iTunes Word Search: "Work"

Some iTunes word searches produce thousands of matches ("love"), while others produce few or none ("havarti"). It's a thrill to discover a word that results in an optimal number of matches (and when I say "thrill," I mean, relatively speaking).

I've been thinking a lot about my past jobs lately, and while they may not inspire a set of gripping blog posts they'll at least inspire a word search.

For those about to work, I salute you!

1. Back to Work (Colleen Brown)
2. A Clean Break - Let's Work (Talking Heads)
3. Fit and Working Again (The Fall)
4. Hole-Workers (The Residents)
5. My Work is So Behind (The Residents)
   
6. There's a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis (Kirsty MacColl)
7. This Woman's Work (Kate Bush)
8. Won't You Keep Us Working? (The Residents)
9. Unrelated Work Tapes (The Infant Cycle)
10. Work 01 (Front 242)
11. Working for the Man (PJ Harvey)
12. Working in a Coal Mine (Devo)
13. Working with Fire and Steel (China Crisis)

I tried to only stick with songs about actual "labour" (as opposed to other usages of "work," such as "to be operational"). The Residents score an unusual number of entries thanks to their "Mole Trilogy" (about work-struggles between classes). Kate is, of course, LITERALLY singing about labour. China Crisis brings us a borderline definition of work, that is, "to forge."

iTunes Word Search: "Move"

In honour of my moved-out neighbours -- and whoever might end up moving in -- here's what my iPod thinks about that particular verb.

1. Begin to Move (Praga Khan)
2. Earth Moving (Mike Oldfield)
3. Gotta Move On (Dana International)
4. I'm in the Mood to Move (Ween)
5. I Can Move You If You Can Let Me (Parliament)
6. Keep on Movin' (Soul II Soul)
7. The Glass Moved By Itself (Edward Ka-Spel)
8. Make a Move on Me (Olivia Newton-John)
9. Move-On (Baby Ford)
10. Move On (ABBA)
11. Move On (K.M.F.D.M.)
12. Move Over Darling (Tracey Ullmann)
13. Move Your Ass (Erotic Dissidents)
14. Movin' Out (Billy Joel)
15. Moving (Kate Bush)
16. Moving Away (Ween)
17. Moving Like Water (Sky Cries Mary)
18. Moving to Florida (Butthole Surfers)
19. Mr. Move (Jonny Rainbow)
20. The Subject Has Moved Left (The Art of Noise)
21. We Move as One (Agnetha Fältskog)

So, when sung in song, moving tends to be about changing residency, dancing, emotion, and (as usual) sex.

iTunes Word Search: "Snow"

The snow was a bit late in coming, but it finally arrived this morning: time for winter jackets and toques, folks. In honour of that frozen precipitation that some love but most hate, here are the songs about "snow" that turned up on my iPod:

1. Beneath the Snow (Flotilla)
2. Disney's a Snow Cone (Michael Penn)
3. First Snow (Fourprint)
4. The Snow (COIL)
5. Snow (Kate Bush)
6. The Snow Falls (The Baldwin Brothers)
7. Snowball (Devo)
8. Snowball in Negative (The Divine Comedy)

If you like winter sports, congratulations. I don't, but as much as I dislike being cold I prefer snow to freezing rain anyday.

iTunes Word Search: "Ghost"

Boo, and Happy Hallowe'en! I'm hoping that no children come to weasel candy out of me; I've lived in controlled-access buildings or student slums for so long that I don't know if they'll come to this area or not, let alone to my grotty little side door, and I didn't want to buy a lot of candy and have it sit around, so...

While wearing my Hallowe'en costume at work (pictures soon) I tried to find a good iTunes Word Search theme. I couldn't think of a good word to represent "Nobody Ever Recognizes My Costume" (other than maybe "darn"), but I DID hit on a good Hallowe'en-ish word that generated results: "Ghost!"

1. City Ghosts (The Legendary Pink Dots)
2. Farm Show Ghost (Joey Wright)
3. Ghost (Headcase)
4. Ghost (The Legendary Pink Dots)
5. Ghost in the Gaps (Electroluminescent)
6. Ghost of a Texas Ladies' Man (Concrete Blonde)
7. The Ghost of Liberace (Sparks)
8. Ghost Pirates (P:Ano)
9. Ghost Talk (Cabaret Voltaire)
10. Ghost Train Out (The Vincent Black Shadow)
11. Ghost World (Aimee Mann)
12. Ghost Writer (Daniel Ash)
13. Ghosts of Unborn Children (The Legendary Pink Dots)
14. Our Kitten Sees Ghosts (Califone)
15. There's a Ghost in My House (The Fall)
16. Walking the Ghost (James)

Themes? Lost & forlorn, otherworldly, different, spooky, and remnant.

iTunes Word Search: "Sex"

With all that talk about sex and me puking -- and all the interesting points you readers have made in the comments -- I had to consult my iPod and find out what SHE thinks about sex in general.

1. All You Ever Think About is Sex (Sparks)
2. Am I Sexy? (Lords of Acid)
3. Are You Read for the Sex Girls? (Gleaming Spires)
4. Deep Sexy Space (Lords of Acid)
5. Do You Think I'm Sexy? (Revolting Cocks)
6. Feels Like Sex (Geri Halliwell)
7. Generation Sex (The Divine Comedy)
8. Goddess of Sexxx (Goddess of Destruction)
9. I Want Your Sex (George Michaels)
10. Leathersex (My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult)
11. My Exclusive Sex Club (Drywall)
12. Prison Sex (Tool)
13. Rough Sex (Lords of Acid)
14. Savage Sexteen (My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult)
15. Sex (The Pipettes)
16. Sex (I'm A...) (Berlin)
17. Sex Bomb (Lords of Acid)
18. Sex Dwarf (Soft Cell)
19. Sex Nerve (Adrian Belew)
20. Sex Object (Kraftwerk)
21. Sex on the Flag (K.M.F.D.M.)
22. Sex Whip (My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult)
23. Sexual Revolution (Roger Waters)
24. Sexy M.F. (Prince)
25. Sexy M.M. (Whale)
26. Sexy Rhino (Adrian Belew)
27. Sexy Sadie (The Beatles)
28. Tired of Sex (Moroboshi Industries)
29. Too Much Sex, Not Enough Affection (Timbuk 3)
30. You Sexy Thing (Hot Chocolate)

So the themes are generally about actual sexiness (in either a serious or a campy way), political observations about sex & gender, poking fun at kinkiness, and then the lone case of Tool.

iTunes Word Search: "Tree"

In honour of all the saplings that have been destroyed recently -- and of all those trees I saw over the weekend, and of all those leaves people will be raking up soon -- here are the "Tree" songs that showed up on my iPod yesterday:

1. Above the Treeline (Jane Siberry)
2. Birds in the Trees (The Residents)
3. Boy in a Tree (Nits)
4. Gazebo Tree (Kristin Hersch)
5. Hairy Trees (Goldfrapp)
6. Living in a Tree (Adrian Belew)
7. Marble Tulip Juicy Tree (Ween)
8. Red Maple Tree (Field Trip)
9. Shimmy Tree (Deerfoot)
10. Sitting in the Palmtree (ABBA)
11. Sitting Under a Tree (Wild Carnation)
12. Tree is Falling (Nits)
13. The Treehouse (The Cheebacabra)
14. Treehugger (Edward Ka-Spel)
15. Underneath the Big Green Tree (Stan Ridgway)
16. With Used Furniture We Make a Tree (Nits)

These songs tend to use trees as markers, containers, and supporters. There's the usual absurdist stuff, but also some ecology and -- from Jane Siberry -- a glorious song about the North.

I'm also noticing that The Residents ALWAYS show up in these lists, as do Nits. They must have song titles with a wide variety of nouns in them. And I think that I'm showing a great ABBA-loyalty by having "Sitting in the Palmtree" on my iPod.

iTunes Word Search: "Cat"

In honour of all those who do NOT have noisy pets (and while my OWN pet waits eagerly for the last drop of milk in my cereal bowl), here are the "cat" songs that showed up on my iPod yesterday:

1. Alley Cat Song (Holly Cole)
2. Big Electric Cat (Adrian Belew)
3. Boss Cat (Marc and the Mambas)
4. Burn the Cat (James)
5. Catnip Dream (Shonen Knife)
6. Cat's Eyes (Guillemots)
7. Catwalk (The Art of Noise)
8. Cool for Cats (Squeeze)
9. Facts About Cats (Timbuk 3)
10. Faster Pussycat (The Cramps)
11. Fat Cat (Bootsy Collins)
12. I Call My Baby Pussycat (Parliament)
13. Josie and the Pussycats (Josie & the Pussycats)
14. Long Way Down -- Look What the Cat Drug In (Michael Penn)
15. Macavity the Mystery Cat (Sarah Brightman)
16. Pink Pussy Cat (Devo)
17. Psychic Cat (Kelli Ali)
18. The Pussy Cat Song (Connie Vannett)
19. Pussycat Meow (Deee-Lite)
20. Six Cats on a Dead Man's Chest (Edward Ka-Spel)
21. Tommy the Cat (Primus)
22. Top Cat (Ramasutra)
23. What's New, Pussycat? (Tom Jones)
24. Wildcat Days (Bryan Ferry)

As is to be expected, most of these songs are not about actual felines. They're about sexy women, scrappy people, sly people, cool people, and rich people. So I guess I'm keeping good company, and I'd really better give her the milk she's asking for.

iTunes Word Search: "War"

Golly, we just can't get away from war these days, can we? War here, war there...even war in our iPods!

1. Cold War (Devo)
2. Ditty Diegy - War Chant (The Monkees)
3. The Dogs of War (Pink Floyd)
4. Drink Before the War (Sinead O'Connor)
5. A Drug Against War (K.M.F.D.M.)
6. The Electric Spanking of War Babies (Funkadelic)
7. The Eve of the War (Jeff Wayne)
8. The Key Shop - War and Peace (Nits)
9. Life During Wartime (Talking Heads)
10. The Old Soldier: Safety Sells, But War Always Wins (The Residents)
11. The Post War Dream (Pink Floyd)
12. Private War (Foetus)
13. War (Siobhan Fahey)
14. War (Tones on Tail)
15. War (The Art of Noise)
16. War (The Fall)
17. War of Man (Neil Young)
18. The War of Silence (The Legendary Pink Dots)
19. Wargasm 2005 (Drywall)
20. Wars of Armageddon (Funkadelic)
21. World War Six (The Legendary Pink Dots

Unlike many of the previous word searches, songs with "war" in the title seem to actually BE about war, at least tangentially, though some are metaphors for human relations. And I'm happy to see a list that includes both "Foetus" and "The Monkees."

iTunes Word Search: "John"

My life, right now, is largely the digestion of John Barth's novel "LETTERS," and the self-imposed task of reading all his subsequent books. I'm worried that I might get sick of Mr. Barth. I do not want this to become "work" as opposed to "pleasure."

To divert myself, I wondered what songwriters think about "John." An iTunes word-search did the trick:

1. Angry Johnny (Poe)
2. Dear John (Aimee Mann)
3. Dear Johnny (Poe)
4. John Cope (Talk Talk)
5. John E. Smoke (Butthole Surfers)
6. John the Revelator (Depeche Mode)
7. Johnny B. Carcass (Gogh Van Go)
8. Johnny Come Home (Fine Young Cannibals)
9. Johnny Said: Silver (Nits)
10. Johnny Yen (James)
11. Little Johnny Jewel (Chrome Cranks)
12. No Xmas for John Quays (The Fall)
13. Not Now John (Pink Floyd)
14. Stories of Johnny (Marc Almond)
15. Surabaya Johnny (Maat)

Not surprisingly, "John" is an all-purpose name...but is there a trend here anyway? We've got morally ambiguous boyfriends named Johnny, we have a mystical John E., we have potential references to the Biblical John, we have lots of of working-class Johns, a junkie "John Quay," and a soldier John.

To answer my own question: nope, probably no trend, John just sounds good and doesn't disrupt the rhyme.

An iTunes Word Search: "Star"

When a song contains the word "star," what is the songwriter talking about?

1. All Star Funk (Bootsy Collins)
2. All the Stars are Falling (The Tear Garden)
3. Beloved Movie Star (Stan Ridgway)
4. Biggest Star (The Elected)
5. Brightest Star (The Legendary Pink Dots)
6. Catch a Fallen Star (Marc and the Mambas)
7. Child Star (Marc Almond)
8. The Darkest Star (Depeche Mode)
9. Dog Star (Klaatu)
10. Dogstar Man (Meat Beat Manifesto)
11. Filmstar (Suede)
12. Flesh Star (My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult)
13. I've Told Every Little Star (Linda Scott)
14. Manic Star (Conjure One)
15. Moon and Stars (Nits)
16. Mothership Connection -- Star Child (Parliament)
17. She's a Star (James)
18. Soul Mate Rock 'n' Roll Star (Mary 5e)
19. Star (Curve)
20. Star (Erasure)
21. Star Spangled Banner (Red House Painters)
22. Starchild (Level 42)
23. Starless and Bible Black (King Crimson)
24. Starlight (Stars of Stage and Screen)
25. Starmartyr (My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult)
26. Stars (The Weepies)
27. Stars Ablaze (Red Ram)
28. The Stars on 11 (Yoko Casionos)
29. Stars on Sunday (The Legendary Pink Dots)
30. The Stars That Surround You (Monster Movie)
31. The Stars We Are (Marc Almond)
32. Starstation Earth (Banco de Gaia)
33. Stereostar (Madrid)
34. Superstar (Daybehavior)
35. Til the Stars Fall (Strange Advance)
36. Top Star (Komeda)
37. Vein of Stars (The Flaming Lips)
38. Wannabe Superstar (Ivana F.)
39. We Are All Made of Stars (Moby)
40. You're a Star (Josie and the Pussycats)
41. Ziggy Stardust (Bauhaus)

Holy cow, that's a lot of stars! And go figure that Marc Almond would be in there twice (with a "tragic" view of stars: superstars that are also falling stars, bright and distant) as well as My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult (sexy/'70s/pop-porn-film stars).

Otherwise, what do these songs say about star metaphors? Fame, prestige, apocalypse, fairy tales, ambition, specialness, spooky universal mystery, tragedy, and wishing.

An iTunes Word Search: "Sister"

An important question arises when I think of my sister's marriage this weekend: when somebody is singing about "sisters" in a song, what are they REALLY singing about? iTunes word search to the rescue!

1. Baby Sister (The Residents)
2. Cry Little Sister (Gerald McMann)
3. Little Sister (Concrete Blonde)
4. Little Sister (The Residents)
5. Mother-Sister! (The Fall)
6. Neon Sisters (Thomas Dolby)
7. Sister Europe (Gogh Van Go)
8. Sister Marie (Harry Nilsson)
9. Sister of Mercy (The Thompson Twins)
10. Sister of Night (Depeche Mode)
11. Sister Rosa (Nits)
12. Sister Ship Twenty Three (Sky Cries Mary)
13. Sister Witness (A Thousand Other Names)
14. Squeezit's Vision of His "Sister" (Mystic Knights of the Oingo-Boingo)
15. Three Sisters (The Divine Comedy)
16. Three Sisters (Nits)
17. Unchain My Sister! (Elastic Purejoy)
18. Your Sister Can't Twist But She Sure Can Rock and Roll (Elton John)

Thematically we've got some wise earth goddesses, we've got songs about close relationships, and we've got some vampirey "blood sisterhood" sort of stuff. There's a general sense of naivete, rarely sexual.

And The Residents. God only knows what they're talking about.

An iTunes Word Search: "Fish"

Ever curious, I found myself searching for songs about "fish." iTunes to the rescue!

1. 4:50 AM - Go Fishing (Roger Waters)
2. A Nice Little Fish Business and Making Money (Transglobal Underground)
3. Around the Fish (Nits)
4. Blowfish (Doubting Thomas)
5. The Family and the Fishing Net (Peter Gabriel)
6. Fish Head (Adrian Belew)
7. Fish, Chips and Sweat (Funkadelic)
8. Fishes (Nits)
9. Fishing (Nurse & Soldier)
10. Joan Miro's Procession Through the Insides of a Purple Antelope Across a Sea of Tuna Fish (Adrian Belew)
11. Sukkafish (The Grates)
12. Swordfish Lame?nt (The Legendary Pink Dots)
13. Wall Was More Like the Spot than the Fish (Barnabee Log)

I see that some songs ("Go Fishing," "The Family and the Fishing Net") use "fishing" as a back-to-nature/primitive ritual. Both Nits songs ("Around the Fish," "Fishing") are superficially about fish, but mostly about freedom and movement. "Fish, Chips and Sweat" covers the "food" part of fish.

But all the other songs -- the large majority -- use the word "fish" for an alliterative or surreal purpose. I suppose that "fish" is sort of a strange and funny word, in the same way that "duck" might be (we'll try that another time!)

An iTunes Word Search: "Hair"

Do people actually write songs about "hair?" I did a search on my iPod to find out.

1. Bad Hair (The Legendary Pink Dots)
2. Bernice Bobs Her Hair (The Divine Comedy)
3. Devil's Haircut (Beck)
4. Hair of the Dog (Bauhaus)
5. Hairless Domotron (Intercom)
6. Hairstyles and Attitudes (Timbuk 3)
7. Hairy Piano (Moodswings)
8. Hairy Trees (Goldfrapp)
9. Hanging By His Hair (The Residents)

I'm not sure what "Bad Hair" is all about, good luck figuring out Beck and Goldfrapp...any "hair" in their songs is more likely a stream-of-consciousness piece of beat consciousness than anything even remotely concrete. "Hairless Domotron" and "Hairy Piano" are just titles that sounded nifty, I think. And "Hair of the Dog" is just a hairless metaphor.

Which leaves us with three songs that are ACTUALLY about hair. "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" is about a woman who cuts her hair in order to feel empowered, but instead feels insecure. "Hairstyles and Attitudes" is a typically irreverent Timbuk 3 song that attempts to link...well, hairstyles and attitudes. "Hanging By His Hair" is some sort of biblical reference to somebody who really did -- so we're told -- hang by his hair.

An iTunes Word Search: "Child"

Long ago, Eli and I did general music shows at CKMS, and sometimes we'd brainstorm themes. Could one of us do a show entirely full of songs about bodybuilding, for instance, or alcohol, or trees? We'd wrack our brains for songs that fit particular themes, and we'd usually end up being surprised at how good our mental search engines worked.

But now I have an iPod, and I'm constantly fascinated by the way it searches. I find myself typing the first letter of the word I'm looking for, seeing how many songs titles contain that letter, then I type a second letter, I watch the search narrow down...and I notice that some words appear in a huge number of songs ("love") and others you rarely see at all ("metamorphafasize").

Anyway, while iTunes can't tell me anything about the THEME of a song on my iPod, it CAN do a quick and dirty search through the titles. So I wondered: what will I find if I pick a moderately common word like "child" (excluding derivations of the word like "childhood" and "children") and see which song titles pop up?

Try it with your music selection! Here's what I found:

1. Pity the Child (Andersson-Ulvaeus-Rice)
2. Child King (Edward Ka-Spel)
3. Spoilt Victorian Child (The Fall)
4. Man with the Child in His Eyes (Kate Bush)
5. Child Star (Marc Almond)
6. Satan's Child (Marc Almond)
7. The Inner Child (Mike Oldfield)
8. Do You Fear For Your Child (My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult)
9. Eyes of a Child (Naked Eyes)
10. Hot Child in the City (Nick Gilder)
11. Star Child - Mothership Connection (Parliament)
12. The Obvious Child (Paul Simon)
13. A Spirit Steals a Child (The Residents)
14. Hurting Child (Roxanne Potvin)

When it comes to children we have quite a few songs about bad childhood, and songs about naivete, songs about bad children, songs that use "child" to mean "young adult," songs with cryptic lyrics that aren't really about children at all, and...well, a song about a spirit-abducted Eskimo child. The latter is probably not a common song theme.