#75
Number of copies of “Cracked Rear View” sold every 30 minutes since its release in 1994. This sales explosion has helped to make it one of the top 20 most sold records in history and puts it with the likes of Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti and The Eagles’ Hotel California.
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#74
Age of Meher Baba at the time of his death. Meher Baba was an Indian spiritual teacher who said he was the Avatar. Amongst the great accomplishments in his life, Meher Baba is known for his posters extoling the virtue of happiness. One such poster hung in the house of musicians Tuck and Patti. It was in their house that friend Bobby McFerrin saw the smiling face of Meher Baba on the poster with the words, "Don't Worry, Be Happy" written beneath. The rest is history.
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#73
Number of American viewers (in millions) who tuned into the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964 to see the Beatles’ first appearance on the show.
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#72
John Lennon’s apartment number at the Dakota.
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#71
Length, in seconds, of the violin solo that caps off Baba O’Riley by The Who. The Who’s drummer Keith Moon had the idea of inserting a violin solo at the coda of the track, as the style of the song shifts from crashing rock to an Irish folk-style beat. Moon recruited a friend of his, Dave Arbus -- a multi-instrumentalist in a UK progressive rock band called East of Eden -- to play one of the most recognizable solos in rock.
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#70
The number 1 song for 1970 held that position for 6 weeks. Simon & Garfukel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water.
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#69
Galileo’s age when he stood trial on suspicion of heresy for his support of heliocentrism.
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#68
The number of months between the time Paul McCartney wrote a song about his dog while in The Beatles (Martha, My Dear) and the time he wrote about his dog while in Wings (Jet).
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#67
Number in thousands of paying customers who set a world record attendance record for an indoor crowd. The artist they came to see: Wings. The year: 1976. The Venue: The Seattle Kingdome.
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#66
Number of days between the time Ben Linder, a young American engineer who was working on a small hydroelectric dam in rural northern Nicaragua was killed by anti-government Contra rebels, and the time Sting wrote and recorded his song Fragile about Linder’s death.
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#65
Queen staged a bicycle race in 1977 around a stadium in England. Pictures were taken for the cover of the single. In order to complete the band’s vision, they had all naked women as contestants and rented the 65 bikes they needed to have the race.
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#64
Number of weeks between the time Jon Landau first saw Bruce Springsteen (opening for Bonnie Raitt at the Harvard Square Theater in Cambridge, MA), and the day Bruce released Born To Run with Landau as producer.
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#63
Number of years between William Butler Yeats ‘The Second Coming’ poem and The Police’s ‘Synchronicty II’ – a song which is said to have taken an immeasurable amount of influence from the Yeats poem.
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#62
The number of days between the heroin-induced death of lead singer Brad Nowell and the release of Sublime's most successful album.
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#61
The time in seconds where a line appears during the song Go Your Own Way which Stevie Nicks asked Lindsey Buckingham to remove. Lindsey Buckingham wrote this as a message to Stevie Nicks. It describes their breakup, with the most obvious line being, "Packing up, shacking up is all you want to do." Stevie insisted she never shacked up with anyone when they were going out, and wanted Lindsey to take out the line. He refused.
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#60
The hotel on the album cover to the Eagles’ Hotel California is the Beverly Hills Hotel, known as the Pink Palace. It is often frequented by Hollywood stars. The photo was taken by photographers David Alexander and John Kosh, who sat in a cherry-picker 60 feet above Sunset Boulevard to get the shot of the hotel at sunset from above the trees. The rush-hour traffic made it a harrowing experience.
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#59
Age of Alberto Vargas when he was commissioned by The Cars to produce the album cover for the band’s sophomore release, Candy-O.
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#58
Number of seconds into the Peter Gabriel song “Biko” after the drums begin when Peter talks about it being “Business as usual in police room 619.” On September 11, 1977 police loaded Stephen Biko (founder of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa) in the back of a Land Rover, naked, and began the 745 mile drive to Pretoria. Biko died shortly after arrival at the Pretoria prison – room 619. The police claimed his death was the result of an extended hunger strike, but then journalist and now political leader, Helen Zille, exposed the truth behind Biko's death. He was found to have massive injuries to the head, which many saw as strong evidence that he had been brutally clubbed by his captors.
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#57
The number of times “Miles” is sung in I can see for Miles.
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#56
Number of copies of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon sold every hour in the US in the last year.
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#55
Title of one of Tom Waits more well known/well liked tunes. It’s actually called “Ol’ ‘55” and has appeared on a number of other artist’s records – notably the Eagles and Sarah McLachlan. McLachlan states on her 1995 Freedom Sessions cd that the song “was recorded well into the wee hours of the morning after an immeasurable quantity of red wine.” The band decided to record the song just for fun and since many in the band had never played the song together and most only had a vague recollection of the song, the few who knew the song were mouthing chord changes to each other during the recording.
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#54
Episode number of the Saturday Night Live show in 1977 on which Elvis Costello & The Attractions cut short their performance of “Less Than Zero” after 10 seconds and played “Radio Radio” instead.
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#53
Length, in minutes, of the Doors’ last performance with Jim Morrison, on December 12, 1970 at the Warehouse in New Orleans. The concert began normally but then about halfway through Morrison began to omit lyrics, and then just slumped against the microphone stand as if it were the only thing holding him upright. He tried to tell a few jokes that nobody could understand and the place got quiet as the crowd saw that something was wrong. The band skipped a bunch of the setlist and jumped to "Light My Fire". During "Light My Fire" Jim started to sing, then slumped down on the drum riser and didn’t get up to finish the song. He picked up the mic stand and continually slammed it into the stage, eventually splintering the wood. He then threw the stand and stormed off the stage, leaving the band alone and the audience bewildered. It was the last time Jim sang live with The Doors. Three months later he moved to Paris, and in another three months he was dead. "Light My Fire" was the last song he ever performed live.
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#52
Number of years between Elvis Presley’s “Mystery Train” and Bruce Springsteen’s song that references it as a song he’s searching for on the radio.
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#51
Number of months between the time Glenn Frey began working in earnest to learn the guitar and the moment of his first big break – a professional recording experience with Bob Seger. The result was Glenn providing Acoustic guitar and backing vocals to Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man.
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Mountain By Numbers continues...
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