Difference between revisions of "List of people mentioned in songs"

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m (→‎The Presidents: little typo, changing it before I forget)
(A Talk with George)
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<br/>[[Wikipedia:Thomas_A._Watson|Thomas A. Watson]] - Assistant to telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell and recipient of early phone calls.
 
<br/>[[Wikipedia:Thomas_A._Watson|Thomas A. Watson]] - Assistant to telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell and recipient of early phone calls.
 
<br/>[[Wikipedia:Marie_Antoinette|Marie Antoinette]] - Queen of France, widely believed to have responded to concerns that the French peasantry lacked bread with "Let them eat cake," sent to the guillotine in the aftermath of the French Revolution.
 
<br/>[[Wikipedia:Marie_Antoinette|Marie Antoinette]] - Queen of France, widely believed to have responded to concerns that the French peasantry lacked bread with "Let them eat cake," sent to the guillotine in the aftermath of the French Revolution.
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==== [[A Talk with George]] ====
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[[Wikipedia:George_Plimpton|George Plimpton]] - author and participatory journalist, wrote chiefly about his experiences as an amateur attempting things typically only done by professionals, with an emphasis on sports.
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<br />[[Wikipedia:Ernest_Hemingway|Ernest Hemingway]] - author and Nobel literature laureate, spent most of his adult life living outside his native United States, often in pursuit of adventure.
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<br />[[Wikipedia:Archie_Moore|Archie Moore]] - professional boxer.
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<br />[[Wikipedia:Sugar_Ray_Robinson|Sugar Ray Robinson]] - professional boxer.
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<br />[[Wikipedia:Hunter_S._Thompson|Hunter S. Thompson]] - author, "gonzo" journalist, inspiration for the "Uncle Duke" character from the "Doonesbury" comic strip.
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<br />[[Wikipedia:Jacqueline_Onassis|Jacqueline Onassis]] - widow of President Kennedy, later wife of Greek tycoon Aristotle Onassis.
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<br />[[Wikipedia:Robert_Kennedy|Robert Kennedy]] - brother and Attorney General of President Kennedy, assassinated while campaigning for the presidency in 1968.
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<br />[[Wikipedia:Sirhan_Sirhan|Sirhan Sirhan]] - assassin of Robert Kennedy, Palestinian angered by Israeli victory in the Six Day War of 1967.
  
 
==== [[Tom Cruise Crazy]] ====
 
==== [[Tom Cruise Crazy]] ====
 
[[Wikipedia:Tom Cruise|Tom Cruise]] - Actor and prominent scientologist.
 
[[Wikipedia:Tom Cruise|Tom Cruise]] - Actor and prominent scientologist.
 
<br />[[Wikipedia:Katie Holmes|Katie Holmes]] - Actress, Tom Cruise's third wife and mother of his third child.
 
<br />[[Wikipedia:Katie Holmes|Katie Holmes]] - Actress, Tom Cruise's third wife and mother of his third child.

Revision as of 23:07, 2 May 2008

This is a list of real people who are mentioned by name in Jonathan Coulton songs, with references to the songs in which they appear and a little biographical information.

Baby Got Back

Jane Fonda - actress, political activist, and star of a long-running series of exercise videos.
Florence Griffith-Joyner - American track and field star, nicknamed "Flo-Jo".

Dance, Soterios Johnson, Dance

Soterios Johnson - New York radio host.
Terry Gross - Philadelphia host of NPR's Fresh Air.

Flickr

Warren Beatty - Oscar-winning actor.

Kenesaw Mountain Landis

Kenesaw Mountain Landis - Federal judge, commissioner of Major League Baseball.
"Shoeless" Joe Jackson - Star baseball player implicated in the "Black Sox" scandal.
Joe Jackson - Famous pop star, asked the musical question "is she really going out with him?"

Lady Aberlin's Muumuu

Lady Aberlin, aka Betty Aberlin - regular character on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood

Mandelbrot Set

Benoît Mandelbrot - Mathematician, best known for his work in fractal geometry.

The Presidents

George Washington - 1st US President (1789-1797), and only president to have been elected unanimously.
John Adams - 2nd US President (1797-1801); as president, broke with own Federalist party to prevent war with France.
Thomas Jefferson - 3rd US President (1801-1809); among other accomplishments, purchased the Louisiana Territory from France.
James Madison - 4th US President (1809-1817); led US against Britain in War of 1812, which ended with no territorial gains on either side but inspired a strong feeling of American nationalism.
James Monroe - 5th US President (1817-1825); most notable achievement of his presidency was the Monroe Doctrine, which opposed European involvement with North and South America.
John Quincy Adams - 6th US President (1825-1829); son of John Adams (q.v.).
Andrew Jackson - 7th US President (1829-1837); signed Indian Removal Act, which led to the removal of Native Americans from their tribal lands.
Martin Van Buren - 8th US President (1837-1841); term in office largely overshadowed by economic crisis.
William Henry Harrison 9th US President (1841); first president to die in office, having served only 31 days.
John Tyler - 10th US President (1841-1845), succeeding to the office upon the death of William Henry Harrison; during his term in office, he annexed the Republic of Texas, which had secured its independence from Mexico some years earlier.
James K. Polk - 11th US President (1845-1849), elected on a platform of expansionism; during his presidency, the US fought the Mexican War and annexed the Oregon Territory.
Zachary Taylor - 12th US President (1849-1850), previously the victorious general in the Mexican War; died early in his term.
Millard Fillmore - 13th US President (1850-1853); sent Perry on an expedition to Japan.
Commodore Matthew Perry - American naval officer; sailed to Japan (1852-1854) to obtain (by force) the first US-Japanese trade treaty.
Franklin Pierce - 14th US President (1853-1857); supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise and allowed new states to determine the legality of slavery within those states.
James Buchanan - 15th US President (1857-1861); widely regarded as among the worst presidents, he did nothing to prevent or even slow the onset of the Civil War.
Abraham Lincoln - 16th US President (1861-1865); won the US Civil War before his assassination.
Andrew Johnson - 17th US President (1865-1869); as Vice President, succeeded Lincoln but was impeached by Congress and served out his term under a cloud.
Ulysses S. Grant - 18th US President (1869-1877); popular Civil War general, served two terms as president but was rumored to have had a drinking problem.
Rutherford B. Hayes - 19th US President(1877-1881); narrowly won a contested election by promising to end the bitterly resented post-Civil War military occupation of the south known as Reconstruction.
James Garfield - 20th US President (1881-1881); shot by a crazed and disappointed political office seeker, Garfield died after only six months as president.
Chester Arthur - 21st US President (1881-1885); this Captain Kangaroo look-alike championed both civil service reform and tougher immigration laws.
Grover Cleveland - 22nd US President (1885-1889); popular Democrat who favored balanced budgets, less government, and fewer political spoils.
Benjamin Harrison - 23rd US President (1889-1893); the last US President with a beard, Harrison fought trusts & monopoly interests. He served in the Union army at the battle of Kennesaw Mountain.
Grover Cleveland - 24th US President (1893-1897); returned to the White House after voters rejected the high-spending Republican "Billion Dollar Congress."
William McKinley - 25th US President (1897-1901); declared war on Spain, resulting in US involvement in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines. Assassinated by an anarchist.
Theodore Roosevelt - 26th US President (1901-1909); famous Spanish-American War hero, polymath, and big game hunter.
William Howard Taft - 27th US President (1909-1913); the largest man ever to serve as president, Taft became Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court almost a decade after his presidency.
Woodrow Wilson - 28th US President (1913-1921); scholarly Southern leader of the US during WWI, helped to found the League of Nations, but failed to persuade the US Congress to join it.
Warren Harding - 29th US President (1922-1923); this newspaper publisher and Freemason's scandal-ridden administration returned the US to a laissez-faire stance toward business interests.
Calvin Coolidge - 30th US President (1923-1929); former Massachusetts governor, Vice President and successor of Warren Harding, led the US for most of the 1920s.
Herbert Hoover - 31st US President (1929-1933); former Commerce Secretary under Harding and Coolidge, was unable to prevent or fix the Great Depression, which started six months into his term.
Franklin D. Roosevelt - 32nd US President (1933-1945); led the nation out of the Great Depression and nearly to the end of World War II before dying in office in his unprecedented fourth term.
Harry S. Truman - 33rd US President (1945-1953); successor of FDR, led the US through the last months of World War II, including the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and later through the Korean War.
Dwight D. Eisenhower - 34th US President (1953-1961); former commander of Allied forces in World War II, US President through most of the interval between the Korean and Vietnam Wars, a relatively cool part of the Cold War.

Screwed (demo)

Bernadette - This Roman Catholic saint from Lourdes had visions of the Virgin Mary.
Michael Lee Aday, FKA Marvin Lee Aday, AKA Meat Loaf - American rock singer
Alexander Graham Bell - Inventor of the telephone
Thomas A. Watson - Assistant to telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell and recipient of early phone calls.
Marie Antoinette - Queen of France, widely believed to have responded to concerns that the French peasantry lacked bread with "Let them eat cake," sent to the guillotine in the aftermath of the French Revolution.

A Talk with George

George Plimpton - author and participatory journalist, wrote chiefly about his experiences as an amateur attempting things typically only done by professionals, with an emphasis on sports.
Ernest Hemingway - author and Nobel literature laureate, spent most of his adult life living outside his native United States, often in pursuit of adventure.
Archie Moore - professional boxer.
Sugar Ray Robinson - professional boxer.
Hunter S. Thompson - author, "gonzo" journalist, inspiration for the "Uncle Duke" character from the "Doonesbury" comic strip.
Jacqueline Onassis - widow of President Kennedy, later wife of Greek tycoon Aristotle Onassis.
Robert Kennedy - brother and Attorney General of President Kennedy, assassinated while campaigning for the presidency in 1968.
Sirhan Sirhan - assassin of Robert Kennedy, Palestinian angered by Israeli victory in the Six Day War of 1967.

Tom Cruise Crazy

Tom Cruise - Actor and prominent scientologist.
Katie Holmes - Actress, Tom Cruise's third wife and mother of his third child.