112 covers

I was shopping in the iTunes Music Store, buying some Stevie Wonder because I don't have any on digital and heard something on the radio the other day that reminded me how good he can be, when the title of one of his songs reminded me of a song I used to just adore in the mid-1980s when it was being played fairly regularly on my favorite Seattle radio station, KEZX FM. I don't even know what KEZX's format at the time was called, it was just the station everybody I knew listened to. I suppose "Contemporary Folk" would be as good a label as any. They sponsored summer concerts at the zoo featuring local and national artists. They gave airplay to a lot of WIndham Hill artists, but also to a lot of local bands. I suspect Uncle Bonsai got their first airplay there. They were, of course, a locally owned independent station --- this was before telecommunications "reform" sucked all the life out of radio.

Anyway, I remembered the title of this (I thought) obscure little song that used to break my heart by reminding me of a beautiful girl I cared as much for as I had in me at the time to care, who sent more than a year sending me mixed signals, and then sent me a wedding announcement. Sigh. But, as I was saying before I wandered down that side alley off memory lane:

Anyway. I didn't remember the artist. So I typed the title into the search box: eight performances of a song by that title, some by artists whose names I recognized. Wow, who'd have thought that many people would have covered it.

So I listened to the samples. None of them were quite what I remembered, though a one was pretty close --- male voice in the right register, roughly the same arrangement. But not what I remembered.

So on to google, where I entered the names of two or three of the artists who covered it, and the title, and got a page at the Covers Project for the artist, whose name I immediately recognized, Chris de Burgh. And a list of 112 covers of Lady in Red. Covers by Panpipes of the Andes and Tony Curtis and a hundred other bands from the London Symphony Orchestra.to the Logyrithms.

I guess my fondly remembered obscure little song's been doing a nice job helping Chris de Burgh pay his rent.

Twisting the facts 180 degrees

At least the people getting the "wrong" result on their gay marriage poll, mentioned in kareila's journal a couple of days ago aren't as sleazy as the United States Senate Republican Conference. From the current Risks Digest:

Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 07:58:42 -0500
From: "Keith C. Ivey" <kcivey@cpcug.org>
Subject: Online poll rigging

The Senate Republican Conference has a Web poll on its front page about the
capture of Saddam Hussein.  Apparently the results weren't turning out the
way they like (what a surprise for a Web poll!), so they changed the form to
switch the way two answers are recorded.  Now if you choose the 1st choice,
it's recorded as the 2nd, and vice versa.  But there's no feedback to let you
know it's happening.  The change has been confirmed by checking Google's
cache of the page.  Here's the story:
  http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_01_11_atrios_archive.html#107414565730750569

If politicians are willing to tamper with something as insignificant as a
Web poll, how much more tempting is it to tamper with the results of a real
election?

Keith C. Ivey, Washington, DC <kcivey@cpcug.org> 

  [Added note: There was something very similar in November 2003 
  on Bill Frist's Senate site, too:
    http://reason.com/hitandrun/003421.shtml
  KCI]