That being said, using sites like delicious and diigo, I was directed to a few cool websites and pages via certain tags relating to music, literature and life. I used tags in combination to narrow my search for relevant information (if you can't find your soulmate, might as well discover the qualities you prefer in a future social bookmarking lover, right?) I made searches of music, meaning and life, or writing and life. I had to make sure I wasn't just getting music and book review sites. That's why adding something like life usually broadened the search results.
When it comes to music, I'm a lyrics guy. Sure, I can get hooked by a good melody and or a catchy beat, but I connect to a song emotionally through its lyrics and my interpretation of them. That's why I was happy I found a useful site called Songfacts. Songfacts gives you information about thousands of songs spanning hundreds of artists. A lot of it is basic information recording, but where the site really succeeds is how it opens up a forum of discussion to fans. There users get to post their theories about song meanings, usually loosely based on vague hints artists have given in interviews.
Every song is personal, open to the listener's interpretation. It's always eye-opening, then, to see other people's interpretations, which are often totally different from my own. For example, Interpol's "Evil", the song that turned me on to one of my favorite bands, was apparently based on a British serial-killer couple, Fred and Rosemary West.
And here I thought it was a sweet love song...
Songfacts reveals theories about this song's meaning: some say its about Charles Manson, others say its clearly about masturbation. Whether correct or not, Songfacts succeeds because it creates the discussion. It allows fans to look at songs from new perspectives, while throwing their own out there for others to see.
On the writing/literature front, my search directed me to an interesting blog post about a talk Kurt Vonnegut gave a few years back about why people need drama in their life. The blog is actually music-themed and is run by Derek Sivers (Sadly, neither he nor the person who bookmarked it off diigo were my bookmarking soulmates). Still, the late Vonnegut's point about about storytelling and why people yearn for it in their lives was thought provoking. First, Vonnegut explains the story arch of a classic story everybody knows, Cinderella:
There are the many ups and downs, the dramatic rise and fall from misery to ecstasy and back again. Still, the righteous character wins out in the end and gets to live out her perfect life until the end of her days.
Then Vonnegut showed how real life is:
Not exactly a Cinderalla story, huh? Vonnegut explains that because we grow up hearing these emotional, up-and-down stories in movies and books, we expect are lives to be just as dramatic. That's why people create drama where there is none. Vonnegut's point is key and speaks directly against the point of my blog. Vonnegut is saying books, song and films and be voices of INsanity, causing people to expect unrealistic things from life rather than giving them guidance. I disagree, but truly, art is a double-edged sword. This idea will be in the back of my head as I move forward on this blog.
So although I was jilted by social bookmarking match making, I still was able to find useful sites and pages pertinent to this blog. I can see myself consulting Songfacts regularly in the future as well as keeping Vonnegut's words of wisdom in mind. And if I need inspiration or am looking for new ideas, I can rely on my music, writing and life tags to tap into the never-ending supply of fresh ideas.
