At the start of the song, Edwin Starr says he has 25 Miles from home. By the end, 138 seconds later, he’s home. This means Edwin Starr walks at roughly 652mph.
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He probably starts the song talking to his solicitor in a phone box near a home he's in the process of buying, and then completes the sale of his old home and the purchase of his new home midway through the song. Classic Ballad of the Conveyancer format.
But in his big hit song,"War" he neglects to say that WAR is good for Lockheed,General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman, not just for the undertaker(which he mentions)
Not to mention the paradox that 652 mph is roughly the speed of sound, so if he was singing to you while en route, you wouldn't hear any of his song until *after* he arrived.
Yeah, a lot of art mimics a dream state where temporal discrepancies melt into this emotional narrative. You actually need poetic license to create or experience such nuanced sensations. But rarely is anyone prosecuted for practicing without a poetic license.
Nah, it’s all about frames of reference - if he’s carrying the tape recorder with him, it’s all good. Nicely subsonic, too, so there’s no need to redesign his fuselage to take into account the pressure wave.
Supplemental: He says he’s been walking for ‘three days & two lonely nights’. Assuming he kept the same pace that’s almost 47,000 miles. Given the circumference of Earth is 24,900 miles it means he’s passed home at least once and kept going.
His most likely route would be on the A447, taking him through the villages of Packington, Ibstock and Cadeby. The residents would probably be quite angry with Starr as the speed limit on the A447 is 50mph.
Look at that. You’d not want to be negotiating that double roundabout at 652mph.
The song was released in January, too, so conditions are likely to be a bit slippy.
Important point raised by @broomwagon.bsky.social re speed cameras. To fool a Gatso speed camera with a 1/1000th second shutter you’d need to travel far enough to blur the image in that amount of time. R Swan, the former editor of Intelligent Transport Systems Int puts this at c1,120mph.
Busted.
Unless he started running.
652mph is his walking speed. Humans tend to run at 2x their walking speed, meaning Edwin Starr can run at 1,300mph, a hypersonic speed. Even if armed police tried to take him down for dangerous jogging he would be travelling quicker than most pistol rounds.
He would definitely have triggered various speed cameras on that route going at that speed so would be facing a lengthy driving ban and a hefty fine. Also his insurance premium would be very high when he returned to driving. I am not sure he had thought this through.
Frank Sinatra was born December 12 1915, and died may 15 1998, which is 30,105 days. Wikipedia says there's 40,214,302 miles of roads in the world. So for Frank to have travelled "each and every highway" he would need to maintain an average speed throughout his entire life of 55.68mph.
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We just accept…
Yeah, a lot of art mimics a dream state where temporal discrepancies melt into this emotional narrative. You actually need poetic license to create or experience such nuanced sensations. But rarely is anyone prosecuted for practicing without a poetic license.
"And as my head was spinning 'round
I gazed into your eyes"
She would have had to have been revolving around his head in a synchronized orbit. The centrifugal forces would have been considerable.
(Step on, step on)
Four
(Step on, step on)
Three
(Step on, step on)
T-oh bollocks, we need bread”
The song was released in January, too, so conditions are likely to be a bit slippy.
Busted.
652mph is his walking speed. Humans tend to run at 2x their walking speed, meaning Edwin Starr can run at 1,300mph, a hypersonic speed. Even if armed police tried to take him down for dangerous jogging he would be travelling quicker than most pistol rounds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azAEHCQgcUI
There's a section of the song where he seems to be travelling faster though, so perhaps he does break the sound barrier.