Carl

Very impressive performance by Kanye West with Mavis Staples. For sheer production value, it was one of the best I've seen at the Grammies. He also made it clear in his acceptance speech that this is important stuff. Contrast this with U2, who did a solid, but unspactacular performance and is starting to seem bored with all their awards. Once I got over the horror of Hoobastank getting nominated for song of the year, I was pleased to see John Mayer win for "Daughters." Where was "100 Years" by Five For Fighting? I'm not sure how that could not be nominated, but then again, I don't get a Grammy vote (yet). It took me a while to figure out why all those people were singing "Across The Universe." There's just something strange about Tim McGraw singing lines like "Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my open mind..." I guess it's a fitting Tsunami relief tribute, but something about it creeps me out. Great Southern Rock tribute. I was pleased to see Dickey Betts representing The Allman Brothers. He is often overlooked, but this is the guy who wrote "Ramblin' Man," "Elizabeth Reed," "Blue Sky," and many of their other great songs. Always good to see Elvin Bishop, and Gretchen Wilson can come over to my house and sing any time. ::

The guy is an amazing lyricist. I know some people who put him up there with Bowie as a songwriter. His music takes a little effort to understand, but it's definitely worth it.

We've never been able to nail this one down, so we don't have any Songfacts for it. Can anyone confirm if this is the real story? Song Name: Jane Says Artist: Jane's Addiction SongFacts: Although most people think that this song is about a prostitute, it was inspired by a real Jane is L.A. whose addiction to heroin caused the band a lot of trouble.

Yes, we need to enter Songfacts for a song before lyrics can be added to it. That's what separates us from all those lyric sites.

We're going to do it right with this new server. It's going to be all ours and should be very fast. Some of you have offered to make donations, which is very kind, but I think we'll be OK. The reason we need a new server is because we're getting so much traffic, which is a good thing.

We need to get sponsored by somebody - I just found out what our next server is going to cost. ::

Song lyrics can be added on the page with the Songfacts. Near the album, it will say "view lyrics" or "submit lyrics." If it says "submit lyrics," click it to add them.

We uploaded a bunch of new songs a few days ago. We'll have more info in the newsletter, but here are some highlights: They're Coming To Take Me Away - A very interesting and strange story that Jerry Samuels (better known as Napoleon XIV) shared with us. Rise - Randy Badazz Alpert gave us the story on this song he wrote for Herb Alpert. Waterloo Sunset - I can't believe it took us this long to get info on this Kink's Klassic. There's a lot more, including great info on Eric Carmen, Rush and George Harrision.

I had to kill her. I've come across this before, but have never been able to confirm it. It does make some sense if you listen to the lyrics: Song Name: used to love her Artist: guns n roses SongFacts: it sounds like Axl killed his girl frind but the song is about his dog that he loved but he had to have it put to sleep so he bured her in his back yard.

Lots of great suggestions. Here's what we went with: Chris Isaak - The Baja Sessions Stevie Wonder - Innervisions Led Zeppelin - How The West Was Won The Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible R.L. Burnside - Bothered Mind We tried to go with a nice mix of styles. In one of the future lists, I'd like to get Operation Mindcrime and Grace in there, as well as some of the other suggestions.

Since I'm planted firmly in the US, I have no idea what this means or if it's true. Any ideas? Song Name: Turn it on Artist: Genesis SongFacts: Surely this is about the Steve Coogan comic character ALAN PARTRIDGE.ie A TV personality has-been talking & bragging about their past.

In the video for that song, she's a waitress, which made me believe the "brass" was the change she would get for tips. I got the sense she was scraping by, trying to earn a living, but she had bigger dreams. The Pretenders are interesting because they are a British band with a lead singer from Ohio. Apparently, some British slang rubbed off on Chrissie Hynde.

The Avatar problem should be fixed. I'm saving the banana for our server fix, but this gets a drummer.

This stuff requires zen-like patience on the part of Sara and me. It's tempting to do to the server what they did to the fax machine in Office Space, but that wouldn't be right. We're going to get this figured out, and I'm going to dance like the banana when we do.

We're getting close on this one. It's a funky setting somewhere, but we've almost got it figured out.

Sorry, I guess I assume everyone's seen Vacation- John Candy as a security guard at Wallyworld: "Sorry folks, park's closed. Moose out front should have told you." We might be able to do a local search and post the results from time to time. That wouldn't be a crunch on the server.

We took down the user list - Moose out front should have told you. We noticed that the user list was taking a while to generate, which makes sense considering we have about 35,000 users. Since we've been trying to speed up the boards and cut back on bandwidth, we decided to take it down.

If you refresh your browser, you should be fine. We moved to a new server, so if your computer is looking at a cached page, it will be doing a search that won't work.

The Spinners' "Working My Way Back To You Girl" is a lot like that, and around the same era. Great song: I'll keep working my way back to you, babe With a burning love inside Hey, I'm working my way back to you, babe And the happiness that died I let it get away Do-do, do-da, do (Been paying every day) Do-do, do-da, do When you were so in love with me I played around like I was free Thought I could have my cake and eat it too But how I cried over losing you See, I'm down and out But I ain't about to go living my life without you Hey, every day I made you cry I'll pay and, girl 'Til the day I die I'll keep working my way back to you, babe With a burning love inside Yeah, I'm working my way back to you, babe And the happiness that died I let it get away Do-do, do-da, do (Been paying every day) Do-do, do-da, do Oh, I used to love to make you cry It made me feel like a man inside If I had been a man in reality You'd be here, baby, loving me Now my nights are long and lonely And I ain't too proud, babe I just miss you so Girl, but you're too proud And you won't give in But when I think about all I could win I'll keep working my way back to you, babe With a burning love inside Yeah, I'm working my way back to you, babe And the happiness that died I let it get away Do-do, do-da, do (Been paying every day) Do-do, do-da, do (Yooooou, you, babe) My road is kind of long (Yooooou, you, babe) I just gotta get back home Whoa, I'm really sorry for acting that way I'm really sorry Ooh, little girl I'm really sorry for telling you lies For so long Oh, please, forgive me, girl Come on (give me a chance) Won't you forgive me, girl Hey (let's have romance) Ooh, forgive me, girl (let's try again) Come on, forgive me, girl I want you over and over And over and over again

Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor dropped some sounds on Neil Young's "Heart Of Gold." I think they were in town for an awards show when they came by the studio. Listen to the end of the song and you'll hear them clearly.

I remember watching a video by The Romantics where there drummer was singing. It can't be easy to sing and drum at the same time.

Deb from Easton, PA wins a clean and comfortable Songfacts T-Shirt. Here are the answers: What female singer with a shaved head had a #1 hit in the '90s? - Sinead O'Connor "Nothing Compares 2 U" What group is planning a reality TV show to replace a member who died in 2002? - TLC Apparently, this is a trend. INXS is also doing a reality show to find a new member. Their lead singer, Michael Hutchence, died in 1997. What song had a video where Chevy Chase lip-synched the vocals? - "You Can Call Me Al" by Paul Simon What is the best-selling album named after a year? - 1984 by Van Halen 1999 by Prince was a good guess. What hit song featured a line from an MTV promotional campaign? - Money For Nothing by Dire Straits The line is "I Want My MTV." In what song are the words "I Know" repeated consecutively 26 times? - "Ain't No Sunshine" by Bill Withers Donna Summer had a song called "Try Me, I Know We Can Make It," but that has only about 22 consecutive "I Know"s. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was another popular guess. What female singer flashed David Letterman on his TV show? - Courtney Love Madonna swore at him, but didn't flash him. What U2 song mentions a US radio station in the lyrics? - "Angel Of Harlem" The line is "On the BLS I heard the sound." It refers to the station WBLS. What popular British band lost 2 original members to suicide? - Badfinger What famous singer found out later in life that the woman he thought was his sister was actually his mother? - Bobby Darin Eric Clapton grew up with his grandparents, and John Lennon with his Aunt, so those were common answers. Tiebreaker: How many CDs did the Songfacts staff get for Christmas? - 3 Thanks to everyone who took the quiz, and be sure to take the new one here.

When you guys suggest albums, please try to give a little info on why you think it deserves to be recommended. That way if it makes the list, people can read out why they might like it.

Hi All. We tweaked the Songfacts home page a little. Our designer (OK, Sara), came up with a nice look. The big block in the middle that was a giant link to our message boards has been replaced with Music Of Choice, The Mighty Songfacts Trivia Quiz and Musical Brain Games. Here's the reasoning: The boards are getting lots of traffic, so we don't need such a prominent link on the home page. If you want to get to the boards from that page, you can use the text link on the left. We put a lot of effort into The Mighty Songfacts Trivia Quiz, and it's a very popular feature among those who take it. Song Fallacies and Lyrical Pursuit are the "Musical Brain Games" (you should hear the ideas we rejected). They are great games. Since we opened Lyrical Pursuit for entries, we've gotten a bunch of great ones, and there are now well over 1,000 questions. We'll open Fallacies up for user entries as soon as we get around to writing the code. Music Of Choice is a new feature. We thought it would be a good way to spotlight some great albums and make us a few bucks in the process. Every 2 weeks, we'll pick 5 albums based on your suggestions in the forum we set up for it. Those will make it to the home page with links to their Amazon pages. If anyone buys them or does further shopping on Amazon, we make a small commission. This also serves as a "Thank You" to musicians and songwriters who take the time and speak with us about their songs. On the left are links to 5 ring tones. These are automatically updated using a complicated Dutch algorithm to determine optimum scalability. Actually, I don't know how it works, but it displays popular ring tones. We get a commission on those as well. We should have the new page up soon. It keeps snowing here so we have some time to sit around and work on the site. By the time you read this it might be up. Please let us know what you think of the new look.

Hi All. Wondering if anyone can help with this potential Songfact: Song Name: Can't Buy me Love Artist: The Beatles SongFacts: The song originally began with a verse. George Martin suggested they have some sort of introduction. Paul fooled around and then came up with the variation on the chorus that is in the final.