"Only" 24 hours from Tulsa.

SafeSurfer

Good tune but ridiculous lyrics. The guy is driving home and says he is "only" 24 hours from Tulsa. At a speed of 60 mph this is 1440 miles away. This is just a thousand miles short of a coast to coast New York to LA drive. Unless this guy started his journey in Patagonia or the tip of northern Alaska he has no business using the world "only".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIjUaxP7PPE

Banjo String

SafeSurfer wrote: »

Good tune but ridiculous lyrics. The guy is driving home and says he is "only" 24 hours from Tulsa. At a speed of 60 mph this is 1440 miles away. This is just a thousand miles short of a coast to coast New York to LA drive. Unless this guy started his journey in Patagonia or the tip of northern Alaska he has no business using the world "only".

Morning Sheldon.

neil_hosey

well hes going to have to stop and take a break somewhere surely?

sfwcork

Just stop will ya. I was just thinking the same this morning when I was lying in bed

Gas isnt it? Gas I tell ya

Mr Benevolent

OP, you're drunk.

SEPT 23 1989

Vodka and Gene Pitney at this hour of the day

get a job OP

La_Gordy

Good song but.

This is the most blatant case of fraudulent advertising since 'The Never-Ending Story'.

sfwcork

Its well up there with that Katy Perry Tune " I kissed a girl"

She didnt score with no Byor boiii

Duggy747

Maybe he was late and was just saying "only" to calm the people down.

Like how you would say "I'm only 10 minutes away" when really you're at least 20 minutes away :pac:

wendell borton

You think being only 24hrs from Tulsa is bad? Try walking a room a thousand years wide.:pac:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGtCf4wwj3g

eyeball kid

Maybe he's walking.

Tabnabs

Welcome to the "Jungle"?

Hello, it's a song about a city...

chasmcb

He doesn't even make it to Tulsa. He meets some dame along the way and falls for her. The song is him explaining to his Tulsa lady that she ain't going to be seeing him anymore.

Tulsa! I could never make out what he was singing

Latchy

Speaking of Tulsa ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXOZecj_oyI

Bajingo

Only 24 hours from Tulsa is as bad saying, 'This is just a thousand miles short of a coast to coast New York to LA drive.

Dravokivich

I prefer "The man who shot Liberty Valance." I even do pretend to draw a gun after he sings that line in the song.

BrensBenz

See, Yanks discarded most useful units of measurement and replaced them with stooopid ones, e.g. they have no unit of mass / weight bigger than a pound; they buy spuds in bushels; drinks in fluid ounces and gehhhss in their c0ck3d up gallon, ffs. They have also b@ll$ed up time and distance so, when you ask your average Yank how far someplace is from here, they use TIME units rather than distance. "How long is your driveway"? 'Bout twenny seconds". Therefore, Mr. Pitney could have met the new wan anywhere from Alpha Centauri to Owasso, and his mode of transportation remains critically important but unknown.

It's a good choon but open to some mockery because of the "doo doo....doo doo....doo doo...." intro and outro!

Latchy

I have this choon in my head now

'' From LA to New York from New York to LA ...hey hey hey ''

Dyr

fooks sake do I have to do everything around here?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8K8wSm6GUU

oh yeah NSFW etc

--Kaiser--

BrensBenz wrote: »

See, Yanks discarded most useful units of measurement and replaced them with stooopid ones, e.g. they have no unit of mass / weight bigger than a pound; they buy spuds in bushels; drinks in fluid ounces and gehhhss in their c0ck3d up gallon, ffs. They have also b@ll$ed up time and distance so, when you ask your average Yank how far someplace is from here, they use TIME units rather than distance. "How long is your driveway"? 'Bout twenny seconds". Therefore, Mr. Pitney could have met the new wan anywhere from Alpha Centauri to Owasso, and his mode of transportation remains critically important but unknown.

It's a good choon but open to some mockery because of the "doo doo....doo doo....doo doo...." intro and outro!

They didn't discard most useful units of measurement (I assume you mean the metric system) because they never adopted them

KungPao

I guess what he means is "Just one more day" as in he hasnt seen his girl in ages, but this time tomorrow they'll be together.

Dravokivich

KungPao wrote: »

I guess what he means is "Just one more day" as in he hasnt seen his girl in ages, but this time tomorrow they'll be together.

Well "Only one day from your arms," was in the chorus.

Latchy

He just met this other girl Darling ,it happens , it just wasn't meant to be .

/weeps

1ZRed

Ah Tulsa, the Paris of Oklahoma

BillyMitchel

OP he was driving the delorean. So he got there in 24 hours yesterday

Aglomerado

Tulsa, meh. Tulla's where it's at. It's got a Ceili Band and everything!

BrensBenz

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

They didn't discard most useful units of measurement (I assume you mean the metric system) because they never adopted them

Oh, I've experienced their reactions to metric and the rush to either medication or bibles whenever mentioned!
I was actually referrring to their (inherited) adoption and subsequent unilateral altering of British / Imperial measures, e.g. the US gallon and the boycotting of any unit of weight / mass greater than a pound.

Anyway, this won't be of any consolation to the wan in Tulsa who, after all these years, still doesn't know how close Gene Pitney was except that some unknown form of transport would have got him to Tulsa in 24 hours! Since he knew the time required to get there, he must have known the distance and speed required. So, Gene, ffs, in units of length, how close were you?

The Backwards Man

Can't believe how wrong you all are.

He was referring to the four hour gigolo sessions he hired himself out for, and he only needee twenty more before retirement.

Hence, twenty 'four hours' from Tulsa.

wendell borton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC82ewG-Qu0

ScumLord

SafeSurfer wrote: »

At a speed of 60 mph this is 1440 miles away.

60mph would be very, very fast to an American, they have speed limits like 35mph on some roads. Plus this song was probably written before their interstates were made meaning he was probably traveling on smaller roads.

Once he would have come to a corner we would probably have to stop the car and read a manual on how to turn the steering wheel on his car. He then would have crashed the car trying to go around the corner. If he was in farming country he could get spare parts from a horse cart. All these factors mean it takes an American weeks to drive across country.

BrensBenz

ScumLord wrote: »

60mph would be very, very fast to an American, they have speed limits like 35mph on some roads. Plus this song was probably written before their interstates were made meaning he was probably traveling on smaller roads.

Once he would have come to a corner we would probably have to stop the car and read a manual on how to turn the steering wheel on his car. He then would have crashed the car trying to go around the corner. If he was in farming country he could get spare parts from a horse cart. All these factors mean it takes an American weeks to drive across country.

I think there may some some miniscule flaws in your historical sequence and perhaps some microscopic exaggeration.........but I like that.

However, let's not be unfair to the US. After all, they did pay their German scientists to get them to the moon first while the Russians offered IOUs to their own German scientists. And they made it to the Moon despite yoodilizing the oddest set of measurements known to Man.

Well, maybe on second thoughts, how did a Roman calculate the number of tiles he needed for a mosaic in a room measuring XXIV by XVIII? Is it possible that if the Romans had used the "available" numbers instead of their new-fangled numerals, natural progress would have enabled us to be sitting on Mars now, sippling libations, and content knowing how many miles Gene Pitney actually was from Tulsa?

Lingua Franca

SafeSurfer wrote: »

Good tune but ridiculous lyrics. The guy is driving home and says he is "only" 24 hours from Tulsa. At a speed of 60 mph this is 1440 miles away. This is just a thousand miles short of a coast to coast New York to LA drive. Unless this guy started his journey in Patagonia or the tip of northern Alaska he has no business using the world "only".

...or Seattle.

http://goo.gl/maps/iHb8v

666irishguy

It's obvious he was already almost home and another's day driving would get him back to the wife. But the thing I can't help but think when I hear the lyrics in the song are that he stopped at one of those large truck stop/rest area type petrol stations dotted along all major routes in the states and he has inadvertently picked up a hooker and is too naive to see it. Probably wigged out from the amphetamines he has been chewing on his epic cross country dash and is not in his right mind.

Latchy

He laments '' I saw a welcoming light and stopped to rest for the night '' .

It could have been worse , he might have stopped further on down the road at the Bates Motel and met Norman and his mother ....phew

castletownman

I wouldn't mind 24 hours in Tulisa

Capt'n Midnight

Dude the song was written in 1963. State of the roads back then. And I saw a welcoming light and stopped to rest for the night


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Interstate_Highway_status_unknown_date.jpg

http://isddc.dot.gov/OLPFiles/FHWA/012899.pdf


Also Dearest darlin was better off without that cheating low life.
I saw a welcoming light and stopped to rest for the night
Bet it was dark and the narrator isn't going to like what's seen in the cold light of dawn

Capt'n Midnight

according to google maps both LA and New York are over 20 hours away from Tulsa.

If you figure out X hours stopover at night and factor in Y as the average speed realative to 1963 you could spend lots of time figuring it out

Lingua Franca

Seattle is 29 hours from Tulsa.

dr.bollocko

The Kessel Run was one of the most heavily used smuggling routes in the Galactic Empire.
Han Solo claimed that his Millennium Falcon "made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs".
A parsec was a unit of distance, not time. Solo was not referring directly to his ship's speed when he made this claim. Instead, he was referring to the shorter route he was able to travel by skirting the nearby Maw black hole cluster, thus making the run in under the standard distance.

By moving closer to the black holes, Solo managed to cut the distance down to about 11.5 parsecs.The smuggler, BoShek, actually beat Solo's record in his ship, Infinity, but without cargo to weigh him down. A few months later, Han Solo beat both his own and BoShek's records in a run he made with Luke Skywalker.

ScumLord

dr.bollocko wrote: »

By moving closer to the black holes,

Is that between Seattle and Tulsa?

blade1

Lisa Stansfield 'been around the world and i ain't found my baby'
well you obviously didn't look everywhere because he didn't just disappear into thin air.

Capt'n Midnight

dr.bollocko wrote: »

Han Solo claimed that his Millennium Falcon "made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs".
A parsec was a unit of distance, not time.

1 Parsec = 3.26163344 light years

Lingua Franca

blade1 wrote: »

Lisa Stansfield 'been around the world and i ain't found my baby'
well you obviously didn't look everywhere because he didn't just disappear into thin air.

He could just run faster than she could.

Latchy

A-Ha '' Maybe Maybe ''

'' maybe it was over when you chucked me out the rover at full speed ''

^ you can be pretty sure that if some bird kicks you out of a rover at full speed , it's defiantly over .

Gorilla Rising

The construction of the interstates and to improve roads throughout the US began in 1916.

It would be common for musicians to tour (as it still is today) via bus/carpool etc...

Coast to coast, the USA is roughly 3,000 miles distance.

It's fathomable that he could've written this song while touring. How long was he away? Weeks? Months?

I don't think '24 hours from Tulsa' is to be taken quite so literally - it may well have been the fact that he would be home in 24 hours having completed a tour or a concert somewhere.

TheUsual

By the beard of Odin, this thread is attracting nerds like fat girls like KFC chicken.

Right 24 hours from Tulsa was written before G.P.S. was invented, and as men don't have the correct DNA to ask for directions for Tulsa, the songwriter was just driving around Tulsa's famous ring-rounds.

Eventually he gets lucky after 24 hours and gets the right exit.

Rented Mule

fortune wookiee wrote: »

The construction of the interstates and to improve roads throughout the US began in 1916.

It would be common for musicians to tour (as it still is today) via bus/carpool etc...

Coast to coast, the USA is roughly 3,000 miles distance.

It's fathomable that he could've written this song while touring. How long was he away? Weeks? Months?

I don't think '24 hours from Tulsa' is to be taken quite so literally - it may well have been the fact that he would be home in 24 hours having completed a tour or a concert somewhere.

Began in 1916, but they wasn't a proper effort to get them moving until 1956 under Eisenhower. This plan actually finished in 1992.

He also played many small backwater towns across the USA and Canada while touring on a bus. There is a good chance that he was 24 hours away from Tulsa.

Gorilla Rising

Rented Mule wrote: »

Began in 1916, but they wasn't a proper effort to get them moving until 1956 under Eisenhower. This plan actually finished in 1992.

He also played many small backwater towns across the USA and Canada while touring on a bus. There is a good chance that he was 24 hours away from Tulsa.

Yes, but as stated, I think he was speaking in terms as in 'I'll be home in a day' not that he's literally 24hrs from home distance wise.

Also - the song was released in 1964 - 8 years into construction which could've allowed for faster travel in parts.

General General

Fuel consumption something else, lots of stops for petrol.. or 'gas' as the Yank calls it.

Gene Pitney also had a weak bladder, iirc.