(Press-News.org) Weather is frequently portrayed in popular music, with a new scientific study finding over 750 popular music songs referring to weather, the most common being sun and rain, and blizzards being the least common. The study also found many song writers were inspired by weather events.
The study, led by the University of Southampton, together with the Universities of Oxford, Manchester, Newcastle (all part of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research) and the University of Reading analysed the weather through lyrics, musical genre, keys and links to specific weather events.
Frequently, songs mentioned more than one weather type, indicating a range of emotions within a song. Songs mentioned up to six weather types, such as 'Stormy' by Cobb and Buie. Over 900 songwriters or singers have written or sung about weather, the most common being Bob Dylan, followed by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
Weather-related songs are also very popular, with 7 per cent of them appearing Rolling Stone's (2011) top 500 list of the Greatest Songs Of All Time . Lead author, Dr Sally Brown from the University of Southampton, said, "We were all surprised how often weather is communicated in popular music, whether as a simple analogy or a major theme of a song, such as Bob Dylan's 'Blowin' In The Wind' or The Hollies' 'Bus Stop', where a couple fall in love under an umbrella."
The study, published in the journal Weather, also found that musicians were inspired by specific weather events. Dr Brown commented: "In 1969, George Harrison wrote the Beatles' hit "Here Comes The Sun" after being inspired by one of the first sunny days of spring after a 'long cold lonely winter'. Our study also concluded that references to bad weather in pop songs were statistically more significant in the USA during the more stormy 1950s and 1960s than the quieter periods of 1970s and 1980s."
The study concluded by noting a total of 30 weather-related artists, bands and lyricists, including Wet Wet Wet, The Weather Girls and KC and the Sunshine Band. The findings are a follow on from previous research in 2011 by co-authors Paul Williams, from the University of Reading, and Karen Aplin, from University of Oxford, into weather events appearing in classical music.
INFORMATION:
The team, who conducted the research in their spare time, are interested to learn about any weather-orientated music songs they may have missed in their study. For a full list of weather songs and to add missing songs, see http://bit.ly/1IfrtoL
Faith-based organisations [1] are crucial in achieving the promise of universal health coverage--an adequate standard of health care for all people--especially for poor and marginalised groups, according to a new three-part Series on faith-based health care, published in The Lancet. The Series argues that building on the extensive experience, strengths, and capacities of faith-based organisations (eg, geographical coverage, influence, and infrastructure) offers a unique opportunity to improve health outcomes.
Because of their broad reach and influence, faith-based groups ...
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The researchers base their findings on an analysis of data from three studies: The Growing up in Ireland (GUI) study; the Screening for Pregnancy Endpoints (SCOPE) study; and the Pregnancy ...
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1. For patients with no history of stroke, even very small brain lesions increase risk for death
Free abstract: http://www.annals.org/article.aspx?doi=10.7326/M14-2057
URL goes live when embargo lifts
For asymptomatic patients with no history of clinical stroke, having even very small brain lesions (less than 3 mm) detected by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) triples their risk for stroke and death, according to a study published in Annals of Internal Medicine. Having both very small and larger lesions increases the risk to eight-fold.
Subclinical brain infarctions ...
Scientists with the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) and colleagues found that very small brain lesions noted on brain imaging that would typically be disregarded by clinicians are associated with a heightened risk of stroke and death. The findings are in today's (July 7, 2015) Annals of Internal Medicine.
The discovery about these tiny lesions -- areas of the brain where tissue may have been damaged by injury or disease -- may help physicians identify people at risk of stroke and death as early as middle age, even when they are displaying no symptoms of ...
A study in the online edition of Annals of Internal Medicine suggests that coronary artery calcification (CAC) scans could help physicians identify patients at risk for premature death.
According to the National Institutes of Health, a CAC is an x-ray test that looks for specks of calcium in the walls of the coronary arteries. These specks of calcium are called calcifications and are an early sign of coronary artery disease.
Researchers from Emory University School of Medicine, led by Leslee Shaw, PhD, professor of cardiology, collected and assessed CAC scores and ...
In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers have investigated the impact of different walking aids on patients with chronic obstructive disease (COPD).
Walking with the help of a rollator (a frame with wheels, handlebars, and a built-in seat) resulted in the longest distance walked and most time spent walking. The use of walking with assistance of a draisine (a bicycle without pedals) improved walking speed with fewer strides but did not improve the time spent walking by COPD patients to cover a longer distance. "Patients with COPD walked significantly further and longer ...
In a study of 1159 males who illicitly used amphetamines, half of participants said drug use had no impact on their sexual functions, while the other half reported impacts such as reduced erectile rigidity and sexual satisfaction, enhanced orgasmic intensity, and delayed ejaculation.
"Compared with 211 matched controls, amphetamine users were twice as likely to experience erectile dysfunction," said Dr. Bang-Ping Jiann, senior author of The Journal of Sexual Medicine study.
Amphetamines are a group of drugs that stimulate the central nervous system and contain ingredients ...
Researchers have long had reason to hope that blocking the flow of calcium into the mitochondria of heart and brain cells could be one way to prevent damage caused by heart attacks and strokes. But in a study of mice engineered to lack a key calcium channel in their heart cells, Johns Hopkins scientists appear to have cast a shadow of doubt on that theory. A report on their study is published online this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"We confirmed that this calcium channel is important for heart function," says senior investigator Mark Anderson, ...
