Humanities desk
< February 1	<< Jan \| February \| Mar >>	February 3 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

February 2

Academic sources covering the Rolling Stones' song Paint It Black

There is currently a peer review underway of the article Paint It Black at Wikipedia:Peer review/Paint It Black/archive1 and as part of that peer review I have suggested that that article may benefit from information derived from academic sources; particularly from music theorists or musicologists. However, since I am not an expert in any of those areas and do not know how to access any of those relevant sources it may at the very least be helpful for me to ask here if it is possible for those working on the article to get any assistance. The article as it currently stands is generally well sourced and of a high quality, and it's possible that some of that more theoretical information it is currently light on may be contained within those sources as well of course. HumanBodyPiloter5 (talk) 07:46, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There may be some good leads here. --Jayron 32 12:18, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Common tune

At the start of this video the car horns a somewhat widespread short tune (my mom used a similar or modified version of it when knocking on our door - one knock, then three knocks in quick succession and then two in medium succession). What is known about it? 212.180.235.46 (talk) 21:21, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Your mom was using Shave and a Haircut, but I don't think that's what the guy on the car horn is going. Matt Deres (talk) 21:43, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds something like the start of something a pep band would play. Definitely not shave and haircut, and by the way the notes count isn't quite right. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:52, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure the rhythm isn't unique to any one song. That said, the horn in the video reminds me of the Hohner pianet riff from Summer in the City. --Amble (talk) 21:49, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It reminds me of the chant at sporting events that ends with the fans shouting "let's go" but I'm having a hard time searching for it at the moment. MarnetteD|Talk 21:52, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

(e/c) It's Let's Go (Pony) by The Routers. DuncanHill (talk) 21:53, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That would be it. Good work! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:54, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent work DH. Here it is on youtube. MarnetteD|Talk 21:56, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

We used to clap or stamp the riff and shout "Let's Go!" at primary school sports days and village fêtes and the like in the 70s. DuncanHill (talk) 22:25, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A recent phenomenon is primary school teachers initiating this clapping sequence to get the children's attention, like this (obviously a thing on both sides of the Atlantic). Alansplodge (talk) 13:37, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

And it famously features in the prison scene of The Italian Job (1969) - about 20 seconds into this trailer. I think they're shouting "England" (but maybe "Bridger", the name of Noel Coward's character) instead of "let's go". I don't know if Paramount paid any royalties. Alansplodge (talk) 14:00, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The students in May 68 in Paris shouted Ce n'est qu'un début, continuons le combat (This is merely a beginning; let's go on with the struggle) using that rhythmic pattern, which created an association with pro-democracy protests.^[1]

aside

For a song that's about as minimalistic as can be, it had a major impact.

Speaking of Ponies, here's Chubby Checker and the gang, only about 50 years before "Gangnam Style".[2] Not quite as impactful, but full of energy. There's another "Pony" song featuring big horns, and used by pep bands, but I'm not sure of the title. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:33, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Horse by Cliff Nobles. DuncanHill (talk) 22:38, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, that's it. Thank you! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:41, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The most murderous regimes throughout history?

Was there ever any regime in history more murderous than Cambodia (Democratic Kampuchea) under the Khmer Rouge, where the Khmer Rouge literally murdered up to a quarter of Cambodia's total population? Futurist110 (talk) 22:23, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, I mean most murderous in terms of as a percentage of the total population–not in absolute/overall numbers! Futurist110 (talk) 22:23, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Exact numbers are hard to pin down, and there's probably some debate to be made over definitions here, but the Holodomor in Ukraine and the greater Soviet famine of 1932–33 may, in certain republics of the Soviet Union, have had higher death rates. It was not a natural famine caused by drought or other natural disaster, but rather by the deliberate policies of the Stalin regime to support his first five year plan for forced collectivization of agriculture. See Law of Spikelets for example. --Jayron 32 12:19, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

See also List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, which has relevant sections. You might need to be a bit choosy, because not all of the events were the direct result of intentional government policy, or were imposed by foreign powers, and you'll have to do your own arithmetic to establish the proportions of overall populations. Alansplodge (talk) 12:49, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, exactly, depending on the definitions you could argue that various ancient conquests were far bloodier in terms of the percentage of the conquered population that was killed. I think at the conclusion of the Third Punic War for instance, more than 90% of the inhabitants of Carthage were killed. Pinning down comparisons to modern regimes is difficult of course, because the modern concept of a nation-state wasn't really there. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 14:50, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Similarly, the end result of King Philip's War saw similarly significant depopulation of native populations in New England. 30% of the Native American population of New England died directly in the war, and many others were executed or rounded up and exiled in the aftermath, I've seen numbers as high as 80% loss of local Native populations. --Jayron 32 15:43, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Cromwell's campaigns in Ireland are estimated to have killed 20-40% of the population. Iapetus (talk) 10:05, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]