It must be said: Germany’s entry, “Satellite” by Lena, was a very so-so song, and it wasn’t exactly an electric vocal performance. Strange that they received so many votes, although this sort of thing is said every year.

But what about the lyrics? A research and semantics laboratory had the fun idea of pasting all the Eurovision song lyrics together and running them through a semantics analyser, Intellexer. These sort of things are usually used to quickly analyse and summarise long texts, for the purpose of creating executive summaries. In the case of the Eurovision, the result is almost a corny version of haiku:

Let the sun shine, glide away my moon
Let the light of my love shine bright
I don’t believe any more your shallow heart.
Feeling the love ’till the day when I die.
For the cruel-cruel time when I’m first time in love

As many lyricists seem to write a compendium of worn-out clichés, it’s not surprising that an executive summary of Eurovision lyrics is itself a compendium of worn-out clichés.

If there are any lyrics that actually touched you, please let us know by dropping a message. Read more about Intellexer.

I took some time at Midem 2010 to put a question to David Stark, publisher of SongLink. His tipsheet provides some of the best tips in the business, hooking up major artists with songs. The “names” have included Tina Tuner, James Blunt, Kim Wilde and many others. Publishers and songwriters use SongLink obviously to get their songs on the shortlist. So the obvious question was: what does it take to write for a name artist?

You’ll find the answer here.

On 25th February Cancer Research UK’s Sound & Vision event will take place at the iconic Abbey Road Studios, celebrating rock, pop, the people who make it and the images it inspires. A range of memorabilia is up for grabs, including lyrics by Biffy Clyro, Tori Amos and a neat drum skin from Kaiser Chiefs with the lyrics of “I Predict a Riot”.

Find out more on the e-Bay page.

As I reported here a while back, LyricWiki was recently served notice that it could no longer supply its lyrics to various applications. Rather than go the way of so many web-based initiatives, it is now being incorporated into Wikia and has negotiated a deal with Gracenote that will do two interesting things: serve up bona-fide lyrics and ensure some royalties go to the relevant publishers and lyricists.

As I have often said, most lyric sites are technically spam. They provide user-generated material that is massively copied from other sources. So any move towards more accurate lyrics on the web has to be applauded. The new set-up will mean that the considerable LyricWiki community will be preserved at a new address. “It’s good to know that our years of hard work won’t be evaporating any time soon!” said Sean Colombo. “This is a gigantic relief for me and I’m sure many of you as well.”

Details about the migration can be found on Wikia. And you’ll have to get used to the new address at Lyrics.Wikia.com.

As WordPress users are often told by WordPress, “code is poetry“. But what happens when coders take a look at songs and determine the logic behind the songs? A geeky in-joke has now become one of Twitter’s funniest trends. Type #songsincode into the Twitter search engine and you’ll be bombarded by song titles and lines expressed as php or Apache code. Examples?

var i = {shot:{sheriff:true,deputy:false}}

That reads as “I shot the sheriff, but I didn’t shoot the deputy”. Or how about

load(int tons) { if (tons == 16) { older(days(1)); debt++ } }.

Yep, that’s “16 tons, and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt” (courtesy of @efficacy).

Personally, I find the whole idea a scream. But what hits the funny bone exactly? Is it like synthetic voices trying to express emotions? Or is it how easily complex personal thoughts can be reduced to code? Or the obvious comment that engineers are always analysing things?

Inevitably, someone has started a site with the better ones. This is unfolding as I type this, so I’m not sure what you’ll find. So check SongsinCode and put your left-hand brain to work on right-hand matter.

And my shot at it?

{ if (baby == left me) var i ={find:{place to dwell:target=”new”}}

Don’t tell me the syntax is shot. I know that. Throw me in a fix. As @robertham says, “Geeks just want to have fun”.

A number of lyric applications are about to lose their source of lyrics. Sean Colombo of LyricWiki has informed them that due to licensing restrictions from some of the major publishers, LyricWiki has to stop providing lyrics through the LyricWiki API. People were using this to run various applications, such as connecting lyrics to Last.fm profiles, iPhones or websites. It’s a shame, of course, to see talented programming be short-circuited. But it was only a question of time.

A pretty large business has been built on the back of song lyrics, and the lyric writers usually see neither recognition (as very few sites credit the actual songwriters) nor any financial benefits. Meanwhile, considerable amounts of money are changing hands through the advertising on these sites.

However, I’d recommend that the best programmers get in touch with publishers or MP3 or streaming product developers to try and bring their applications to the next level. Interest in lyrics is not going to die, and appliances and services might be interested in licensing applications.

Shake for lyrics

…it also sounds like a technique used by surrealists (and reportedly David Bowie) who used to cut up sentences, throw them on the table and work from that. At the end of the day, whatever gets those songwriting juices going is fine by me. If I was in a philosophical mood, I’d write a piece about it being a bit disappointing that people prefer to shake a phone on their own rather than sit down and write something memorable with another songwriter, or ring up a colleague and bounce ideas around. Luckily I’m in a good mood. Besides, the result couldn’t be much different from some Duran Duran lyrics I’ve read.

Having said that, I still use a pencil and paper to write lyrics, at least in the early stages. But if you’re interested, check the Song Generator. Let me know what you think if you try it.

OK, it’s a bit gimmicky but it could be interesting. US band Of a Revolution has launched a call to co-write a song on Twitter. They are asking people to submit lines that they will choose and collate and chop up into verses and choruses. Said frontman Marc Robege in Billboard magazine: “I do a lot of co-writing, I like to meet up with songwriters in New York City but I guarantee you there are kids out there living in Kansas City who don’t necessarily have the opportunity to get their lyrics out there. So it’s a pretty original idea and a cool way to get together and be inspired by people that keep in touch with us.”

By Kansas City, I presume that he means anywhere outside of a major US city. But you probably get his point. To find out more about the idea visit Of a Revolution. Or head straight to their Twitter page.

Thinking about it, they are going to have to re-write considerably to try and get a coherent song out of random submissions, as they haven’t given a meter (rhythm) or a length of line. Proceeds of the song will go to a charity. Still, it’s a fun idea.

Fancy t-shirts with slogans such as “The boys are back in town” or “Born to be wild”? Well, there’s good news and not-so-good news. British retailer Asda has just unveiled a major range of t-shirts under the George label that feature song titles administered by Universal. The idea (commendable) is that the writers benefit from the proceeds of uses made of their lyrics (which is the exception rather than the rule – certainly on the Internet). In a move which I also find quite cool, they are also offering downloads of the relevant tracks to people that buy the t-shirts.

So what’s not to like about it? I still have a nagging doubt that anyone can stop me making “The boys are back in town” t-shirts, as song titles cannot be copyrighted.

See also A-lyric t-shirts

For as long as I’ve been running A-Lyric.com, I’ve been telling people about the huge demand for lyrics. Song lyrics are regularly in the top 10 search terms, and lyric sites are amongst the most visited on the web. Sony is one of the first majors to come to the obvious conclusion that adding song lyrics will make their sites more interesting. They are in the process of adding lyrics to the sites of artists such as Michael Jackson, Kelly Clarkson and John Legend. The lyrics are supplied by Gracenote, which I have just discovered is a Sony subsidiary.

One of the most interesting meetings at this year’s Midem music conference in Cannes was a panel devoted to lyrics as a business. As regular readers of A-Lyric.com probably know by now, music lyrics are frequently in the top 10 search terms. The interest in song lyrics is phenomenal, and shows no signs of abating. Yet until very recently, the industry was unable or unwilling to satisfy the demand. This is now changing…

One of the speakers at Midem was Alan Juristovski, CEO of MetroLyrics. Some time back, they took the unusual step of licensing the use of the 500,000 lyrics they feature. “We pay for the use of the lyrics, and are happy to do so,” he explained. “With some 30 million unique visitors per month, we have become the seventh most-visited music destination on the Internet.” What’s more, he argued in favour of licensing illegal sites rather than shutting them down (one of the bigger recent victims is Paroles.net in France).

Other panellists such as Jonathan Channon of EMI Music Publishing gave examples of new uses, such as huge quantities of lyric-based keyrings being sold to major supermarket chains. “Although the margins are not very big, it is becoming a business”. EMI also licenses Java-based games for mobile phones in addition to the inevitable T-shirts and apparel.

Time didn’t allow the ensuing discussion to go very far. It would have been interesting, for example, to discuss how the money trickles back to the lyricists when songs can be published and sub-published in different territories. Another important issue is how the publishers justify the use of song titles, which I have always understood cannot be copyrighted separately. Concretely, what could stop me running off “All You Need is Love” or “In the Name of Love” T-shirts if I don’t refer to the Beatles or U2 specifically? Advertisers do it all the time. Something tells me that a lawsuit or two will soon give us the answer.

In the meantime, if you’re looking for a more accurate source of lyrics, check MetroLyrics.

I just came across an article in The Guardian about a company called Lyrics Culture (follow the link so I don’t have to quote the whole thing). Their idea is simply to stick lyrics on T-shirts and clothes and sell them. So? So not much, except for one thing. They have come to an agreement with the publishers and are actually paying the songwriters for the right to use the lyrics. I’ve often said that lyrics were the untapped goldmine of the music world. So it’s nice to see someone come up with a way of using them. But without wanting to be a killjoy, it’s worth pointing out two things…

The article bills this as, “Could jeans save the music industry?” I quote: “My goal is to save the music business,” owner Hanna Rochelle Schmieder told the Associated Press, full of humility. “This is about generating new revenue streams for musicians. The record companies take a piece of the tour and the merchandise, but they can’t take a piece of this.”

The idea of one-off T-shirt sales saving the music industry is almost laughable. Also, if you look at the catalogue, you’ll only find clothes from the most popular songs in the world – hardly the people that are short of a few pence to buy a T-shirt. Plus, the idea that record companies “can’t take a piece of this” is disingenuous as the record companies are the ones that made these tunes huge in the first place. Instead of the record labels, it is their publishing companies that will get a slice of the pie.

Still, fair play to Ms Schmieder! It’s a good idea, and she’s playing by the book. Check her site here.

By the way, on a similar line, you’ll find a famous quote from Elvis Costello in our Lyric Goodie shop too.