Tuesdays with Media: Song Names

I've mentioned before that I often use Pandora to discover new instrumental musicians to listen to while I'm at work.  For the most part, I just focus on whatever project I'm working on, but if a song is really good, I'll take a moment to write down the song name and artist so I can find it again later.  At my current job (which I've worked at now for seven months), I have two large Post-It notes stuck to my cubicle wall, filled with song names.

What's interesting about this is that some songs have names that change how you interpreted the song from when you first heard it.  Take Antoine Dufour's song "Mother," it doesn't sound particularly motherly to me, at least at first -- thinking more about it, there's a lot of care taken with every string plucked, every chord strummed, just as mothers take care with their children.  Or take Andy McKee's song "Samus' Stardrive," which I just thought was a thoughtful, moving song, perhaps about a lost love, but the name makes it clear that it's about a video game.  And Stephen Bennett's song "In Memory of Joe LoMastro," just sounds exciting, like you can't wait to take on the world, but it's about a man's passing.

Now, just because these song titles don't match what I imagine, doesn't make my interpretation wrong, just different from what the artist intended.  Having my own stories interpreted differently than what I intended, I know that that's fine (at least it is for me).  But what about when a piece's title is distracting?  I recently discovered Kaki King, who has a fun, often pounding, percussive style to her playing, though she can also make songs that sound ethereal.  I remember when I heard one of her songs, played on a lap guitar, that had a strong electronica-feel to it.  I decided I liked it enough to want to write the title down and was surprised by what I found: "Gay Sons of Lesbian Mothers."  What on earth does that have to do with the song I just heard?  There are no words, so it's not like she can force that interpretation on me ... unless I see the title, I guess?

My point to all of this is that what a song is named can be a glimpse of what the artist was trying to convey with their music, but it doesn't have to be what we get out of it.  Song lyrics will get in your head even if you ignore them, but the same is not true for instrumental song titles.  Good thing too, because I've never seen the German TV show for which Don Ross' "Klimbim" is named so if I had have his interpretation, I'd be lost.