Some Pop Lyric Equations Finally Solved

32 Questions From Pop Songs Answered With Actual Data

What is love? How far is 24 hours from Tulsa? Do they know it’s Christmas time? And how *do* you solve a problem like Maria?

1. How long does it take to apologise a trillion times? (Outkast, “Ms Jackson”)

listening to outkast's sorry miss jackson and decided to work out how long it would take to "apologise a trillion times". it's 222,578 years
— Nicky Woolf (@NickyWoolf) 

Nicky Woolf decided to answer his own question on this one, assuming Andre 3000 apologised once a second to Ms Jackson. Unfortunately, Nicky messed up his maths and forgot weeks have seven days, rather than just one – meaning the actual answer is 30,000 years.

12. How much would you have to earn to be “barely gettin’ by” in LA in 1980? (Dolly Parton, “9 to 5”)

@jamesrbuk If one were working 9-5 in LA in 1980, what would be min hourly rate that would result in doing better than "barely gettin' by".
— Keith Dyer (@keithdyer)

The Californian minimum wage was raised to $3.10 an hour in 1980, meaning a 40-hour week working 9 to 5, five days a week, would earn $124. As the questioner asked how much we’d have to earn to be doing just better than this, let’s add about 20% to our total, and say around $150 a week.

23. Can I kick it? (A Tribe Called Quest, “Can I Kick It?”)

@jamesrbuk Hi James. Can I kick it?
— Caspar Salmon (@CasparSalmon)

This is a question of property rights: As we’re dealing with an object (“it”) rather than an individual, this is a matter of getting the consent of the object’s owner. If you have ownership rights over “it”, or have that person’s permission, then yes, you can.

Complete list (BuzzFeed.com)