WHAT IS THIS SONG ABOUT?

I’m full of quirky little projects. Granted, most of them never get finished… but once again… I swear this time it will be different.

The first project I’m not undertaking is, of course, this blog. So far, so good. I like writing here. It rekindles my soul a bit… Besides, it’s nice to know that there are some people out there who actually read this… Hey… I’ve had 14 visitors in less than a week… not too bad!

But I want to talk about my second project…

I’m working hard at building a database that will sort songs by topics. It all started a few months ago when I was creating a mix CD for a friend and I was looking for songs about recovering from heartbreak… I wondered if there was any website that would classify songs by topic… I looked and looked and found none that was comprehensive enough… Some websites do list some specific classifications… but nothing too complete… For example, I found an 80’s website that listed the “top 5 songs about masturbation from the 80’s”… ready?...

5. Dancing with Myself – Billy Idol (obvious… sweat, sweat…)
4. Turning Japanese – The Vapors (If you think about it, it makes sense)
3. She Bop – Cyndi Lauper (a British slang, I'm told)
2. The Stroke – Billy Squier (“You put your right hand out... give a firm handshake”)
1. Divinyls – I Touch Myself (duh!)

Honorable mention:

Into the Groove – Madonna: (“Only when I'm dancing can I feel this free/ at night I lock the door so no one else can see/I"m tired of dancing here all by myself/tonight I want to dance with someone”)

Where was I?... Ah, yes… since I never did find any website that would fulfill my classification needs… I decided to publish one myself. I figured that it would be a great help for EFL teachers who might want to play topic-based songs in class… (BTW, the paradigm shifted… we no longer choose songs to play in class based solely on structure).

So far… it has turned out to be one hell of a mammoth job… but fun.

I’m starting to assign possible categories to each song on my CD song database, which I completed last year… Some songs are very straight forward… (Guess what “I Love L.A.” by Randy Newman is about?)… Some songs may have multiple categories (“Rocket Man” by Elton John falls under the categories of “drugs”, “life as a rock star”, “space”, “being apart”, “departing”…) and some songs may be impossible to label (what the hell is “Come Together” by The Beatles about?)…. So, as you can see… this has to be done carefully and I have to revisit and revise classifications often…

One fun thing is to discover recurring patterns in bands… For example, Abba has many songs about “Breaking Up” (Knowing Me, Knowing You; Mamma Mia; The Winner Takes It All; S.O.S.; One of Us, Angel Eyes…), The Beatles are all about drugs (Across the Universe, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Day Tripper, Fixing a Hole, I am the Walrus, Magical Mystery Tour, Strawberry Fields Forever and –maybe- A Day in the Life)… Elton John has many songs about living life as a rock star (Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Tiny Dancer, Bennie & The Jets, Rocket Man, This Train Don’t Stop Here Anymore..)

Boy…this is gonna take a while…