Songs About Women

Recently, Ed and Kristen told me about an exercise they were doing where they would try to list song titles about women from A-Z. Being somewhat of a music buff, I did my best to do the same, but found it a lot more difficult to achieve. Therefore, I have decided to ask you to help me fill in the blanks.

I will update this post on what I deem to be a suitable representative song title for each letter. If you think of a song that I have not listed, please post a comment, and I will update this post. Eventually, we will fill this out completely.
I will decide on what song title I like best for each letter. Remember that just because a song has a woman's name in it, doesn't mean its about a woman. (Example: Lola by The Kinks is about a man. Mandy by Barry Manilow is about his dog)


Song titles about women
A. Angie - The Rolling Stones
B. Billy Jean - Michael Jackson
C. Sweet Caroline - Neil Diamond
D. Jack and Diane - John Cougar (Mellencamp)
E. Come on Eileen - Dexy's Midnight Runners
F.
G. Gloria - Van Morrison
H.
I. Iris - The Goo Goo Dolls
J. Janie's Got a Gun - Aerosmith
K. Kyle's Mom Is A Bitch - Cartman (South Park Soundtrack)
L. Layla - Derek and the Dominoes (Eric Clapton)
M. Maggie May - Rod Stewart
N. Nanci - Toad the Wet Sprocket **Tejan**
O. Miss Otis Regrets - Cole Porter **Tejan**
P. Paula - Paul and Paula **Thanks Kristin**
Q.
R. Roxanne - The Police
S. Wake Up Little Suzy - Everly Brothers
T.
U.
V. Veronica - Elvis Costello
W.
X.
Y. Be My Yoko Ono - Barenaked Ladies **Tejan**
Z.

You're So Vain

I have always had a problem with Carly Simon's song, "You're So Vain". If you recall the words, the song states: "You're so vain. You probably think this song is about you."

Well Carly, if this song is not about the person you are calling vain, then who is it about? It does not help matters that she repeats this statement over and over again. In fact, she says the word "you" in each line of the first verse. This song isn't about any thing else, except maybe dreaming about clouds in her coffee. And that is not entirely true. Clouds in her coffee was a metaphor for the things he gave away that he loved, one of which was her. So even my example of what was NOT about him, was in fact ABOUT HIM! ARRRGGGGHHH!!!

You Are The One Who Is Vain, Carly

I cannot believe that I am posting about Carly Simon again. Back in May, I wrote about the song You're So Vain and my aggravation from it. Now, it looks like Carly is going to reveal who this song is actually about. Before you get excited, you will not get to know. Only one person will "earn" the right to find out who this mystery person is, and will have Carly whisper the answer to the winner. How do you win this privilege? By bidding on it, of course! It's the American way. Granted, the proceeds to this auction do not go into Carly's pocket, but I have to think that the you have to be pretty full of yourself to even think of this idea. The identity of the source of Simon's jilted angst has circulated pop culture for years, but having to bid on the right to find out who the song is about seems quite conceited to me.

So if you are asking me who the vain person is, my answer would have to be Carly Simon.

Earworms

It has happened to all of us at one time or another. You hear a song on the radio, television, or in an elevator, and some incessant song repeats over and over in your head, ruining the rest of your day. According to University of Cincinnati marketing professor James Kellaris, there are definitive traits for what he calls earworms, or songs that get stuck in your head. Apparently, the songs tend to be simple, repetitive, lyrical, and contain a surprising interrupting characteristic. The art of stating the obvious gets recognition once again. Basically, Kellaris is telling us that people are more likely to remember "catchy" songs. Thanks, Jim. I would never had guessed that.

Just turn on the radio to a Top 40 station, and you will notice how the latest manufactured tunes are trying to resemble the aforementioned catchy characteristics. What Professor Kellaris did not tell you is that there is a fine line between a catchy earworm type song and an insipid annoying song. The increasing number of avenues for music exposure from a TV show like American Idol or from Internet file sharing resulted in the public no longer using the radio for the latest music trend. Instead of releasing high quality music, music labels have applied the "get-rich-quick-scheme": Generate a catchy tune and sell as many CD's as you can. Market the hell out of it, especially if the singer has a pretty face. If the faces aren't as pretty or young as they used to be, they can be easily switched out for another face, then the process is repeated. The music no longer becomes the focus, its the entire marketable package. Take a look at the boy band craze. Most of the songs sound alike, only the bands change. New Kids on the Block were replaced by the Backstreet Boys, who were replaced by N-Sync. The music industry has become an homogenized mess due to the attempted creation of these catchy earworms instead of quality music.

Music Lists

I have always been somewhat of a music buff. More from a historical perspective in the Rock n' Roll and R&B worlds. That is why I have enjoyed my visits to Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Seattle's Experience Music Project so much. I love to see the more influential artists and how they shaped the musical industry with their pioneering spirit. With the history of music, and more specifically Rock and Roll music, going through my mind I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of Music Lists from Digital Dream Door. Although it is more of a collection of musical categories than an accurate ranking of said categories despite their numerical listings.

This motivated me to transcribe my own list of performers.

Similar to John Cusack's character, Rob Gordon in High Fidelity, I have created a few lists that comprise my Top 3 Rock and Roll musicians filling the following roles: Lead Guitarist, Lead Singer, Bass, Keyboards and Drums. Instead of just listing the best at each role, I have ranked them based on musical talent, influence, contributions, showmanship, and whatever intangible I can come up with.

Top 3 Lead Singers:
In my mind a good front man had to stand up and be seen. Stand out in a crowd. Get the audience involved. These guys are flamboyant without sacrificing their craft.
1. Mick Jagger (Rolling Stones)
2. Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam)
3. Steven Tyler (Aerosmith)

Top 3 Lead Guitarists:
Guitarists come and go, but these three knew the guitar so well that they would make it do things no one has heard before, usually branding their own style that would be copied over and over.
1. Jimi Hendrix
2. Eric Clapton (Yardbirds, Cream, Derek & The Dominos)
3. Eddie Van Halen (Van Halen)

Top 3 Bassists:
Tough category to rank since these guys are more behind the scenes. Each of these guys stood out with an instrument that does not stand out. (Paul gets top billing for his song writing, while the other two are just great showmen)
1. Paul McCartney (The Beatles)
2. Gene Simmons (KISS)
3. Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

Top 3 Keyboardists:
The concept of playing piano without sight is unbelievable. Jerry Lee makes the list for his showmanship.
1. Stevie Wonder
2. Ray Charles
3. Jerry Lee Lewis

Top 3 Drummers:
Another difficult category, but Neil Peart stands alone on the top of this list. Known to write his music first, then train himself to be able to play it. Most drummers only write what they can play.
1. Neil Peart (Rush)
2. Stewart Copeland (The Police)
3. Phil Collins (Genesis)

Musical Bliss

I must have been a good boy this year, because Santa (read: Abby) brought me an iPod Mini for Christmas.  Oh, what a joyous day!  I have had a longing for one of these shiny sources of musical bliss for a long time.  Now that I have one of these magical devices in my possession, I can listen to all of my music anytime/anywhere I want.  If you are unfamiliar with the iPod or the iPod Mini, I doubt that any explanation here would do it justice.  The least I can say is that this contraption has changed my life for the better.

I have made several references on this site about my fascination with iTunes.  My new iPod Mini integrates seamlessly with my current iTunes collection.  The only snag that I have found is synchronizing my home music collection with my work music collection, but thanks to Robbie and his L337 Excel skillz, I will have a consolidated library in no time.

For those of you keeping score at home, my Apple quotient keeps rising.  With iTunes, an AirPort Express, and now an iPod Mini, I am close to a total Mac geek.  I guess the only thing left is a fancy new Powerbook.   Mmmmm. 

Ashlee Simpson: 14:59

Ashlee, your 15 minutes of fame are almost up.  After butchering your own bad song and taking that song to unfathomable depths of suckatude, 72,000 people booed you off the stage.  (ABC News has a nicer take on the story)  This is currently the funniest thing that I have seen this year (albeit only 6 days into 2005).  I have a feeling that comedy was not Ashlee's intent during her performance, but her expression to the chorus of boo birds gets me laughing every time I see it.  If you have not seen it, download the clip and get ready to laugh. 

It really bothers me that a hack like this can even embark on a musical career without a shred of talent.  I have a feeling that big sister Jessica pushed her sister down the throats of some producer to insure her own record deal.  Since Ashlee had no singing ability, they had to resort to using technology to help her sound decent.  With the technology available today, you can make anyone sound passable.  Even Andy Taylor did something comparable to mask Barney Fife's poor singing in an Andy Griffith Show episode over 40 years ago.  When you get the aforementioned hack on stage without the helpful crutch of synthesized voice-overs, you get whatever the heck that was during the Orange Bowl halftime show.

Ashlee:  After getting called out on the carpet twice on national television for your hackery, I have a feeling that we'll be seeing a lot less of you.  Maybe Lindsay Lohan can step into Ashlee's place.  She can sing, right?  Looks like Ashlee will have to fall back on her other talents.

Someone Owes Me A Dollar

The unfortunate world of purchasing music has taken advantage of me.  In the not so distant past, I purchased David Bowie's CD, Best of Bowie, which contains the song "Under Pressure".  This song, a collaboration with Queen, already existed in my vast musical library from when I purchased Queen's Greatest Hits I & II.  (I'm going through a musical renaissance with 70's rock music by purchasing several Greatest Hits albums including CDs from Yes, Pink Floyd, and Rush).  Those of you unfamiliar with "Under Pressure", might know it better from its sampling in Vanilla Ice's, Ice Ice Baby.  You sad, tortured souls.  Anyway, back to me.  I have now purchased "Under Pressure" twice.  Since I had no customized option to purchase these two CD's without overlapping a song purchase, I figure that I deserve some restitution.  Now that on-line song purchasing economics have determined that songs cash in at or around $0.99, I think someone owes my ass a dollar.  Not sure who should pay me, but paying for the same product twice is just wrong.  Although I will never see a rebate of any kind, this is my forum and I can complain as much as I want about whatever I want.  So there. 

iTunes: Not So Random

I have mentioned iTunes favoritism before and even provided an easy solution via Smart Playlists.  I apologize ahead of time for the topic regurgitation, but I felt I needed to shed more light on the subject, especially since the exact same topic has recently been mentioned in Newsweek. 

From the time I switched to iTunes as my default music player on my computer, I noticed tendencies that the player had with my musical library.  For example, my iTunes loves it some Peter Gabriel, while 311 is left to relative obscurity.  Little did I know that I was not alone in questioning the true randomness of iTunes' shuffle function.  Some even say that the latest version of iTunes (4.7) improves this feature, making it more random. (if that is even possible).  The jury is still out on this issue though. 

Another school of thought is that the human brain innately attempts to define patterns in any grouping, thus giving an element of skepticism to any "random" list.  With a limited list of around 650 songs, I do not have a large enough sample to provide a true test of randomness.  My list lends itself to pattern anyway.  My songs can easily be categorized by genre, band, or album, so getting a random distribution of similar items is nearly impossible.  My musical artist representation is not equally distributed either, so I will not be able to go very long without hearing a song from a band with more songs in the library.  Ultimately, I have a certain taste in music.  Any song that makes the cut into my library will match certain criteria, albeit those qualities are not always tangible.  Bands may play similar music or music will come from the same time period.  Therefore, achieving a purely random sample in my library may not be possible.

However, iTunes still plays music in a definable order.  A true test for you iTunes users out there would be to turn on Shuffle, play any song from your library, then forward to the next song.  These two songs seem forever linked, because if you repeat the same process with same original selection, iTunes will play the exact same second song in succession.  Browsing your iPod will hint towards this random sort order as opposed to a true random selection of songs.  When browsing your iPod, you will notice subdirectories (F01, F02, etc under iPod_Control/Music) with a grouping of songs.  My theory is that although this grouping might be random, these groups are maintained despite the random Shuffle option.

If only I knew some Mac enthusiasts, psychologists, programmers or statisticians to contribute their insights on this topic....

Copy Protected Audio CDs

There has been much hubbub about music copyrights.  With the emergence of file sharing programs like the original Napster and KaZaa, point-to-point (P2P) network users have had the ability to upload and download mp3 music files to their heart's content.  Several users have used this system avoid purchasing music, which is stealing no matter how you cut it.  I used to side with these mavericks of the P2P world, but now that there are viable alternatives which allow individual song purchases (iTunes) or song rentals (Yahoo Unlimited, new Napster), users have no excuse for avoiding purchasing music. 

The music industry seems to have taken the stance that all music consumers are thieves completely ignoring current trends towards purchasing instead of pirating music.  What am I getting at?  Several major recording labels have begun using copy protected CDs to prevent "ripping" or converting music to easily transferable mp3 files.  Why is this important?  To me, if I purchase a copy protected CD, I cannot "rip" the CD that I purchased and copy it to non-Windows based Digital Rights Management portable devices.  Who am I kidding?  I only care about getting songs on my iPod. 

At the root of this, those who provide CDs for purchase have prevented me from converting purchased music to a format that can be used on my portable music device, which is well within my rights as a consumer.  A task that I have been able to do freely with many, many CDs up to now.  I assume that this is a defense from music pirates.  This is the equivalent of preventing you from transcribing recipes from the latest cookbook you just bought to easy to use index cards.  I don't know how long it will take for the music industry to understand that technology can help them make money if they would just embrace it, instead of narrow-mindedly thinking that all technology is developed to rip them off.

Alt Country

My musical tastes have changed quite a bit over the years.  Some of my earliest influences were the Disco hits of the 70's coming from my parents' 8-tracks.  Later in my adolescence, I recall hearing the swooning from Barry Manilow, Neil Diamond and Kenny Rogers.  Mom loved the melodic love songs from the barritones.  Soon after, I discovered music that was more in line with my age group, such as synthesizer based one hit wonders in the 80's or hair bands cranking out some rockin' sounds and power ballads.  My high school days revolved around the grunge sound.  I noticed the wide-reaching influence of grunge my first year in college, when I noticed that every dorm room on my hall had a copy of either Pearl Jam's Ten or Nirvana's Nevermind.  From there I meandered from genre to genre, not really attaching myself to any particular label.  I would typically gravitate towards the college sound, comprised of a combination of electric and acoustic guitars and strong, emotional lyrics.  That musical recipe lent itself for my musical indoctrination.

Within the past few years, I have discovered the Alternative Country genre.  (Also known as altcountry, progressive country, insurgent country, or my favorite...y'allternative)  Oddly enough, the height of AltCountry came during the mid-1990's, which totally passed me by while I listened to grunge like everyone else my age.  Although I do not remember the exact impetus behind finding AltCountry, I do know that after buying Uncle Tupelo's Anthology, I haven't listened to music in quite the same way.  Do not be fooled by the moniker, AltCountry is not as twangy as the stereotypical country songs that mention losing your job/wife/dog/truck.  However, its not the college radio punk that propelled REM into notoriety.  AltCountry has a delicate balance between those two worlds.  An extra twang and you got country.  One more chord from an electric guitar, and you have punk. 

I highly suggest listening to Uncle Tupelo if you want to jump into this genre.  Don't expect anything new from UT, since they haven't been together since 1994  From there, you can choose from either of the two offspring from UT, being Wilco and Son Volt.  Some other bands that have captured my interests include, Shurman, The Jayhawks, the Old 97's and Whiskeytown.  The names of these bands probably all sound the same since you have probably never heard of them unless you have followed this type of music in the first place.  Some more recognizable singers/bands that have dabbled in AltCountry include:
Lyle Lovett, Indigo Girls, Emmylou Harris, CCR, Allison Krauss,  k.d. lang  (Although these examples tend to have a more somber, country tune, instead of the more upbeat rhythms I like)  Most of these bands reference the Carter family, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams Sr and Woody Guthrie as major influences

Take it for what it is worth, but I found that Alternative Country has scratched my musical itch.  I don't change genres much any more, so this could stick around for a while.  I don't expect everyone to like AltCountry, but I would suggest giving it a listen.

DRM No More?

Do you know what Digital Rights Management (DRM) is?  Well, you should.  Its the annoying part of digital media (music, DVD, whatever) that prevents the files from being copied.  I do not need to copy music so that I can obtain music without paying for it.  That would be stealing.  Which is wrong.  I need to be able to copy the music that I paid for without running into copy protection.  If the major music labels had their way, they would want me to pay for each copy of a song that I have.  So if I had the original CD, then ripped it into MP3s, then copied it to another computer and an MP3 player, those music labels think I should pay for the same song four times! 

In my typical music situation, I find a CD that I like, then buy it.  Eventually, I "rip" that CD into MP3s.  I then copy those MP3s to my home computer, my work computer and my iPod.  Simple enough, except I limit myself to CDs that I like in their entirety.  Its not worth it to me to buy a CD with one or two songs on it that I like, so I sift through CD after CD finding one that has multiple likable songs.  The obvious solution to this problem is to buy songs individually on the Internet, but most of those songs are locked down with the aforementioned DRM.  So if I do buy a single online, I run into obstacles using the music I paid for in the manner of my choosing on devices that I own.  What happens is that I get annoyed with the process and when faced with a decision to buy, I usually choose NOT to buy the music.

With Steve Jobs' recent declaration that music should be free (of DRM), the music labels are finally taking notice.  EMI (one of the major four music labels) is about to open up a majority of their music library, providing DRM-less music.  If labels begin providing music without DRM, I would be more likely to buy, whereas I would not have with DRM.  This would be a situation where removing restrictions would enhance sales.  There is value in music.  People are willing to pay for it.  However, people do not respond well to restriction.

My Five Favorite Songs

There are several web logs that I read on a fairly regular basis.  During my regular readings, I've noticed a theme that has been sweeping the blogosphere lately.  Bloggers have been listing their Top Five Favorite Songs, so I thought I would join in the fray.

5. State of Love and Trust by Pearl Jam.   Fell in love with this song from the Singles Soundtrack.  Stands out from other PJ songs due to its lack of screaming angst, experimental tunes or preachy lyrics.  Their music ability and passion are both captured in this song.
4. So Lonely by The Police.  Had trouble selecting which Police song would make this list, but I knew they would be represented.  This song is completely cathartic and catchy.
3. Angels of the Silences by Counting Crows.  Adam Duritz's lyrics come as hard and fast as the guitars, but can shift gears quickly into melody.  The beauty of this song comes from the alternate versions that Counting Crows have used, plus a couple of laid back covers.
2. That Song by Big Wreck.  Obscure song from the mid 1990s with an incredible melody.  The lyrics self describe the nostalgia that a song like this rekindles. 
1. Drown by Son Volt.  The perfect song to me.  Descriptive, poetic lyrics sung by a seasoned raspy voice.  Heavy chords, supporting an excellent melody.  Toes the line between every genre which makes it nearly impossible to categorize. 

I highly recommend other bloggers to post their own Top Five Song list.  What?  No blog?  Well, I guess you can post your Top Five song list here in the comments section.