In one internet subculture, people desperately try to find the origins of songs without attribution. Sometimes they strike gold. Sometimes they get lost in the cyber-void
It's pretty incredible how people are able to track down impossibly obscure tunes from just a snippet of music now, but I have to disagree with Catherine's dad. In the reduced-information days, there was huge amount of effort and great resources devoted to helping someone figure out a song based on a "vague description and misheard lyrics." After all, if someone couldn't find a song, how would they be able to buy it?!
If you worked at a record store, you fielded several of these requests a day. A little bit of a melody, a description of the style or instruments, and a few words were often ample information. If I didn't know offhand, my co-workers might. If they didn't, we could consult the many thousands of pages of the Phonolog or the first line index in "Find That Tune." More often than not we were able to figure out what they were looking for.
It was a big reference book---there were a couple of volumes. I think it was cross referenced by songwriter, recording artist, etc. but I pretty much only used it for the index of first lines. For everything else, I went to the Phonolog, which was much more comprehensive.
The big disadvantage it had was that it was immediately out of date. Great for tracking down older songs, but useless for current hits.
It's pretty incredible how people are able to track down impossibly obscure tunes from just a snippet of music now, but I have to disagree with Catherine's dad. In the reduced-information days, there was huge amount of effort and great resources devoted to helping someone figure out a song based on a "vague description and misheard lyrics." After all, if someone couldn't find a song, how would they be able to buy it?!
If you worked at a record store, you fielded several of these requests a day. A little bit of a melody, a description of the style or instruments, and a few words were often ample information. If I didn't know offhand, my co-workers might. If they didn't, we could consult the many thousands of pages of the Phonolog or the first line index in "Find That Tune." More often than not we were able to figure out what they were looking for.
What was “Find that Tune”?
It was a big reference book---there were a couple of volumes. I think it was cross referenced by songwriter, recording artist, etc. but I pretty much only used it for the index of first lines. For everything else, I went to the Phonolog, which was much more comprehensive.
The big disadvantage it had was that it was immediately out of date. Great for tracking down older songs, but useless for current hits.
Very cool. Might have to see if I can buy one of those on eBay