Zevon’s lyrics express boundaries (e.g. Mr. Bad Example). Boundaries demarcate us from them, whether it be it personal or political. Boundaries help to appreciate our “Line of Actual Control”
Also nice to see Zevon’s lyrics be noted for something other than perhaps the greatest alliteration in the English language. Repeat after me, “ A Little Old Lady…”
Zevon often writes in extended metaphor. Frank and Jesse is also about tbe Everleys. Werewolves is about a ladies man taking advantage of old women in London (bad crime I guess) as much as it is about an actual werewolf. Other songs mix in autobiography (WZ never seemed to talk too much about himself but he sang about himself, songs like Mama Couldn't be Persuaded and even Mr Bad Example or Things to do in Denver)
Hi Jan! So glad you liked it. I actually did the location extraction manually - maybe not the most programmatically efficient approach but Zevon's songs are fairly short, so it didn't take me more than a half hour or so. The only code I used for scraping was that little snippet I showed in the piece before the graph, but I'm happy to send you that one and/or the code used for the maps? Just let me know!
Facepalm moment: Writing my comment, I didn't realize that, of course, song lyrics are best classified by a human rather than by some kind of fancy NLP technology or AI :) Makes the project all the more beautiful.
A fair criticism Siddharth! But in a sense, this is exactly what my newsletter is about - writing stories on things I find in public data. This piece has web scraping, mapping, and open-source information found online, just like dozens of my other posts. Plus, I just needed a break from writing about depressing subjects :)
Zevon’s lyrics express boundaries (e.g. Mr. Bad Example). Boundaries demarcate us from them, whether it be it personal or political. Boundaries help to appreciate our “Line of Actual Control”
Also nice to see Zevon’s lyrics be noted for something other than perhaps the greatest alliteration in the English language. Repeat after me, “ A Little Old Lady…”
You have omitted Bujumbura in your war category
Wow, right you are James! How did I miss that one??
I would read articles that attempt to dissect and examine Warren's songs.
Zevon often writes in extended metaphor. Frank and Jesse is also about tbe Everleys. Werewolves is about a ladies man taking advantage of old women in London (bad crime I guess) as much as it is about an actual werewolf. Other songs mix in autobiography (WZ never seemed to talk too much about himself but he sang about himself, songs like Mama Couldn't be Persuaded and even Mr Bad Example or Things to do in Denver)
Great project! How did you do the topic extraction? Any chance of sharing your code?
Hi Jan! So glad you liked it. I actually did the location extraction manually - maybe not the most programmatically efficient approach but Zevon's songs are fairly short, so it didn't take me more than a half hour or so. The only code I used for scraping was that little snippet I showed in the piece before the graph, but I'm happy to send you that one and/or the code used for the maps? Just let me know!
Facepalm moment: Writing my comment, I didn't realize that, of course, song lyrics are best classified by a human rather than by some kind of fancy NLP technology or AI :) Makes the project all the more beautiful.
Dude what does this have to do with any of the reasons people subscribe to this newsletter?
A fair criticism Siddharth! But in a sense, this is exactly what my newsletter is about - writing stories on things I find in public data. This piece has web scraping, mapping, and open-source information found online, just like dozens of my other posts. Plus, I just needed a break from writing about depressing subjects :)