Pop culture and the power of scientific deduction

Comprehensive tests lead Russ Swan to discover an astounding application of scientific language – the deciphering of bizarre song lyrics

I've been applying the power of scientific deduction to some overlooked areas of popular culture, and I think you'll agree I have made some startling discoveries.

As someone interested in science and language, it is a source of continuing fascination to chart to choppy waters where the two meet. On one side is the great shifting ocean of language, where definitions change rapidly and structures evolve continuously. In the vast sea of science, though, change is a little more ordered and progressive. At the boundary is where we can have some fun.

We're all familiar with the precise meanings of words when applied to science, and the way our use of them is carefully structured to avoid ambiguity. To the great unwashed of the general population, the word 'chemical' often has a negative connotation, especially when referencing foods. To us, a chemical is merely one of the types of stuff from which practically everything is made.

Similarly, 'organic' can refer to food grown to a strict set of ethical principles, or simply something that is or has been alive – an organism. To a chemist, it is specifically related to reactions that involve the element carbon.

Scientific language has developed to stamp out as many of these ambiguities as possible. Linnaean taxonomy, for example, makes it easy for us to distinguish between a fritillary (Melitaea parthenoides, a butterfly) and a fritillary (Fritillaria meleagris, a flower).

My discovery is that the power of scientific disambiguation can be applied to one of the hardest challenges in language – the deciphering of song lyrics.

The reading of hidden meaning into the often obscure words of a popular tune has become something of a cottage industry, perhaps involving playing the song backwards and perhaps going straight for the fall-back position of any amateur lyrical deconstructivist, which is of course to find references to narcotics at every turn.

The latest research released from the secret laboratories at Babble Towers has revealed that many outwardly undecipherable songs are in fact straightforward scientific observations.

Take the apparently baffling lyrics to the 1964 Motown hit He Was Really Saying Something, by the Velvettes (re-released a couple of decades later by Bananarama). Despite the claim that he was really saying something, the something he was saying was then reported as 'Bap Bap Soo Be Doo Wau'

Generations have puzzled over this, and yet the meaning is clear. BaP refers to barium proctography, a widely used technique for the imaging of pelvic floor dynamics, while Soo is an obvious reference to sulphur dioxide, SO2. Be is simply the shorthand for beryllium, referencing the precious crystalline form of that element, emerald.

The plot thickens over Wau, or WAu as it should be rendered. Our researchers have discovered that this is tungsten/gold alloy, an increasingly popular method of counterfeiting gold bullion by mimicking the actual density of pure gold.

So what exactly was he really saying, when he was really saying something? He was saying that what follows a couple of rounds of proctological examination are a bad smell, some green stones, and counterfeit gold bullion. I think that's clear to everyone.

Even more revealing for historians of Russian history is the revelation about the demise of a certain 'lover of the Russian queen' described in a 1978 disco hit by Boney M. The notorious Rasputin was, according to legend, almost impossible to kill and survived being poisoned, stabbed and shot. Many have wondered what finally did for him, in those last heady days of the Tsars, and yet the answer is plain to see: 'Ra Ra Rasputin', the songs tells us. The Romanov's favourite mystic was, undeniably, killed by radiation from the then popular new discovery, radium (Ra). Mystery solved.

What I haven’t yet determined is just why lanthanum is so universally popular with librettists (la la la…). We are even now applying for a new grant to investigate the influence of this soft grey metal in popular music.

Perhaps my greatest discovery to date, however, involves a direct scientific revelation. Paul Simon's 1986 song Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes has often been considered an allegory for the imbalance of wealth and power in society, by analysts who never took the time to consider just how silly the lyrics actually are. My investigations have exclusively revealed that the inspiration was none other than a forensic scientist's report from a crime scene, providing clues to the footwear of a culprit.

The direct quote I have unearthed reads thus: "…the perpetrator was female and wearing size 6 Converse with a rhomboid tread pattern – she's got diamonds on the soles of her shoes".