#150
The number (in thousands) who attended the Seattle Pop Festival in 1969 and watched The Guess Who perform this song for the first time ever live. The crowd loved the song, even though they had never heard it before.
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#149
Number of months between Chernobyl and official release of U2’s “Sweetest Thing.” The song was written by Bono as an apology to his wife Ali Hewson for forgetting her birthday during The Joshua Tree sessions. At Alison's request, proceeds from the single went to her favorite charity, Chernobyl Children's Project International.
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#148
Number of weeks between the launch of the iTunes music store and the day the store sold its one billionth download – Coldplay’s “Speed of Sound,” purchased by Alex Ostrovsky of WestBloomfield, Michigan.
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#147
Number of seconds between the time you hear the opening line of “Rain” by the Beatles to the time you hear it again…backwards. The first song to use a tape played backwards.
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#146
It’s August 1981. Exhausted, discouraged and not exactly in the Christmas spirit, the band, The Waitresses came in from being on the road and compiled a song from the "riff pile" - cassettes with bits and pieces of songs they wrote, for a rainy day – so they could quickly record something before hitting the road once again. Some of the lyrics to the song were written in the cab, en route to the studio. Add in two days of recording, and the total time it took to compile “riffs”, write lyrics and record Christmas Wrapping clocks in at 146 hours. Back out on the road the band went, forgetting all about it - until it started getting radio play come Christmas season. It was a weird way to have a hit.
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#145
Number of goals scored by English football star, Mick Quinn during the 70s & 80s. According to his 2003 autobiography, an ice cream man who served his area – the Cantril Farm area of Liverpool during the late 1970s and early 1980s wouldn’t play “The Turkey and The Straw,” but Bob Marley’s “One Love/People Get Ready” while driving his van around the neighbourhood. The ice cream man's possible obsession with Bob Marley was further enhanced by the fact that he often sold cannabis to his Cantril Farm/Liverpool customers.
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#144
Years between the establishment of the original House of the Rising Sun in New Orleans in 1820 and the song about it by The Animals in 1964. Historical documents indicate that the place was a hotel on Conti Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans where prostitution was common. The song goes back to the early part of the 20th century; many early folk and blues artists sang it. The Animals version was a breakthrough because it blended a traditional folk song with a rock arrangement. Many critics now call it the first real folk-rock song.
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#143
Central Park constitutes its own United States census tract, number 143. According to the 2000 Census, the park's population is eighteen persons, twelve male and six female, with a median age of 38.5 years, and a household size of 2.33, over 3 households. In 1982, Elton John wrote a song about Central Park and dedicated the song in memory of the late Beatle, John Lennon. John rarely performs the song live, as he has said it brings back too many painful memories of Lennon's death. The "Empty Garden" refers to New York's Central Park, where John Lennon spent much of his time.
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#142
The number of the Fairbanks, Alaska city bus – parked and abandoned in the wilderness -- where Christopher McCandless set up camp in real life and in the movie “Into The Wild”, which features music by Eddie Vedder.
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#141
Amount in dollars that Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong was fined after mooning an audience in Milwaukee in 1995.
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#140
Dollars it would cost today to ride a Greyhound bus from Mississippi to New York City - the trip the guy takes in Stevie Wonder¹s "Living for the City." (In 1973, when the song came out, it would have cost $30.)
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#139
Dollars and cents -- $1.39 -- that Sting makes every MINUTE of every day, 24/7, in royalties from just ONE song – “Every Breath You Take.” In other words, $2000 a day, or $730,000 a year.
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#138
Number dollars (in millions) the Rolling Stones made on the North American leg of their “A Bigger Bang” tour in 2006-2007, which set a Guinness record for the highest-grossing tour of all time.
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#137
Total number of games won during the 1999, 2000, and 2001 seasons by the Frontier League baseball team the Werewolves, who were based in London, Ontario for three years – that’s right, the Werewolves of London. The team was actually named after the Warren Zevon song. (By the way, they lost 114 games during the three seasons in London and then the team moved to Canton, Ohio, where they became the Canton Coyotes.)
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#136
Number of years between the time Alfred, Lord Tennyson's famous poem "Ulysses" appeared with the words: "...always roaming with a hungry heart...." in it and the time Bruce Springsteen wrote his song “Hungry Heart” inspired by the line from Tennyson’s poem. Originally, Joey Ramone had asked Springsteen to write a song for the Ramones. Springsteen went home, wrote Hungry Heart for the Ramones and promptly decided to keep it for himself.
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#135
The top growth (in centimeters) of the Mignonette or Reseda plant - a fragrant plant which grows in hot, dry climates. About 1920, the name Reseda replaced Marian as a designation for a stop on the Pacific Electric interurban railway running along Sherman Way in Los Angeles. It also became the first of many different imagery places Tom Petty sings of in his 1989 hit Free Fallin’.
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#134
Number of days between the September 11 attacks in 2001 and Bruce Springsteen recording the title track to the album which is a complete reflection and remembrance of that day.
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#133
Length in minutes of Robert Mitchum’s 1958 film, Thunder Road. Springsteen changed the name of his song “Wings For Wheels” to Thunder Road after revealing that he was somehow inspired from the movie even if, as he says, "I never saw the movie, I only saw the poster in the lobby of the theater."
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#132
Price of a ticket for three days at the Woodstock Festival 1969. (calculating inflation for 2007)
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#131
Number of months between the release of Breakfast in America and Roger Hodgson revealing the arguments behind that title and that song. ‘Breakfast In America' had been around for eleven or twelve years. Hodgson wrote it in England when he was about nineteen. Because the lyric is so innocent, the band had a big tussle about whether to one, put it on the album and two, whether they should re-do the lyric entirely. They also had a big tussle about the title of the album. Hodgson won out on both counts.
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#130
Number of minutes in the movie, Django. Django is a 1966 Italian film directed by Sergio Corbucci. It became very popular in Europe and is considered a cult film in the USA. It is considered by many as one of the best examples of the spaghetti western with a stirring musical score, gunfights and a quiet anti-hero. A song on the film’s soundtrack “Last Man Standing” was sampled in 2006 by Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo for their outfit, Gnarls Barkley. And the rest is history.
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#129
Minutes and seconds into Robbie Robertson’s Somewhere Down The Crazy River that you hear a strange high voice echo Robertson singing the phrase of the chorus, “Somewhere Down the Crazy River.” The high voice belongs to Sam Llanas of the BoDeans –- although in the credits, he’s listed as Sammy Bodean.
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#128
Combined ages of Eric Clapton and B.B. King in the year 2000 when they released the album they did together, Riding With The King. (Clapton was 54, B.B. was 74.) Although they'd been friends since a chance meeting and subsequent jam session in New York 30 years earlier, the idea for a collaborative album only came together following sessions for King's 1997 duets album Deuces Wild, which featured a guest appearance by Clapton. Riding With The King won a Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album; Clapton arranged the session and picked most of the material, but throughout the record he defers to King so they both have a chance to show their stuff. The title track is a John Hiatt song.
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#127
Month and day (January 27, 1968) that Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" was released. The release came 6 weeks after he was killed in a plane crash.
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#126
Number of British pounds, in thousands (126,000) – the equivalent of $239,000 US -- paid by the winning bidder at an auction in 2006 for a schoolbook belonging to John Lennon. The book contained a drawing done by the 12-year-old Lennon illustrating Lewis Carroll's poem The Walrus and the Carpenter. The poem inspired Lennon to write The Beatles' 1967 song ‘I Am the Walrus.’
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Mountain By Numbers continues...
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