So here's the thing.
I was going through my CDs the other day, when I came across an album I hadn't really listened to in years - the Forrest Gump soundtrack. I had the Special Collectors' Edition, which proclaimed on the front that it had "34 American Classics, " rather than the "32 American Classics" of the boring ordinary version. (Actually, the album has either 31 or 33 American classics, plus Alan Silvestri's Forrest Gump Suite - I like Silvestri and his music for the film, but it doesn't really count as an American classic in the same way as Sweet Home Alabama does.) I was looking at the CD, and realised, whatever you think of the film (I suspect even Robert Zemekis knows it should not have won the Best Picture Oscar over Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption, or Quiz Show), the soundtrack has some genuinely great songs on it. So I thought. I'll load the CD onto my iPod. Now, as many of you will be aware, iTunes usually does a pretty good job in identifying any CD and accurately naming all tracks on the CD. I don't know what their source is, but other than the (very) occasional spelling error, it's pretty good. In this case, it identified the CDs as either disc 1 or 2 of the Forrest Gump soundtrack, so I converted the CD tracks and then synced the album onto my iPod without giving it much thought.
And for the first couple of tracks, I never noticed anything. They seemed fine - Hound Dog by Elvis Presley, Rebel Rouser by Duane Eddy. It wasn't until the third track that the weirdness started - Clarence 'Frogman' Henry's (I Don't Know Why) But I Do was misidentfied as The Fields of Athenry, apparently an Irish folk ballad. Now the key thing here is that iTunes correctly identified the artist as Clarence 'Frogman' Henry - it just weirdly thought that he was singing a 1970s Irish folk ballad. Which he wasn't.
Next track was The Rooftop Singers' Walk Right In, identified by iTunes as A Place In The Chior. Now, assuming that they misspelled the word "choir", again this appears to be the title of another folk song.
Land of 1000 Dances was correctly named. But the next song? We used to sing Blowin' in the Wind at school, so I know damn well that its title isn't Bold O'Donoghue, another Irish folk song.
Fortunate Son was fortunate enough to be spared renaming, while The Four Tops got away with only a misspelled "Myself" in I Can't Help Myseld (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch).
I have the soundtrack to the film Catch Me If You Can on my iPod - I enjoy John Williams' jazzy mock-Mancini score - and I have the Blues Brothers 2000 soundtrack on my iPod (what? The music was good, even if the film wasn't). So I am familiar with the song Respect, and I know it's not called Catch Me If You Can. However, before you wonder whether this is some crossover between tracks on my iPod, it turns out there is apparently an Irish folk song of that title.
Bob Dylan's Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 escaped unharmed, possibly because iTunes took one look at that title and assumed it had already messed with it. But Sloop John B became Four Green Fields, and The Mamas And The Papas California Dreamin' became Danny Boy, although much hunting has failed to find any sign of a folk song by that name, so that one's puzzling.
For what it's worth, For What It's Worth made it through unharmed - remarkably even the apostrophe was correctly placed (he says as he hurriedly checks the apostrophe placement in all the uses of its/it's in the post). But What The World Needs Now Is Love (incidentally, I really hate that song) became Dirty Old Town, which sounds like a much more interesting song.
And finally, The Doors and Simon and Garfunkel were spared, with Break On Through (To The Other Side) and Mrs Robinson correctly identified. Evidently those songs were too iconic to be confused with anything else.
And the second disc in the 2-CD set? No issues at all - not even a spelling mistake.
It's not a big deal - it took a couple of minutes to correct the titles and carry on. But it's a mystery. Unfortunately, hunting around on Google has left me none the wiser in learning exactly where iTunes sources its song titles (I assume it's not from the iTunes store, since it manages to identify albums that they don't sell on iTunes). But presumably somewhere in the world there is a database that weirdly confuses Forrest Gump with an Irish folk song compilation, but still manages to accurately identify the artist performing on the soundtrack. And I'm just curious how that happens.
And for the first couple of tracks, I never noticed anything. They seemed fine - Hound Dog by Elvis Presley, Rebel Rouser by Duane Eddy. It wasn't until the third track that the weirdness started - Clarence 'Frogman' Henry's (I Don't Know Why) But I Do was misidentfied as The Fields of Athenry, apparently an Irish folk ballad. Now the key thing here is that iTunes correctly identified the artist as Clarence 'Frogman' Henry - it just weirdly thought that he was singing a 1970s Irish folk ballad. Which he wasn't.
Next track was The Rooftop Singers' Walk Right In, identified by iTunes as A Place In The Chior. Now, assuming that they misspelled the word "choir", again this appears to be the title of another folk song.
Land of 1000 Dances was correctly named. But the next song? We used to sing Blowin' in the Wind at school, so I know damn well that its title isn't Bold O'Donoghue, another Irish folk song.
Fortunate Son was fortunate enough to be spared renaming, while The Four Tops got away with only a misspelled "Myself" in I Can't Help Myseld (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch).
I have the soundtrack to the film Catch Me If You Can on my iPod - I enjoy John Williams' jazzy mock-Mancini score - and I have the Blues Brothers 2000 soundtrack on my iPod (what? The music was good, even if the film wasn't). So I am familiar with the song Respect, and I know it's not called Catch Me If You Can. However, before you wonder whether this is some crossover between tracks on my iPod, it turns out there is apparently an Irish folk song of that title.
Bob Dylan's Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 escaped unharmed, possibly because iTunes took one look at that title and assumed it had already messed with it. But Sloop John B became Four Green Fields, and The Mamas And The Papas California Dreamin' became Danny Boy, although much hunting has failed to find any sign of a folk song by that name, so that one's puzzling.
For what it's worth, For What It's Worth made it through unharmed - remarkably even the apostrophe was correctly placed (he says as he hurriedly checks the apostrophe placement in all the uses of its/it's in the post). But What The World Needs Now Is Love (incidentally, I really hate that song) became Dirty Old Town, which sounds like a much more interesting song.
And finally, The Doors and Simon and Garfunkel were spared, with Break On Through (To The Other Side) and Mrs Robinson correctly identified. Evidently those songs were too iconic to be confused with anything else.
And the second disc in the 2-CD set? No issues at all - not even a spelling mistake.
It's not a big deal - it took a couple of minutes to correct the titles and carry on. But it's a mystery. Unfortunately, hunting around on Google has left me none the wiser in learning exactly where iTunes sources its song titles (I assume it's not from the iTunes store, since it manages to identify albums that they don't sell on iTunes). But presumably somewhere in the world there is a database that weirdly confuses Forrest Gump with an Irish folk song compilation, but still manages to accurately identify the artist performing on the soundtrack. And I'm just curious how that happens.
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