What the heck is the name of that song?

Have you ever heard a song on the radio, or remembered a line or two from a song, and wanted to buy it (aka, download it illegally from the internet), but not know what the heck it was? Well, me too, weird person talking out loud to a webpage! Fear not, I've found some pretty cool tools that should help you out!

First off, if you know some of the lyrics, your first stop should be Google. You should do a search with this in the search box: lyrics "Skinnamarinkydinkydink Skinnamarinkydoo".


If that doesn't work, or you don't know any of the lyrics (or it doesn't have any), you should head over to SongTapper. This great website was put together by some Simon Fraser University students, and is super-cool. What you do is tap the beat of a song out on your space bar, and tells you what song it is. It's not perfect, but the more people who use it, the better it becomes!


Finally, if you've already called up your friends and bugged them but still can't figure it out, you can try this final method I've found, called Tunatic. It works using your computer's microphone. You can try singing it, or if you hear it on the radio, run the free program (Mac or PC) and it will try and match it up against its database. Fido cell phones have the same type of service (called #DJ, but it costs money after the first one.


I tried the last two methods in an attempt to identify a classical song I couldn't figure out, and the Tunatic program actually got it for me! I was looking for the "O Fortuna" movement of "Carmina Burana" by Carl Orff. Its a good song to get you pumped up before a big game, or before your spaceship explodes. Or so the movies would tell us.

PS. I had a pretty busy weekend: I went and saw "Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Electric Boogaloo", and was pretty disappointed. And then my night got even worse when my friend Erin beat me in pool 10 straight times. I'm lucky I didn't decide to end it all right then and there! Because watching Italy beat France in the WC Final was pretty sweet, and the party that night was awesome. Forza Italia! Forza Azzuri!