Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2014 October 1

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October 1 edit

Mysterious song edit

Hi all. So I was lying out on deck on the Emerald Princess last week, listening to music being played by the DJ, and I made a note of a song that I didn't recognise but which sounded interesting. Unfortunately I have had no luck with lyrics searches, I can't remember the tune, and this is all I have to go on: (Transcribed exactly from the note I made on my tablet...) Look for this song: title might be Might have opened the door to your heart. 80ish, a bit like Dire Straits or Huey Lewis & The News. Any ideas? Cheers Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 12:34, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Pete Townsend: "Let My Love Open the Door" --Jayron32 12:57, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds likely: I'll give it a listen when I get home from work! Ta. Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 13:01, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Whaddaya mean "no luck with lyrics searches"? What kind of searches? The first thing that came back when I Googled "Might have opened the door to your heart" was Pete Townshend's song. Contact Basemetal here 13:16, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Really? Oh, that's strange: I thought I had typed exactly that, including the " ", and there were about 7 Google results, none of which actually referred to a song. Sorry, I must have typed one or more of the words wrong. User error! Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 13:39, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No. I meant w/o the quotes (" "). If you Google Might have opened the door to your heart (so w/o quotes) you get what I said, a bunch of links for Townshend's songs the first of which is the YouTube video. If you do include the quotes then you still get it but it's a bit harder (it's hidden in an Nth result). My rule of thumb is to not use quotes in Google, counterintuitive as it may seem. What do others think? Contact Basemetal here 14:32, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I always start without quotes for my first attempt. If I find that the results get false positives at a rate where the good results are getting washed out, I start adding quotes, but usually to phrases rather than the whole search. Had I not been instantly familiar with the OPs song (my brain hit on this one much faster than Google. And I've been singing it in my head all day now, thanks to the OP) I would have started with the un-quoted phrase, then perhaps tried putting quotes around parts I was sure about, such as:
  • Might have opened the "door to your heart"
  • "Might have opened the door" to your heart
  • Might have "opened the door" to your heart
  • Might have "opened the door to your heart"
and variations like that. Quote-marks in searches in Google work BEST when they contain only a few words: the more words you put between the quote marks, eventually the search becomes too specific and a single typo or mistyped word will throw out all the possible good results. In this case, the misheard lyric "might have" (which should have been "my love"), if included in the quoted part of the search, would throw out most of the good hits. Avoiding quote marks as a first attempt is usually best, and then using them sparingly in refinements, is the way to go here. --Jayron32 14:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
(Back home now; have listened to it!) Yep, on reflection I should have tried just the "opened the door to your heart" bit first, as that was the only bit I was sure of. Thanks again – another one to add to my rather large collection of 80s music! Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 17:52, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]