It is an old observation that the best writers sometimes desregard the rules of rhetoric. When they do so, however, the reader will usually find in the sentence some compensating meric, attained at the cost of the violation. Unless he is certain of doing as well, he will probably do best to follow the rules.
William Strunk and E. B. White, The Elements of Style
The other day, while driving, a friend commented that the most common word in song titles was 'Love', and that the second most common was not 'you' as you might hope, but 'I'...
Far be it for me to speculate what this tells us about human nature, I'd rather just present you with the data! I ransacked the freecddb database for this information. The database contains information about 511,912 CDROMs (as of Jan 2002). I counted the words in all of 'em.
As you can see below, my friend was right, more or less. There certainly is a disturbing dominance of first-person personal pronouns. Pithy or Piteous?
CD Titles/Artist names
100 Most Popular Words
99232 The 71371 Various 32256 of 30056 Artists 24623 the 19909 Of 14201 and 13533 Hits 12623 A 12449 Best 12210 Disc 10745 CD 9724 In 9534 Music 8648 Live 8156 in 8033 Vol. 7678 Volume 7365 Love 7219 Collection 6870 Greatest 6852 I 6248 de 6242 To 5538 And 5531 Rock 5508 You 5359 John 5219 Orchestra 5026 Band 4836 Blues 4828 Dance 4746 New 4641 On 4598 a 4554 to 4479 For 4461 Jazz 4453 for 4377 Songs 4325 Symphony 4238 Christmas 3924 One 3806 My 3742 II 3684 Die 3666 All 3645 World 3601 Piano 3555 Vol 3523 From 3413 Time 3408 La 3271 CD2 3245 Me 3205 De 3184 Disk 3156 Classics 3109 CD1 3091 Blue 3013 No 2983 Soul 2970 Big 2932 Country 2878 No. 2795 Mozart 2711 Black 2621 It 2618 Bach 2596 At 2492 Is 2479 Night 2454 David 2432 Your 2413 on 2382 at 2364 King 2312 Soundtrack 2293 With 2287 various 2284 Album 2279 Life 2270 Sampler 2268 Michael 2266 Great 2257 from 2248 Bob 2241 Beethoven 2238 Sound 2153 Original 2142 Years 2124 James 2123 Complete 2120 DJ 2112 This 2064 Paul 2063 Party 2033 Compilation 2024 Club 1991 Peter |
Track Titles
100 Most Popular Words 613475 The 226413 I 220551 You 216090 the 180603 A 164846 Love 158250 in 157586 of 143308 Me 140983 In 139886 Of 130589 My 121653 To 89801 a 87492 On 78857 and 75882 It 71780 to 66716 Your 61000 For 56607 de 56098 Is 56050 And 55045 Don't 53614 La 53410 All 52227 No 52179 Allegro 50869 Be 49648 No. 46207 Mix) 45929 Blues 45048 for 44798 One 44721 Time 42841 Man 39520 Song 39482 on 39155 you 39047 I'm 38866 Little 38716 Night 38009 Do 37381 Up 35364 me 35205 With 34606 What 33688 Down 33613 Concerto 32703 Baby 31831 Heart 31610 Blue 31605 This 31357 Get 31222 Go 30186 World 30074 We 29847 is 29535 Out 29080 Like 28647 That 28569 Day 28227 Come 28180 When 27932 It's 27862 De 27733 Life 26669 Dance 26367 Good 26110 So 25955 Back 25869 Girl 25835 Got 25631 Way 25590 From 24884 Just 24632 love 24596 my 24416 New 24080 Let 23667 If 23162 Can't 23031 Rock 23014 Take 22715 la 22263 O 22015 Op. 21966 Home 21842 from 21708 Are 21333 Never 21089 Die 20811 Black 20668 Christmas 20164 Can 20085 El 19948 Want 19857 Away 19666 Know 19621 Have |