Carl

Thanks to Sara, Song Fallacies has a new look. We also cleaned up the questions and added some new ones. Give it a shot.

Congratulations to Eric from Suffern, NY. He wins a clean and comfortable Songfacts T-shirt. Here are the answers: What musician used to be known as Romeo Blue? - Lenny Kravitz He wore blue contact lenses to get the look. Popular guesses were Prince, Billy Idol, and Lil' Romeo. What rock star was injured recently when he crashed his all-terrain vehicle? - Ozzy Osbourne He took a nasty spill, but is making a recovery. When he appeared on The Arsenio Hall Show campaigning for president, what song did Bill Clinton play on sax? - Heartbreak Hotel Our favorite wrong answer was "Play The Funky Music, White Boy." A lot of people thought it was "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow," which was his campaign song, but doesn't translate well to the sax. What famous pop singer has a best-selling children's book? - Madonna The book is called The English Roses. What R.E.M. song was used as the theme song for a TV show? - "Stand" It was the theme song to Get A Life, starring Chris Elliot as a middle-aged paper boy. It ran on Fox from 1990-1992. Fox was a new network, and willing to try just about anything. This didn't work so well, but another show that came on around that time did - The Simpsons. What famous singer got her start touring with Michael Jackson as a backup singer? - Sheryl Crow She had big hair and got to duet with him on "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" during the Bad tour. What singer filmed a part for the movie Spiceworld that was edited out when he got arrested? - Gary Glitter The guy famous for "Rock And Roll, Part 2" got arrested for having child pornography on his computer. What singer is named after an African word for "Fire"? - Chaka Khan Popular guesses: Ashanti, Shakira, Sade, Aaliyah and Erykah Badu. It's also clear that no one remembers how to spell India Arie. What band took their name from a group mentioned in the movie A Clockwork Orange? - Heaven 17 What famous song is based on a movie about a town that is destroyed by a hurricane? - "Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival The movie was The Devil And Daniel Webster. Good guesses include "Galveston," "My Hometown" and "Key Largo." Tiebreaker: How many CDs did the Songfacts staff get for Christmas? - 5 Thanks to everyone who took the quiz, and be sure to take the new one here.

I had a chance to listen to their CD. It's straight-up Rock, and very clean. Good production and you can understand every word. It sounds like they have something to say, but it might be a few more listens before I figure it out - that's not a bad thing. Another positive - the songs don't all sound alike. It's clear these guys have honed their skills and might be ready to (catch phrase alert) go to the next level.

You would think we would have some Joe Walsh by now, especially songs like "Life's Been Good" and "Funk 49," but somehow we don't. We'll keep an eye out and try to get some of his stuff into the database. In the mean time, if anyone has some Joe Walsh info, please send it in.

When we interviewed Ron Cornelius, who played guitar on several Dylan albums, I asked him about what he thought some of Dylan's lyrics meant. His answer was something like, "If anyone tries to tell you they know what Bob Dylan was thinking when he wrote a song, they're lying." Dylan's a tough one. His songs mean a lot, but they mean different things to different people. Dylan himself rarely says what they mean to him.

We got some Songfacts about "Knocking On Heaven's Door," which I didn't know was written for a movie - Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid. It's such an emotional song, but I guess it was about a character in the film. Anyone know more? Dylan was also in the movie. It's interesting that guys like Dylan, John Lennon and Mick Jagger showed up in a lot of fairly obscure movies.

We've been working on lyrical pursuit for a while. It will be a game that will test your knowledge of song lyrics. It will function in a way similar to Song Fallacies, which will keep us from having to write too much code. It will be an interesting game - it will test my theory that many people listen to lots of music and know the words to a lot of songs. At some point, we'd like to put a nice design together for both Song Fallacies and Lyrical Pursuit. Right now it's fairly basic. Carl

Here's the info we received: Tom got the idea for this one from a pilot he saw on TV. The pilot said how it wasn't hard learning to fly.. the hardest part was coming down. We'll try to get this on Songfacts in our next update.

girlcharisse from Rock Steady, CA John from Philadelphia, PA Both win a clean and comfortable Songfacts T-shirt. Here are the answers: What band has a drummer who lost an arm in a car accident? - Def Leppard What rock singer recently recorded an album of standards that sold over 4 million copies? - Rod Stewart The album is called It Had To Be You... The Great American Songbook. What singer or band has the biggest-selling album in the history of Motown Records? - Lionel Richie - Can't Slow Down Common guesses were Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson. I think a lot of people thought Thriller was a Motown album, but it wasn't. Who was the first Irish-born artist inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame? - Van Morrison What group was named after a sculpture in Seattle? - Soundgarden What 2 famous musicians have the Detroit Tigers baseball logo tattooed on their forearm? - Kid Rock and Eminem In what city did The Rolling Stones play to their biggest crowd? - Toronto 500,000 fans were at a SARS benefit on July 30, 2003. What hit by Styx contains some lyrics in Japanese? - "Mr. Roboto" What band got their name from a phrase used on the TV show CHiPs? - Seven Mary Three What band was named Best New Artist of 1978 by both Rolling Stone and Creem magazines? - The Cars Tiebreaker: How many times has the Songfacts staff seen Finding Nemo? - 3 Thanks to everyone who took the quiz, and be sure to take the new one here.

If you haven't done so already, dig into the Who's Who's Next album.

Or "Route 66." There's also "Heart Of Rock And Roll" by Huey Lewis. I'm 80% sure they customized that, so radio stations played versions that mentioned local citys.

Jenni- Glad you like the Top 10 list. It's not broken, it just seems like Night Moves has a lot of fans. Hopefully we'll see a bunch of different songs up there each day. I like your Woodstock. Carl

For reasons I can't really explain, Lionel Richie's Back To Front album.

Here in CT, we have a venue problem. There are some great 700-1000 seat clubs, a wonderful 5,000 seat theater, a big outdoor venue and the good ole' Hartford Civic Center, which shows up on the Rock And Roller Coaster ride at Disney World if you're really paying attention. Anyway, there are a lot of great acts that fit nicely into a 3,000 seat theater, and most of them avoid Connecticut. There is a hall in Hartford that holds about that number, and that's where we saw Barenaked Ladies, but they are more of an off-Broadway kind of place and rarely have concerts. It's great being part of the masses for a fantastic arena show by a band you love, and it's also fun to catch some great music in small clubs, but a nice, mid-sized theater can draw some great acts and provide a very comfortable listening experience. At least we have Northampton, Mass nearby. That city leads the league in music venues per capita.

Mike is the guitarist for Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers. He's the guy who came up with the tracks for songs like "Refugee" and "You Got Lucky." He has also produced many of their songs and worked with Don Henley on "Boys Of Summer" and "Heart Of The Matter." It's rare that you go a day without hearing a song he wrote, produced, or played on. Check out some of these songs: http://www.songfacts.com/factsearch.lasso?category=campbell&-search

The former lead singer of Men At Work spoke with us about some of their songs. You might be surprised to learn what "Down Under" is really about. This group made some really interesting music that was very popular around the world. By not taking themselves too seriously, they were huge hits on MTV back when the channel was just getting noticed. Here's the link to their songs: http://www.songfacts.com/factsearch.lasso?category=menwork&-search

We were close to getting some real good Songfacts on "Brown Eyed Girl," but for some reason we didn't. From what I can remember, Van hated the song. He put it together as a pop confection to prove he could sell albums if he wanted to, but chose artistic integrity instead. This came after his album Astral Weeks , which is considered a classic, but caused some problems when it was released. If anyone knows more, please post.

Aditya from Dubai, United Arab Emirates is the winner of a clean and comfortable Songfacts T-shirt . Here are the answers: What former Beatle appeared in a Madonna movie? - George Harrison. He was in Shanghai Surprise. A lot of people guessed Ringo. What popular singer from the '60s and '70s converted to Islam and stopped recording secular music? - Cat Stevens What magazine has used rappers Nelly, Ludacris, Outkast and Ja Rule as guest photographers? - Playboy This was a tough one. Most guesses were Vibe, Source, Jet or Spin. What band has a mascot named Eddie? - Iron Maiden Who made a surprise appearance at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards and asked, "Heard Any Good Jokes Lately"? - Paul Reubens, better known as Pee Wee Herman What musician appeared on the first episode of <i>Sesame Street</i>? - Luther Vandross He was with a group called Listen My Brother. What song that Marilyn Manson covered did he say was "More depressing and offensive than anything I've ever written." - "Suicide Is Painless" (theme from M.A.S.H.) What is the best-selling single by a female group? - "Wannabe" by The Spice Girls Most guesses for this were songs by Destiny's Child, The Bangles, The Go-Gos, and TLC. Who was the first rapper or rap group to earn a gold record? - Kurtis Blow ("The Breaks") Just about everyone guessed Run-DMC. A few people guessed The Sugarhill Gang, Will Smith or The Beastie Boys. Frank is the only one who got this right. What band is being sued by fans after leaving the stage at a concert this summer after playing for just 17 minutes? - Limp Bizkit The show was in Chicago, and the crowd turned hostile in response to derogatory comments from lead singer Fred Durst. Tiebreaker: How many pumpkins did the Songfacts staff buy for Halloween? - 1, but we had plenty of gourds. Some people thought we bought hundreds of pumpkins. Thanks to everyone who took the quiz, and be sure to take the new one here.

I saw them at a show opening for Johnny Lang. For most of their set, the guitar was over-driven and the whole mix sounded off. After their set, I found out why - one member of the band was sick, so they were reduced to a 3-piece that night. I didn't hear their best stuff, but lots of people have told me they're great.

We haven't heard from Brad in a while, but he was our #1 contributor. As far as I know, Brad was an oldies DJ or involved in oldies radio in some way. He had this massive knowledge of songs, and when Songfacts went online, he finally had a place to unload it. He's had computer issues that have kept him away from time to time, but we hope he gets a chance to come back to the site and check in on the boards. Brad, if you're out there, phone home.

Eggplant, everything you say is true and pretty much makes sense. Simply by entering the list, the songs have a good chance of staying there for most of the day. It's a completely computer-driven process. What's great about the list is that new users can get an idea of what the site is about by checking out the songs. How many times do you go to a website and leave because you have no idea what it does?

As far as I can tell, that song is a commentary on how people will like the tune to a song without actually listening to the words - "It doesn't matter what I say, as long as I sing with inflection." When he sings "The Hook brings you back," he is actually singing the hook of the song. It must get frustrating for a musician to write all these heartfelt lyrics only to have most people ignore them. As Kurt Cobain said - "He's the one who likes all our pretty songs... but he knows not what it means."

In October, Songfacts averaged over 70,000 hits per day. A lot of traffic comes from The Yahoo! Pick we received last year, and we get a fair amount from other sites that have been kind enough to link to us. Our biggest daily hit total was Sept 23, when we were the Cool Site Of The Day. We got 182,000 hits that day. Thanks to everyone who visits and to everyone who helps out by getting us links and spreading the word.

Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" was definitely a biggie. They used all kinds of camera tricks to get cheesy effects that looked good at the time. Another was "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" by pre-freak Michael Jackson. When I asked Colin Hay about the videos by Men At Work, he told me that in England and Australia, videos were big long before Americans jumped on the trend. That's why MTV played all those European bands when they started up. Carl

I love what Q does with music in movies. Traditional thinking is to match the music to the mood of the scene - sad scene, sad song, etc. This works very well most of the time, but kind of tells the viewer how to feel - in a horror movie you always know when you're supposed to be scared because of the music. Quentin turns this on its head by using something that might not seem appropriate, but in some warped way, makes sense. I loved the music in Kill Bill. The "Bang Bang" part was brilliant. Another reason I love his movies - Quentin knows his music. He's willing to use lots of different styles and throw in artists who are not popular or trendy. Great use of The Dramatics in Jackie Brown! Carl