Lyrics: a new look

[tahnan]

Ages ago, I posted ten lyrics from my iTunes as part of a sort of a meme that was wandering around.

Recently, over at Sporcle (why yes, I do spend too much time there, thanks for asking!), someone posted a new variation on the old lyrics quiz. He ran the lyrics through Wordle, which you've probably seen at some point: it creates a word cloud, removing common words like "the" and "I" and making more common words larger. (He also wisely removed the song titles from the lyrics.) It turns out to be a really neat way to visualize song lyrics. His quizzes are here and here—even if you don't feel like taking the quizzes, the images are worth a look.

So naturally I felt the need to create a few of my own. No points for guessing the songs (though feel free to in the comments, if you're so inclined); no shame in Googling the lyrics (which ought to be easy to do). Anyway, I thought they came out well.

Comments

[tablesaw]

While I know the melody of #2, I apparently don't actually know many of the lyrics.

[(Anonymous)]

I was under the impression that the lyric in #1 was "don't tie no bows"...were No-Doz even around back then? Anyway, points or no points (sorry, don't know how to do spoiler tags)...

#1: Subterranean Homesick Blues
#4: Enormous Penis
#7: When Doves Cry
#8: Total Eclipse Of The Heart
#9: Son Of A Preacher Man
#10: In Your Eyes

Jangler

[tahnan]

In the video (which you hopefully know, given how utterly terrific and classic it is), Dylan is holding a card that says "no dose" when that lyric comes around. As it happens, though, I got the lyrics from http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/subterranean-homesick-blues, and I figure he'd know. (Not necessarily; there's probably a lot of the 60s he doesn't remember, but I'm hoping he had notes.)

[cnoocy]

#3 "Postcards from Mexico" which is easier if you know all three lyrics to the chorus.
#5 keeps resisting my attempts to make it be "Miss Otis Regrets".

[tahnan]

You know, I don't even know Miss Otis Regrets? Except by reputation. No, it's not that; if it helps, there's a (smaller) word in there that doesn't appear in too many songs, which might point you in the right direction.

(I was about to say "probably doesn't appear in any other song I own", until I realized in fact it does. Track 10 on an eleven(!) track album from 1993, for those playing along at home.)

[cnoocy]

Having since used the google, I'm assuming you mean one of the two red words touching "moonlight" to its right. Is it the one that appears in a #5 song from 1964 (track #1 on the album), or the one that appears in track #32 of 38 on a 1992 album that you would never own?

I have no idea what your 1993 album is.

[tahnan]

The red words touching "moonlight" seem pretty common to me. (What, "Whisper"? Heck, I can think of a number of songs that have that in the title—Whisper to a Scream, Careless Whisper, well ok so "a number" in this case is "two", but I wouldn't expect it to be uncommon.) No, I was thinking of the fourth-leftmost green word.

[cnoocy]

In that case, your 1993 album is Ten Summoner's Tales.

[tahnan]

Naturally; hence the exclamation point on the fact that the album is eleven songs long. (Of course, track 11 is the epilogue. What's stranger is that it's twelve tracks in the UK.)

[cnoocy]

There's a similar thing going on in Suzanne Vega's Nine Objects of Desire, which has 12 tracks, though nine objects are listed in the dedication.

[jadelennox]

the interesting thing about Postcards is how much it represents how the song sounds in my head, partially because of that huge BABY.

[logophage]

The only one that jumps out at me is #5, for reasons that should be obvious.

[tahnan]

Obvious, yes, but I'm not sure if that's "obviously you love it" or "obviously you hate it".

[logophage]

Meh, I've done both in my time. Now I'm just sort of middlin' range.
I googled the two remaining un-guessed (2 and 6) and wasn't familiar with either of them.

[tahnan]

#6 is almost a guilty pleasure; I didn't pick it because it's necessarily a great song, but because I happen to love it. (The tune is ridiculously perky for the sentiment of the song. I only ever really noticed it because it was playing in a coffeeshop, or rather, because it was rather suddenly stopped in a coffeeshop when someone came in with a kid, and I Googled the last lyric I could actually remember hearing to figure out why.)

#2, on the other hand, is simply beautiful. Well, as is all of his stuff.