nothing new under the sun

Well….as they say, there’s nothing new under the sun. Jack and I got into the discussion yesterday of song titles. It all started with what I was calling “Sweetness”, the last song on the next record. He Google searched the title and showed me about 4 million other songs with the same title. “OK, this’ll make it 4 million and one!” I thought. But he urged me to make it different and I finally gave in and so most likely the title will be printed as such: “Your Sweetness (Is my Weakness)”. OK, Google search THAT and what do you get? Barry White! Are you kidding me? Barry White has/had a song called “Your Sweetness is My Weakness”? You know, I thought I was pretty clever coming up with that song but it only reinforces the notion that you have to be pretty obtuse to say anything new at this point in the history of songwriting. I make it impossible for myself to steal song titles (unless I just do it on purpose) by not listening or HARDLY listening to anything that’s come out since 1973. I’ve pretty much been walking around in a daze since then listening to the music in my own head (what the song “I’m Your Radio” is all about).
This morning I got curious about the rest of the titles and here’s what I found just on the first page of Google searches for the names of each song:
“Too Much Information” – is also a song by Duran Duran and a song by The Police
“Gambled and Lost”- has a 1982 copyright and seems to be performed by The Greg Austin Band (?)
“Enabler”- is a June 24, 2010 release by “string shredder” Mark Harkins and this girl who also sings a song nothing like mine…


“Ridin’ Around”-couldn’t find one entitled this (oddly enough), but Google reminded me of Chuck’s “No Particular Place to Go” and the lyric “ridin’ around in my automobile”…
“Spend the Night”- of course, I realized the conflict with The Rolling Stones “Let’s Spend the Night Together” but decided to write the song anyway, it’s where the melody took me...and I’m glad I did! But there are also songs with this title by someone called PLIES and Rashaan Patterson, not to mention that it’s the title of an album by The Donnas.
“Time For You to Go”- came up as a song by BARLOWGIRL and there’s Bobby Darin’s “Until It’s Time For You to Go”. I guarantee that neither one rocks like ours!
“Nervous Around Pretty Girls”-is a lot more rockin’ than Justin Bieber’s “Sometimes Nervous Around Girls” and not nearly as stupid as “Pretty Girls Make Me Nervous” by Fruit Basket.
“318”- Yeah! I did it! No songs found with this title! There IS a website dedicated to the car though.
“I’m Your Radio”- again none found but there’s of course “I’m Your Captain”, “I’m Your Baby”, “I’m Your Man”…etc.
“Not Turning Around”-someone has a song called “The Significance of Not Turning Around”. There’s also Bonnie Tyler’s “Turn Around” and Jimmy Buffett’s “Turning Around”, so I win again!
And that’s all of’m. This is the first time I’ve actually sat down and concerned myself with this nonsense. I really don’t care. I mean I really REALLY don’t care how many songs have the same names as mine. If I stopped to worry about that, it would eventually come down to me Google searching every line to see how original they were. My brain is pretty much turned to the OFF position when I’m writing. To turn it ON would be over thinking and thus, waaaay less creative in my book.