No one to whom I ranted ever took my side. They all nodded to indulge me, and I got the impression I had taken my obsession with accuracy in lyrics too far. No one else cared about the fallacy of this lyric in the hit song:

IT’S ONLY HALF-PAST TWELVE, BUT I DON’T CARE
IT’S FIVE O’CLOCK SOMEWHERE

But honestly, it would have been an easy fix for Mr. Jackson’s songwriters. It could have been written like this, and then it would have been accurate:

IT’S ONLY JUST TURNED TWELVE, BUT I DON’T CARE
IT’S FIVE O’CLOCK SOMEWHERE

That would have solved it all. But record sales continued, and time passed. Other songs