Help: Are all those lyrics submitted?

Subject: Are all those lyrics submitted?
From: jayadeva
Date: 16 Mar 01 - 11:07 PM

Sorry to ask this as a thread when I could probably find out by reading the entire site. When I notice errors in the lyrics of the single most wonderful aggregation of lyrics I have ever seen including songs I have been looking for the words for for literally decades -- deep breath here -- that is to say the Mudcat site's lyrics base -- are they donated by people who listen to the records or are they from sources such as the songbooks for the song. REason I ask is because I would like to correct some of them.

Get back to me someone. Do so appreciate it. TX! (brand newbie)

Subject: RE: Help: Are all those lyrics submitted?
From: Sorcha
Date: 16 Mar 01 - 11:12 PM

Some of everything, and you have not offended anybody!! The most accurate are from performer/author songbooks, but sometimes we find them already posted on the Web or someone transcribes them from recordings. In those cases, mistakes are likely to be made.

We don't know who transcribed the lyrics we find on line, so they could well be wrong in some cases. Some songs are transcribed from the recording and it is often easy to mis-hear a word or phrase. Some of our most interesting discussions are about those.

Then, there are the songs learned from other people, such as friends, family, etc. Often there are many Versions of a folk or traditional song and no one Definitive version.

In short, post away with your corrections, as you call them, and we'll no doubt argue about the Final Answer!

Subject: Lyric Add and Correx Query
From: wysiwyg
Date: 16 Mar 01 - 11:12 PM

They come all sortsa ways. Your attitude is a real good one. People are needed to do corrections. Thing is, I dunno how. But I betcha a feller name of Mr. Joe Offer will come along in a bit and snap you up like a mudcat snaps up doughball (bait), because people who will help instead of complain are always mighty welcome hereabouts. Dig in and get comfy. He's on West Coast USA time so we often see him late at night relative to Mudcat time.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Help: Are all those lyrics submitted?
From: catspaw49
Date: 16 Mar 01 - 11:15 PM

WELCOME TO THE 'CAT!!!

The "Digital Tradition" Folksong database has been around for a long time (pre-Mudcat) and is now tied in with the forum and the Mudcat site. The "DT" is ownwed and operated by Dick Greenhaus (also owns Camsco Records now) and HE is the man to address your situations too. How corrections are generally made is this:

Write up your correction with the changes and the new lyrics and whatever additional info. The lyrics should be done in line break html format (a joeclone can fix it if you are still learning html). Start a thread titled, LYRICS CORRECTION-(Name of Song). Dick and Susan or a helper will "harvest the thread" and make the changes in the DT. There are plenty of others that have a problem or are missing verses and we try to add/change/delete info as often as possible. Due to the backload of info available, it may take up to a year to get the stuff IN the DT.....But having it on the forum will work by itself since a search will pull info from the DT and the forum. The DT now contains about 9000 songs so it is quite a job and overall, you can't beat the way it works. But I know of what you speak....Just add the changes as I suggested and eventually it'll come together.

I don't envy Dick, ts a daunting job and at this point, a lot of folks are working at writing the programs for midi-tunes to be with each song and they are really a bummer to do....You'll find some are not great, but its being worked on all the time....Its a work in progress and now YOU are part of the process.

Again, welcome to the 'Cat........

Spaw

Subject: RE: Help: Are all those lyrics submitted?
From: Allan C.
Date: 16 Mar 01 - 11:24 PM

While it may be entirely, or at least, partially possible, depending upon the source with which you might consult to ascertain the correctness thereof, that a certain, but hopefully small quantity of the far-too-numerous-to-count song lyrics found in the wonderfully extensive database that we lovingly refer to as the DT, may contain an occasional, but certainly unintentional error, every effort imaginable, given the time available to the workforce involved, is made to avoid such a possibility; but knowing that such things do, indeed, exist, the powers here have put into place a wonderful sytem which enables those who discover such mistakes to contact one or the other of the two primary people involved with the database, ie., dick greenhaus or Susan of DT, and report the problem along with, if it can be noted, the source in which the more correct lyric can be found, or else simply mention a syntactic or spelling error as such.

Subject: RE: Help: Are all those lyrics submitted?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Mar 01 - 11:45 PM

Allan, say, WHAT???

Probably the best way to submit corrections and lyrics is to post them here on the Forum, so other people can add their comments. I guess Jim Dixon and I are doing most of the harvesting now, and Dick and Susan do compiling. Generally, we include lyrics in the form they were originally submitted, because that is the submitting person's perception of the song. I admit that I correct spelling and delete offensive apostrophes), and I will sometimes patch together the submissions of several people; but once it gets in the Digital Tradition, it usually stays as-is unless there are major mistakes (we try hard to make sure we have correct songwriter and copyright information).

If you submit corrections, it's usually best to submit the whole song, not just tell us where to make the correction (but do tell us at the end of the lyrics what's corrected, and why. Depending on the nature of the correction, we may include your submission as an alternate version, rather than replacing the lyrics we have.

A good example is Greenland Whale Fisheries. somebody posted a message the other day, saying that our lyrics were "wrong" because they say "overhaul, let your davit tackles fall" - the poster convinced me that "OVERHAUL, YOUR DAVIT TACKLE FALL" might be a more nautically-correct phrase, with "overhaul" being a verb and "fall" a noun. However, both versions are found in songbooks, and both versions are sung - so, is one more "correct" than the other? We have 5 versions of the song, so we have it both ways.

So, my point is that the lyrics we have are more likely "different," rather than "incorrect" - so we're very careful about what we correct.

But anyhow, if you post lyrics we don't have, put ADD and the song title in the subject box of your message. If you're posting corrections, put CORR or "Correction" in the message title, and Jim and I will find it eventually. We mark songs with a harvesting birdie ^^ when we've harvested them. If the database already has the song and somebody posts the same lyrics again, we put a birdie with a (redundant) third wing. If you've posted a song more than a week ago and it's not marked as harvested, send me a personal message, and I'll take care of it. Dick and Susan also get submissions from places other than the Mudcat, so I suppose it's Jim and I who do most of the harvesting at Mudcat (although Susan does a bit to keep her hand in). There may be other harvesters I don't know about, but I haven't seen evidence of them.

MMario is heading up the effort to get tunes for all the Digital Tradition songs, and then he sends them to me for editing and forwarding to Dick. The preferable format for tunes is Noteworthy Composer, with first-verse lyrics matched to the tune. It can be a bear to match lyrics to a tune if you don't know the song - so we ask people to help us out if they can. ABC or MIDI is OK but including a JPG of the sheet music would help. If you can't do that, contact MMario, and he'll figure out a way to get the tune transcribed and sent to me.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Help: Are all those lyrics submitted?
From: catspaw49
Date: 16 Mar 01 - 11:50 PM

Kinda whupped up there didn't you Joe??? What the hell does logging in and out have to do with posting lyrics???

PLEASE NOTE --- 3/16/01

JOE OFFER WHUPS UP!!!!!!!!

hehehehehehehehehehehehehe

Spaw

Subject: RE: Help: Are all those lyrics submitted?
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Mar 01 - 11:51 PM

Ummmm, Joe? Did you get a couple of postings mixed up? You were doing a wonderful job there telling how to post correction and all of a sudden started talkign about logging out so a friend could log on???? Ya lost me on that one...sorry?

Subject: RE: Help: Are all those lyrics submitted?
From: Noreen
Date: 16 Mar 01 - 11:57 PM

ROTFLMAO!!

Subject: RE: Help: Are all those lyrics submitted?
From: catspaw49
Date: 17 Mar 01 - 12:03 AM

Yeah, Ol' Joe just couldn't be satisfied with the other fine explanations and had to throw his 17 cents in and look what happened!!!

He can change it now, but THERE ARE WITNESSES to the ORIGINAL CRIME!!!! I shall bookmark this thread for future use and other purposes such as blackmail!!!

JOE BLOWS IT !!!!!!!

Spaw

---

Oh, yeah?

Gees, the hawks are on ya, if you make one silly goof....

I have seven browser windows open now, working seven Mudcat threads. I was in the process of proofreading and correcting at the moment all you pundits were after me.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Help: Are all those lyrics submitted?
From: Noreen
Date: 17 Mar 01 - 12:09 AM

{...and he's not noticed yet... hee hee}

Subject: RE: Help: Are all those lyrics submitted?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 17 Mar 01 - 12:24 AM

Obviously, traditional songs come in many variants, so it's a mistake to suppose that a particular version is wrong just because we know another, different one.  On the other hand, there are a lot of transcriptions here of specific recordings, generally made by ear, which sometimes contain quite ludicrous errors.  It's always worth pointing those out, but only, of course, if you are really sure that you're right; I've known people to argue at great length that their particular hearing of a phrase must be right when it's clearly nonsense, sometimes to the extent of concocting exotic false etymologies for words which they think they've heard, and which make no sense at all unless a completely new meaning is invented for them.  Sometimes, too, people get quite upset when it's suggested that they, or someone they admire, may perhaps have made a mistake.

It's a minefield, in short.  I do point out errors of transcription from time to time, since there's a very big difference between a traditional singer making an inadvertent change in a lyric, and somebody writing down what they think they've heard on a record: the first may be considered as part of a legitimate "folk process", while the latter is just a mistake.  Mind you, I've been here a couple of years, now, so they're getting used to me.  If you have useful information to add, then please do it; but do also check around to make sure that it hasn't already been done, and try to be gentle about it; the "Greenland Whale Fisheries" example that Joe referred to above, for instance, came from someone who evidently knew a great deal about nautical terminology, but very little about folksong.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Help: Are all those lyrics submitted?
From: Matt_R
Date: 17 Mar 01 - 12:28 AM

HEY JOE! You didn't think you could fix it without me noticing, did you?

Subject: RE: Help: Are all those lyrics submitted?
From: katlaughing
Date: 17 Mar 01 - 12:29 AM

He is the eight armed god of threads!!!

Subject: RE: Help: Are all those lyrics submitted?
From: Matt_R
Date: 17 Mar 01 - 12:30 AM

Dang, cross-posting!

Subject: RE: Help: Are all those lyrics submitted?
From: catspaw49
Date: 17 Mar 01 - 12:34 AM

Yeah, the lad has changed his

MAJOR ERROR

but we all saw it and there is no going back. I printed a copy first Joe and I won't hesitate to use it!!!!

Spaw (:<))

Subject: Harvesting Lyrics & Corrections
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Mar 01 - 12:44 AM

Malcolm's right - we do fix transcription errors, although Dick and Susan are reluctant to make corrections unless the evidence is solid. When you post lyrics, it's really helpful to state your source, and to give background information on the song. Sometomes, poeple just start a thread and post the lyrics to a song, and we don't really know what to do with it. If it's composed by a Mudcatter, it usually goes into the Mudcat Songbook and usually does not get submitted to the Digital Tradition unless the songwriter specifically requests that it be submitted. If it's a rock song, it usually won't be submitted to the database. Some classic country songs go in, but most don't because there is a very good Country lyrics database already, Cowpie.

The general criterion is, if it might be of value to people who sing folk songs, we'll try to include it. That means you may find Gershwin and Cole Porter in the database.

Hope that helps. Spaw, didn't I say at least a few things that other people didn't say?

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Help: Are all those lyrics submitted?
From: catspaw49
Date: 17 Mar 01 - 12:49 AM

LMAO Joe.....Yeah you did, but do you also admit to a whup up with your control-C or do I have to get out the bright lights and garden hose???

Spaw

Subject: RE: Help: Are all those lyrics submitted?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Mar 01 - 12:54 AM

Spaw, you sonofabitch, I love you.
-Joe-