By VennerRoad, 12th Nov 2014
A profile of the leading music database Songfacts.
Singer-songwriter Janis Ian.
How many songs do you know: a hundred, five hundred, a thousand? That is not to say you can knock them all out on the piano or even sing along to all of them, but very likely you know a great many. What though do you know about them, and where do you go to find out about them?
If your command of English is at least passable – and most of the world appears to be able to make that claim – your first port of call should be Songfacts.
Founded by East Coast DJ Carl Wiser in 1999 as a database for local DJs, it was perhaps inevitable that like so many other good things it would develop a Web presence. At the time of writing it contains a little over 35,000 songs, not an enormous number, but under Carl’s watchful eye it is growing steadily thanks to a small but dedicated team, and Songfacts is much, much more than a simple list of songs, it includes inter alia Artistfacts, a calendar, and perhaps most impressive of all, a collection of hundreds of songwriter interviews from the obscure to the world famous.
The songs in the database are structured so that information can be added by later contributors; the information on a particular song can consist of as little as a single line or a lengthy essay including details of the composer and/or lyricist, dates and places of recordings, and most interestingly of what inspired it.
Take for example I Don’t Like Mondays; this was written by Bob Geldof, and it is one you have very likely heard, but unless you are of a certain vintage you will probably not be aware of its terrible inspiration. I Don’t Like Mondays is a modern murder ballad, and at the bottom of the page it is linked to more murder ballads, as well as other songs with which it shares common features, such as gun violence. Songfacts is a lot more than a mere list or even an encyclopaedia, it is an intricately woven weft of knowledge and fascinating information.
Although its entries are overwhelmingly in English, it contains too an increasing number of songs in other languages, some of which have been recorded in English. Did you know for instance that the Laura Brannigan hit Gloria was really an Italian song, or that the classic My Way is actually French?
Originally, Artistfacts had its own domain, but recently the site was overhauled and these were incorporated into the main database. Rather than being complete biographical entries these are for the most part bullet points with basic and sometimes not so basic facts about the artists and bands. Many readers are interested in only the basics, and for those who want more, well, most performers and songwriters have their own websites anyway, like Noël Coward, who died in 1973.
To date, The Music History Calendar has well over a thousand dates for each month of the year, and is rising steadily. As elsewhere on the site, the entries are linked to the relevant artist, band or song. And of course Songfacts has a presence on both Facebook and YouTube; also you can sign up and comment on the Songfacts Forum and elsewhere.
Having said all that, if you want anymore, check it out for yourself.
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