All-purpose love song
Does it seem like the same love song keeps getting recycled? If I were a singer, I’d be nervous about accidentally singing a line from a different song since the words are so interchangeable. But then it probably wouldn’t matter.
Listening to these songs, it appears there is nothing new to say, so I thought I would save writers the trouble and create an all-purpose love song. The lyrics below are assembled from existing songs over the past 40 years, each line from a different song. [Read more →]
Songs about sex are nothing new. Prince may have seemed provocative singing about oral sex, but he was just following a centuries-old tradition. Ancient Greek and Roman poetry could be quite explicit. Bawdy songs have enjoyed great popularity from at least the Renaissance on. From the early days of wax cylinder phonograph recordings in the 1890s, one can find spoken word curios worthy of a parental advisory sticker. And for those who think that “freaking” is new, the 17th century sarabande — a popular dance considered “merry and lewd because it is performed with movements of the body which are indecent” — was just one among several erotically-tinged dances that were outlawed in some places. 
Considering the great number of popular songs that have been written, there are surprisingly few about music or musicians. I’ve compiled a list below, omitting those in which the song is really about something else or music is not the main point of the song (an example would be Led Zeppellin’s “Rock and Roll”). Undoubtedly, I’ve left something off, so I’ll update the list periodically. 
