass at the St. Nicholas Church at Oberndorf, Austria, the song we know as “Silent Night! Holy Night!” (or just “Silent Night”) was…
The stirring words of Haile Selassie that Bob Marley used for the song “War”…
On October 4, 1963, Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia, gave a speech to the United Nations General Assembly that includes a famous quotation you almost surely know if you’re…
The odd links between “Louie Louie” and Ralph Nader’s “Unsafe At Any Speed”…
It’s truly odd, but true: the renowned rock song “Louie Louie” and the history-making book about car safety by Ralph Nader, titled Unsafe At Any Speed, are connected by both…
April 2, 1865 – “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”
On September 22, 1969, The Band released the great self-titled album that includes what became one of their most famous songs, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” Like many…
“Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream…”
On August 8, 1966, Capitol Records released the Beatles album Revolver in the United States. (In the UK, the LP was released by Parlophone on August 5.) Revolver became an…
“Elvis has left the building.”
Even people who aren’t Elvis Presley fans know the line “Elvis has left the building.” Credit for popularizing this famous quote goes to Al Dvorin, a Chicago bandleader and…
The story behind “Comin’ in on a wing and a prayer”
The idiomatic expression “on a wing and a prayer” is a now widely used to describe doing something under extremely difficult or disadvantageous circumstances and hoping that sheer luck, determination and/or…
10 famous quotes and phrases linked to the date January 10
1. and 2. “The die is cast.” and “cross the Rubicon” “The die is cast” was Julius Caesar’s famous remark on January 10, 49 B.C. as he led his troops…