So, It's Been A While...

So, it's been a while since my last blog...mostly because I had no idea what to blog about. Then last night as I was falling asleep I started thinking about songs that have people's names in the titles; or that refer to a person by name within the song. Something that I always thought was uncommon because, not everyone would know someone with that name...therefore making the song hard for a wide audience to relate to; and because it would be very personal for the artist, and possibly embarrassing if the relationship ended. But when I went through my iTunes Library, which consist of 1821 songs I found 30 songs with people's names as titles or in the titles, this was not including the movie and play soundtracks I own.
Then I started thinking about the songs and if I found them hard to relate to because I don't know someone named "Emily" or "Kelsey" or "Delilah" or "Alfie" and for almost every song the answer was: no I do not find them hard to relate to. So, this got me thinking about why I thought they would be hard to relate to and why they are not hard for me to relate to. I also looked at the songs to see if the songs had a personal or romantic coloring to them. Many did, so apparently being forced to remember a relationship through a song you wrote is not a deterrent to some artists.
I have picked two songs from two separate artists to illustrate what I ended up finding, I will put a list of all 30 songs at the end of this blog. The songs I picked are "Delilah" by The Dresden Dolls and "Emily" by From First To Last.
"Delilah" is a story told from the view of a frustrated friend, about a girl who keep going back to be used by this one guy. The friend is watching helplessly as this girl Delilah keeps getting hurt and not understanding why he won't change. I know several people who have been in a situation like this, and I'm forced to watch as they get hurt again for the 1000,000 time by the same person. It's a common story with a name that may or may not fit attached to it. I found that to be true with almost every song on my list. The name just helped pull the story together.
"Emily" in comparison to "Delilah" is a love song. Well, more a song of infatuation. The singer is infatuated with this girl named Emily and the entire song is about how "there is no one in the world like Emily." Which, obviously disproved my theory that artist would not want to preserve their feelings for a person who may or may not be around them for very long. It seems overly painful to me, but there were a good handful of songs like this that I found.
It was really interesting for me to look at all these songs, and to disprove this idea I had held for so long; that was quite obviously wrong. I plan on making a play list on my iTunes of these songs and listening to it all the way through just think about it a bit more. I'm really quite fascinated with the idea of it now...I'm not sure why, but it's really caught my attention.
Here are the songs:
1) Melissa by The Allman Brothers
2) Jimmy Jazz by The Clash
3) Rudie Can't Fail by The Clash
4) Gabrielle by Cradle of Filth
5) Half Jack by The Dresden Dolls
6) Dear Jenny by The Dresden Dolls
7) Delilah by The Dresden Dolls
8) Mrs. O by The Dresden Dolls
9) Mandy Goes to Med School by The Dresden Dolls
10) Me and the Mini Bar by The Dresden Dolls (we all know her name, so I thought it fit)
11) Grand Theft Autumn by Fall Out Boy
12) Emily by From First to Last
13) Jesus of Suberbia by Green Day
14) St. Jimmy by Green Day
15) Maria by Green Day
16) Niki FM by Hawthorne Heights
17) Mrs. Jones by Hole
18) Anna Molly by Incubus
19) Kennedy by Kill Hannah
20) Mr. Brightside by The Killers
21) Alfie by Lily Allen
22) Kelsey by Metro Station
23) Tom Sawyer by Mindless Self Indulgence
24) Helena by My Chemical Romance
25) Nemo by Nightwish
26) Jenny Don't Be Hasty by Paolo Nutini
27) Franklin by Paramore
28) Danny California by The Red Hot Chilli Peppers
29) Everyman Has a Molly by Say Anything
30) Jackie Will Save Me by Shiny Toy Guns