Names of Songs/Books/Movies

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Some things have really obvious names, like, you can guess the names of some songs but sometimes they are really obscure. Books and movies usually have names that you couldn't possibly guess. Do you think songs should or shouldn't have obvious names?

There is a song that's being played a fair bit on the radio and I thought it would be called "You Turn Me On" or something like that. It's kind of commercial-dance-trance musicky. Does anyone know who it's by or what it's called?

― toraneko, Thursday, 8 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I remember early New Order songs hardly ever had the names in the lyrics. "Age of Consent" "Everything's Gone Green", "Ceremony". It made talking about New Order songs v. difficult.

"Do you know the one that goes..." and so forth.

― Will, Thursday, 8 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ah, Will beat me to the punch! That was *exactly* the comparison I was going to make. Admittedly that pattern of theirs had begun in Joy Division too -- "Day of the Lords," "New Dawn Fades," "Dead Souls," "Decades"...

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 8 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

So true about New Order songs. I bet they had fun naming them though.

I like names to either be really obvious or totally abstract. I hate it when things are named after one obscure line they contain (eg. "Wild At Heart"). It gives totally disproportionate emphasis to that one line.

― toraneko, Thursday, 8 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Please Don't Turn Me On by um... blimeXoR, not ANUVVER LEVEL or just DANE? Or maybe one of those other bland RNB kids who pass me by in a daze? Bloke singXoR?

― Sarah, Thursday, 8 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Dylan is of course the king of this kind of thing - 'Positively 4th Street', 'Rainy Day Woman', 'Subterranean Homesick Blues', 'Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues', 'Ballad Of A Thin Man', 'Queen Jane Approximately' etc. etc. - but was he also the first to do it?

― Andrew L, Thursday, 8 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

But Ned, Joy Division also did "Love Will Tear Us Apart" which not only has an obvious name but is also the hottest song of all time as voted #1 in both the 1989 and 1990 Triple J Hottest 100 Songs of All Time (which is apparently the biggest music poll in the world). It dropped to #2 in 1991 due to the arrival of Teen Spirit and by the time they did a "Hottest 100 of All Time" again in 1998 it had dropped to 16th place. This goes to show that the youth of today have poor taste.

― toraneko, Thursday, 8 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

'Love Will Tear Us Apart' was the reason why I didn't mention JD (easy with hindsight, isn't it?) but then, NO also did 'Regret' which mentions the title in the lyrics.

I wonder if its a Barney Sumner thing? V. few El-ectronic songs mention the title in the lyrics... hmmm.... maybe 'The Patience of a Saint'...

― Will, Thursday, 8 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I quite like it when the title of a song isn't repeated and repeated in the chorus. The only one I can think of is String Bean Jean, and that's top, that is.

― Madchen, Thursday, 8 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Radiohead don't mention titles of songs in choruses. But then they don't really *do* choruses, do they?

― Will, Thursday, 8 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

to the best of my knowledge they don't do songs Will.

― chris, Thursday, 8 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ah, but I'm not ignoring "Love Will Tear Us Apart," merely noting that not all JD songs were so straightforward. ;-) And New Order did have plenty of titles in songs before "Regret," like "The Perfect Kiss" or "Leave Me Alone" or "1963"...but anyway, music! And as it is, I appreciate the fact that the youth of today rank "Love Will Tear Us Apart" as high as they do, I prefer to see it as a sign of hope! ;-)

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 8 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well was Dylan the first, aside from things like 'The Wedding Song' and 'Indian Love Call' that kind of described the song?

― Nick, Thursday, 8 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

v.quick as it;s buffy any sec: leave aside instrumentals and jazz, obv,; in sheetsong era seems very unlikely, as songpluggers had to go hawking yr song d dancebands for you to earn a living, and radical obscure waciness wd not hel; i think this hangs over into 78s/45s for smilar reasons -->>> i think it is a product of the LP era, which means yes it cd very well be dylan (it fits his aesthetic so well) tho probably he had one- off precursors in LP-world (which recall does not VERY long predate him): first lyric sheet = sgt peppah, and i think this game is a think-deeply-abt-my-meaning, all the pieces are here if you cd but see them kinda of a game

however bebop has a v.playful/obscurantist attitude to song-titles (partly becuz many of themc were reworkings of existing sheet- music and swing numbers, and they were playing games with the copyright bds); this wd feed int beatnik circles

― mark s, Thursday, 8 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

One of the very important things New Order taught me is that you don't a) have to put your picture or group name on your releases, and b) you don't have to call remixes of your song something like "Your Song (The Really Weirdly Named Remix)".

― Brian MacDonald, Thursday, 8 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"I'm a reasonable man, get off my case. Get off my case, get off my case."

― Prude, Thursday, 8 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Somehow, talking with all these people who are slightly older than me, makes me wish I had been a teenager in the 80s. Then I might be able to understand all this reference to classic eighties bands.

― Menelaus Darcy, Thursday, 8 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one year passes...

whats the name of the song that goes........dont hand me no lines and keep your hands to your self.

― holder, Wednesday, 17 September 2003 02:51 (twenty-two years ago)

"Keep Your Hands To Yourself," Georgia Satellites

― Tep (ktepi), Wednesday, 17 September 2003 02:56 (twenty-two years ago)

eight months pass...

There is a song that goes "Have you ever loved someone so much it makes you cry?" I heard it in an older movie on t.v. and I had tears in my eyes by the time the song was over. Do you know who sings it or what show it might of been in? Thanks, Kris

― kris bossman, Sunday, 13 June 2004 00:35 (twenty-one years ago)

one year passes...

I just need names of songs could u plz send them to me

Thank you so much!!! =-)

― mike ploposki, Monday, 7 November 2005 23:58 (twenty years ago)

Robbles, I love how Tep appears there like some kind of pop-up encyclopedia of lyrics or something =)

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 8 November 2005 00:23 (twenty years ago)

this thread is four years old!

― bird-person-person (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 8 November 2005 00:36 (twenty years ago)

four months pass...

what are the songs ludacris and field mob made together

― shaneka bivins, Friday, 24 March 2006 17:44 (twenty years ago)

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