Trashy Pearls | My Music Blog

Archive for the ‘Music Lyrics’ Category

In today’s world, many people turn to the internet to find information about any subject that one may think about. One subject that is increasing in popularity is searching for full music lyrics to all and any genres of songs. This is fairly simple to accomplish with a simple search in Google, but some people worry that in the very near future, this may or may not be changing.

Yahoo recently announced a new feature that would allow users to search music lyrics from their site. Yahoo has obtained licensing for tons of artists from many different record labels. In exchange for the allowed use of the music lyrics, Yahoo provides a portion of all advertising revenue gained from the site to the artists and record labels.

Some owners of other music lyrics websites have worried that Yahoo’s new system will take away a large portion of their site’s traffic. One website I contacted even suggested that they would have to take an additional approach, such as offering a new mobile-based lyrics system for cell-phone users, in response to the loss of advertising revenue due to Yahoo’s new music lyrics system. Additionally, some lyrics websites are disallowed from posting lyrics to certain artists or bands due to copyright issues. Yahoo’s system is an attempt to get around this problem and offers music lyrics to any song the user would want to search for.

While Yahoo’s approach is an elegant solution, there are still a couple of drawbacks to their music lyrics system. Part of the deal agreed upon by Yahoo and various record labels include the requirement for all lyrics to be in picture format versus pure text. This is mainly to prevent users from copying and pasting the text of lyrics and to prevent online robots from crawling their webpage with the sole intent to steal the text of the lyrics. This also has a drawback, as mentioned above. Since the lyrics are in picture format, search engines will not be able to see the text in the lyrics, and searches where users enter a verse from their favorite song will not return a result from Yahoo’s system.

Yahoo’s music lyrics search also suffers from the fact that the “typical” internet user just doesn’t know about it. With Google being the current king of search engines, a good portion of internet users have no idea that Yahoo offers such a system. These users will continue to search for music lyrics as they always have in the past, through a typical Google search. This, coupled with the fact that 90% of search engine traffic comes from Google, will mean that although Yahoo’s system is a nice approach, many online music lyrics websites will not be as heavily hit as some once thought after Yahoo’s announcement. One thing is for certain: unless Yahoo takes over as the king of search engines, most users will continue to find music lyrics online in the same fashion they have used in the past, through Google.

The devil is said to appear in countless forms, and many people were convinced he appeared in the form of rock bands when they began backmasking their lyrics in the 60s.  Backmasking, or backward masking, is a technique of recording song lyrics backward onto a track that is played forward.  What started as an innocent accident by John Lennon swirled into a frenzy of controversy, record-burning protests, proposed government legislation, and a witch hunt for bands whose lyrics were deemed satanic.

Backmasking of song lyrics was one of the Beatles’ many musical innovations.  While high on pot, John Lennon accidentally played the tapes for the song “Rain” backwards, and liked the sound of the reversed lyrics.  The rest of the band agreed, and incorporated the effect into the tune, making it the first to contain backmasked lyrics:  “Sunshine….rain.…when the rain comes, they run and hide their heads.”

At the time, music was recorded on vinyl, which could be manually played backwards on a turntable.  A disc jockey, intrigued by rumors that Paul McCartney was dead, played the tune “Revolution 9” backwards, and heard the lyrics “Turn me on, dead man,” as well as the lyrics “Paul is a dead man, miss him, miss him,” when playing “I’m So Tired” backwards.  These lyrics appeared to confirm the “Paul is dead” rumor, which popularized the backmasking of rock music lyrics.

This led to a fierce backlash from Christian fundamentalists in the 70s.  They accused Led Zeppelin of planting satanic lyrics in “Stairway to Heaven.” They also alleged that bands, including the Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Electric Light Orchestra, Queen, and Styx were cooperating with the Church of Satan by backmasking messages from the devil into their song lyrics.  The religious right pushed for legislation to place stickers on these bands’ albums warning about lyrics inspired by Lucifer, but the bill was defeated.

In retaliation, several of the accused bands recorded albums containing intentional, ridiculous backmasked lyrics.  ELO fired back with an album called Secret Messages, containing the backmasked lyrics, “Thank you for listening,” “Look out, there’s danger ahead,“ and “You’re playing me backwards.”  Styx took jabs their critics with the album Kilroy Was Here, whose lyrics parodied an imaginary group called “The Majority for Musical Morality,” which outlaws rock music.

Heavy metal song lyrics reeled from some of the hardest hits.  In his 1988 trial, serial killer Richard Ramirez testified that the lyrics of “Night Prowler,” from AC/DC’s Highway to Hell album, drove him to commit murder.  Judas Priest was sued in 1990 because two Nevada boys had made a suicide pact that was allegedly inspired by the subliminal lyrics, “Do it,” in the band’s song “Better By You, Better Than Me.”  The case was dismissed for insufficient evidence that the lyrics played a role in the boys’ deaths.

Like inkblots and clouds, lyrics played backwards can be interpreted as anything if you concentrate long enough.  Or, as comedian “Weird Al” Yankovic joked in the backmasked lyrics of “I Remember Larry,” “You must have an awful lot of free time on your hands!”  Elcitra siht deyojne uoy epoh.

Many of us are creating an internet marketing business from home while working other jobs, or caring for children at home, at the same time. What is the quickest way to put money in the bank, doing all of this, while increasing our sense of well-being, without burnout?

Self-perception probably dictates the inner music lyrics we sing to ourself all day long. Self-talk is a topic that comes up in manifesting success strategies, and the idea that what we see when we look at the world, and what of the world is coming our way, is a reflection of our self-perception.

IS your self-talk music to your ears? Because if it’s not good news, you need to change stations. Do you ever catch yourself thinking “wow, how will ever I ever find the time to keep up with these internet marketing strategies?” The switch can be in small degrees to something like “Somehow I WILL find time to keep up with this ‘money in the bank’ endeavor! Somehow!”

Kind of an aside, but today I was reading on digg.com and there was an audio up of a “Lost” episode with reverse tracking and a voice was repeating “Only fools are enslaved in space and time”. Creepy woo-woo-woo ambiance. Unless you are reading this from somewhere in the Pleiades, you are indeed in space and time (rumors are that the Pleiadians are not) but you are not necessarily enslaved here and now.

For one thing, now goes on forever so….. okay that’s too big a topic for this article, but consider the ways you can manipulate time and space. Starting with the physical universe.

Unfortunately manipulating space usually means cleaning up. Yup, organize that clutter. You might not be singing “On a clear day you can see forever” yet, but hopefully you can see the other side of your desk. You can study feng shui, hire a professional, or just clean up. If you hate filing but are afraid to throw that pile of papers out, here’s an idea. Every month start a new file. Throw everything in it that you haven’t read, or haven’t made a decision on. At the end of six months, go through them, get rid of everything you can, and then put the remainder into one file. Of course the more info you can just save in computer files, the better. But you need to de-cludge those too.

Time can seem a little trickier. According to quantum physics, there is none. So you have as much as anybody else has. But being in the time continuum, 24/7, is useful, does put money in the bank, and almost everything about time has inspired music lyrics throughout the ages. Maybe second to moon phases.

Two big issues related to having enough time:

nutrition, so you sleep well, enjoy exercising, feel optimistic, and adapt to changes; boundaries, so others let you have some time to yourself, i.e., actually BE UNAVAILABLE predictably and consistently, to EVERYONE! And that means without guilt.

I will stop there because those 2 issues could get me writing a book.

I don’t want to write a book today. I want to have happy inner music lyrics playing, and do things that put money in the bank.

I have to go now, and I hope you have time for a quiet walk, or some meditation, or at least a drive to the market with your cell phone turned off. Listen to some fabulous music lyrics, or just whistle a happy tune.

I think this will help you get enough done, stay effective toward putting more money in the bank, talk nicely to yourself, and relax a little more.