FAQ: ALT.MUSIC.LYRICS Version 2 2/8/96
Clara Duong
Greetings,
There have been a few changes to the FAQ - basically the addition of several
new sites. I've noticed a *lot* of repetition in terms of requests that could
easily be answered by using this FAQ. Please forward this FAQ to anyone who
might be asking: 'Where can I find lyrics sites?' or 'What are the lyrics to
American Pie?' or something along those lines.
For reasons of space, I don't include any lyrics in this faq, but prefer
to provide links to pages. I still haven't found one for the macarena yet. I
realise the lyrics have been posted several times, but does anyone have the
URL for a webpage that has the lyrics to this song? Thanks in advance,
Clara
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alt.music.lyrics
Frequently Asked Questions
Version 2; 3 August 1996 ====
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Posted monthly, or "Just once, in a very blue moon ...
just once in a very blue moon" -- (P. Alger)
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I) What is alt.music.lyrics
II) Common Questions
(a) Where can I find a song by this artist?
(b) Where can I find a song called '_______' ?; I don't know who it's by,
or what it's called, but it's got the word 'love' in it.; Does anyone know any
songs with the word '____' in it.
III) What is the Lyrics Report?
IV) Posting to Usenet - alt.music.lyrics (news:alt.music.lyrics)
V) I posted a request and no one has answered me. Why not?
VII) URLs for frequently requested songs
VIII) Flaming
IX) Where can I find this FAQ?
X) Acknowledgments
XI) Comments, suggestions and corrections
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I) What is alt.music.lyrics
Ever wondered what on earth that song you were listening to meant? Ever
wondered what the singer was babbling about? Have you ever been convinced
that so and so was singing one thing, when in actual fact he/she was singing
something *completely* different? Have you ever bought a CD and found out
that the artist didn't bother to include the lyrics???? Well you've come to
the right place. Alt.music.lyrics is an unmoderated newsgroup for people who
want to find the lyrics to songs, chase down popular/obscure songs, look for
songs with particular words in them etc.
II) Common Questions
(a) Where can I find a song by this artist?
The best thing to do is type in the artist's name in YAHOO, LYCOS, ALTA VISTA,
MAGELLAN, INFOSEEK and other search engines. This will give you a very
comprehensive list of pages, and most fan pages will have lyrics.
(b) Where can I find a song called '_______' ?; I don't know who it's by,
or what it's called, but it's got the word 'love' in it.; Does anyone know any
songs with the word '____' in it.
All of these questions can be answered by going to the following lyrics sites.
The first one is a good place to make your first stop.
A large and very complete listing of lyrics
http://archive.uwp.edu/pub/music/lyrics/
Lyrics FTP Server (tu-muenchen.de) - mirror of uwp.edu.
ftp://ftp.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/pub/rec/music/vocal/lyrics/uwp/
If you can't find it there, then go to the Yahoo/Entertainment/Music/Lyrics
page and you may find what you're looking for.
http://www.yahoo.com/Entertainment/Music/Lyrics/
Other Lyrics archives:
http://www.erie.net/~gnome/
http://american.recordings.com/WWWoM/ubl/lyric_list.shtml
http://www.leo.org/archiv/music/music_e.html
http://www.angelfire.com/pages0/Khyron/lyrics.html
http://gene.fwi.uva.nl/~ketel/Music/lyrics.html
(Bands like Nirvana, Metallica, Soundgarde, Queen, Bush are represented here)
Australian Charts Lyrics Database
http://www.cs.monash.edu.au/~jamies/charts/lyrics/index.html
Chinese Lyrics:
http://uptown.turnpike.net/C/chinchia/index.html
Collection de la Chanson Quebecoises
http://www.sie.qc.ca/users/eblancha/index.html
Digital Tradition Folk Song Full Text Search. This is a data base containing
the words and music to thousands of folk songs.
http://pubweb.parc.xerox.com/digitrad
(You might also try posting to rec.music.celtic or rec.music.folk - both
newsgroups are extremely responsive and helpful.)
Grendel's Lyrics Archive:
http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~avernon/lyrics.html
Italian Lyrics Database - searchable database; (in Italian):
http://www.synapsis.it/rms/lyrics/
Jazz Lyrics:
These are harder to find, but you're like to have success if you visit the
Frank Sinatra Songbook:
http://www.io.org:80/~buff/sinatra/songs/
Lieder Texts Page - provides original-language, public-domain texts of Lieder
by many different composers (such as Schubert, Brahms and Mahler).
http://www.recmusic.org/lieder
Lovesong Lyrics
http://www.st.nepean.uws.edu.au/users/mbuena/songwords.html
Lyrical Geniuses
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/~dansac/quotes/lyrics.html
The Lyrics Library (In addition to the many lyrics pages and links, this
site features a large collection of links to other lyrics sites).
http://www.kw.igs.net/~wgarvin/Lyrics/Lyrics.html
Lyrics Page.
http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jwong/lyrics.html
Meaningful Lyrics Area - meaningful song lyrics for many occasions plus links.
http://www.iinet.net.au/~pgb/
"Music: Charts, Lyrics & Stuff" page!
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/6554/index.html
Music Lyrics - A great area to grab the latest music lyrics.
http://members.aol.com/mikemortal/music/
Music@.Zip - Lyrics. News. Links.
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/4207/
Neapolitan Songs - Torna a Surriento, 'O sole mio and other world famous songs
http://www.na.infn.it/Canzoni/canzoni.html
Page of Blizzard - Table from which you can choose to view Lyrics from
different bands and artists
http://gene.fwi.uva.nl/~ketel/Music/lyrics.html
Russian Songs Lyrics
http://anxiety-closet.mit.edu:8001/activities/russian-club/catalog.html
A "song search" engine:
http://www.cdconnection.com/
It allows you to search for CDs by artist name, title of album, words within
the name of a song, and other criteria.
For Disney Movie Lyrics:
http://thoth.stetson.edu/users/Bill_Sawyer/Disney/Lyrics.html
For the librettos to Musicals:
Les Miserables: the complete multilingual libretto. Includes English, German
and French versions, as well as the Les Miseranimals and parody and "lost"
songs.
http://members.aol.com/kelsonv/les-mis/
Miss Saigon Lyrics and Libretto:
http://www.clark.net/pub/rsjdfg/Recordings.html
Tower Lyrics Archive - lyrics for several musicals
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/tower/lyrics.html
III) What is the Lyrics Report?
The LYRICS REPORT is a compilation of some of the latest popular lyrics to
songs. A new issue gets posted EVERY FRIDAY.
http://users.aimnet.com/~radicade/lyrics/
For further information, contact
Bernabe T. Jara at bar...@ix.netcom.com.
IV) Posting to Usenet - alt.music.lyrics (news:alt.music.lyrics)
(a) Things are pretty anarchic. Generally, when you want to request the
lyrics, you would type:
REQ: Song
(b) If you are providing the lyrics to a song, just punch 'reply' or
'followup', maintaining the thread and type away! =)
(c) Two little things:
(i) It would be great if people responded to the newsgroup rather than just
replying to a request directly via e-mail. ALL replies that are relevent to
the newsgroup should be directed to the newsgroup so that everyone can
benefit. A COPY of the message can be sent to the requester as a courtesy but
it should be IN ADDITION TO the message sent to the newsgroup, not INSTEAD OF
it.
(ii) If your newsreader allows it, check to see whether someone else has
posted the lyrics in question, before you try. This saves on effort and
bandwidth. We don't need a dozen 'American Pies' posted to the group at once.
It would collapse!
(d) If you want a song identified:
PLEASE ID THIS SONG:
V) I posted a request and no one has answered me. Why not?
Please don't post rude recriminations and demands. This is a very helpful and
responsive group - if no one has posted it, it is either because:
(1) no one knows the answer
(2) it's already been posted three million zillion times in the past week
Just wait awhile, then try reposting. Alt.music.lyrics has an amazing success
rate. =)
VI) What is a 'murbler'?
A murbler is a singer who murbles/mumbles the words of a song - making it
almost indecipherable. Murblers can be a source of great joy or great
irritation, depending on your point of view. Classic murblers are Rickie Lee
Jones and Dolores O'Riordan-Burton of the Cranberries.
VII) URLs for frequently requested songs
Tori Amos Lyrics
http://ono-sendai.resnet.cornell.edu/tori/
Mariah Carey (this link is just the Yahoo listing, which gives a fairly
comprehensive list)
http://www.yahoo.com/Entertainment/Music/Artists/Carey_Mariah/
Cranberries Pages (a lot of requests for them lately, so here are a swagload
of URLs)
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/5899/preview_hollywood.html
http://www.wolsi.com/~cranbery/
http://www.ama.caltech.edu/users/phil/cranberries.html
http://www.mirage.co.uk/users/claude/default.htm
http://dragon.res.cmu.edu/deanjp/
http://pages.prodigy.com/cran/
http://www.nada.kth.se/~d90-fgi/Cranberries/index.html
Danny Boy, Londonderry Aire
http://archive.uwp.edu/cgi-bin/lyr.songs_folk?d/danny_boy
http://archive.uwp.edu/cgi-bin/lyr.songs_folk?l/londonderry_air
Deep Blue Something - Breakfast at Tiffany's
I couldn't find a site for just the lyrics, so here is a site for guitar tabs
and lyrics:
http://www.nashville.com/~Jeff.Elkins/breakfst.tab
John Denver Favourites:
http://archive.uwp.edu/cgi-bin/lyr.songs?d/denver.john/leaving_on_a_jet_plane
http://archive.uwp.edu/cgi-bin/lyr.songs?d/denver.john/rocky_mountain_high
http://archive.uwp.edu/cgi-bin/lyr.songs?d/denver.john/take_
me_home_country_roads
Eagles: Hotel California
ftp://ftp.uwp.edu/pub/music/lyrics/e/eagles/hotel.california
(The word at issue is 'colitas'. It is something to eat.)
Everything But The Girl: Missing
http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jwong/lyrics/missing.lyr
Mack the Knife:
http://www.io.org:80/~buff/sinatra/songs/m-r.html#mack
Madonna Song Lyrics
http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~zalewskk/madonna_lyrics/HomePage.html
Makin' Whoopee
http://www.io.org:80/~buff/sinatra/songs/m-r.html#makin
Blinded by the light:
http://www.jyu.fi/~kelly/manfred/blinded.html
(this is an interesting analysis plus three versions of this popular song)
Are you going to San Francisco - Scott McKenzie
http://archive.uwp.edu/cgi-bin/lyr.songs?m/mckenzie.scott/san_francisco
Lyrics to American Pie by Don McLean
http://www.archive.uwp.edu/cgi-bin/lyr.songs?m/mclean.don/american_pie
George Michael songs
http://archive.uwp.edu/pub/music/lyrics/m/michael.george/
Alanis Morissette:
http://www.creighton.edu/~mcoppock/alanis.html
http://rainier.uofport.edu/~ebergman/alanis.htm
http://www.afn.org/~afn26700/morissette.html
http://charlotte.acns.nwu.edu/charm/html/alanis/
Nirvana Lyrics Archive
ftp://d.armory.com/pub/user/leavitt/kurt_archive/home.html
Oasis Lyrics Page
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Oliver_Barton/homepage.htm
Joan Osborne
http://members.aol.com/drldeboer2/htm/jo.htm
Puff the Magic Dragon
http://archive.uwp.edu/cgi-bin/lyr.songs_folk?p/puff_the_magic_dragon
REM Lyrics:
http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~phasf/rem/lyrics.html
Kiss from a rose by Seal
http://archive.uwp.edu/cgi-bin/lyr.songs?s/seal/kissed_by_rose
Frank Sinatra
http://www.io.org:80/~buff/sinatra/songs/
U2 Lyrics Archive
http://www.gtlug.org/~vkire/mac/index.html
Whiter Shade of Pale
http://www.yorvic.york.ac.uk/~proctor/doro/lyrics/a_whiter_shade_of_pale.html
VIII) Flaming
Alt.music.lyrics is a great place to get help, give help or wax lyrical (no
pun intended). This is an unmoderated group, so there isn't much anyone can
do about flames or spamming. Please refrain - even if someone has posted a
request for a song which has been posted to death, just ignore it. I've
noticed a few hyper-critical/hyper-sensitive comments on the newsgroup which
don't add anything to the discourse. If someone has posted something which
can be found on this FAQ, please just forward a copy of this FAQ to them, or
refer them to the URL listed at the bottom of this FAQ.
IX) Where can I find this FAQ?
At present, this FAQ can be found on the alt.music.lyrics newsgroup. Mark
White has also very kindly put a an HTML version at:
http://rcs1.urz.tu-dresden.de/~mwhite/resources/alt-music-lyrics-faq.html
X) Acknowledgments
I'd like to thank everyone on alt.music.lyrics who have posted their comments,
suggestions and requests for the compilation of this FAQ. In particular,
thanks to Wayne Garvin, Dan Montgomery and Mark White. I'm not going to go
into a big spiel about copyright. All I've done is keep an eye on the
newsgroup postings and compiled some links together, so I'm not interested in
stamping any proprietary rights over this document. Hence, feel free to
include this FAQ on any webpages, give it to your friends....read it at
parties.
XI) Comments, suggestions and corrections
Comments, suggestions and corrections can be sent to Clara Duong at
cdu...@envirolink.org. If you know of a web site which you should think
should be included, please just give a yell. In particular, we're always
looking for ftp sites for those people who don't have WWW access. I will be
keeping an eye on the posts to see what requests come up regularly. I'm going
overseas at the beginning of September, so if anyone would like to volunteer
as the next keeper of the FAQ - please contact me.
---
Clara Duong (cdu...@envirolink.org)
Canberra, Australia