Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah

jeff buckley hallelujah - #3 Search Term
8:03 AM EST, March 5th, 2008

I haven't watched American Idol since season 1 (Source of the Oscar winning movie From Justin to Kelly) but based on the top search terms this morning there is no doubt what the most popular cover from last nights episode was. Jason Castro's (what is it about slightly effeminate young males that so intrigues American Idol fans) extremely abbreviated rendition of Jeff Buckley's rendition of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah seems to have been last night's big hit. I myself really, really liked this song when I first heard it as part of the Shrek soundtrack. Because I so enjoyed it, I listened to the song again and again. And as I did so, I slowly came to realize that this slow and haunting song that evokes religious overtones is actually a little strange. The lyrics, which you completely miss by focusing on the beautiful chorus, describe a weird possibly abusive relationship between the protagonist and his object of desire. A sample -

Well Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
she tied you to her kitchen chair
And she broke your throne and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Needless to say, these lyrics did not make cut for the American Idol version of the song. Below is the clip of the American Idol performance that is powering all of the search queries. At least until YouTube pulls it for copyright infringement. You can also download just about every version the Hallelujah song other than Jeff Buckley's here.

Brett Favre Retires

Brett Favre - #2 Search Term
1:36 PM EST, March 4th, 2008

All I can say is it is about time. The town of Green Bay can finally celebrate their freedom from the tyranny of one Brett Favre. The man that single-handedly robbed the nation of the Superbowl matchup everyone wanted to witness has mercifully decided to hang it up. Sure, there is going to be a portion of the Cheeshead nation that will miss his errant lame duck bombs every Sunday but the Packer organization can finally have a game plan that doesn't involve the quarterback running around like a chicken with his head cut off before closing his eyes and throwing the ball up for grabs. Now, I recognize that the man was one of the best quarterbacks for a 3 to 5 year period but since then he has been little more than a juiced up Don "Magic Man" Majkowski riding on the good will of a single Super Bowl victory (same number as the immortal Trent Dilfer and Brad Johnson). During that time he has built up numerous reasons to forget that period of above average-ness and come to see him as overrated and object of scorn. Here are my personal top 6 list of reasons I never want to see him mentioned as one of the game's best.

6. The last play of his career perfectly summarized his career.
5. John Madden's Man Crush
4. Making a mockery of Micheal Strahan's sack record by giving him a fake sack.
3. Addicted to drugs and an alcoholic but noone seems to care
2. His joke of a consecutive games streak record where he would sometimes play a single play and then come out (also hopped up on pain pills).
1. All-time leader in career interceptions just above luminaries like John Hadl and Vinny Testaverde

The one good thing about Brett Favre...best wooden acting by an overrated Quarterback in a comedy classic. (The embedded video appears to be non-functional, so go here to view it)

Sadie Hawkins Day

Sadie Hawkins Day - #2 Search Term
9:47 AM EST, February 29th, 2008

According to Wikipedia, Sadie Hawkins Day is an invention of the Li'l Abner comic strip. The day is supposedly named after "the homeliest gal in all them hills" and marks an event in which the unmarried women of Dogpatch could pursue any man they pleased. If they caught that man before the sun went down, that unfortunate fellow was forced to marry his captor. Seems like they should at least wait until Stockholm syndrome to set in. My own personal familiarity comes from two places other than the comic strip since most people stopped reading Li'l Abner sometime around the invention of the horseless carriage. In high school, Sadie Hawkins Dances were the blessing of any overly shy but still somewhat popular boy. A date could easily be had without the sweaty palms and awkward stammering. Of course, Sadie Hawkins Dances were also the bane of every geek, nerd, and spaz because it only confirmed their status as social pariah. The second source of my acquaintance with the day comes from the under appreciated Broadway musical version of the Li'l Abner cannon. Embedded below is a clip of one of the musical numbers from the movie production of that same musical. See Hollywood recycling of ideas is nothing new. I would have preferred to include this YouTube clip but it does not allow embedding. The best number is Jubliation T. Cornpone but YouTube let's me down there as well. Good corny stuff.

Look Over Here - I Have Something Worthless to Say

I am a big fan of Google Trends. This cool little utility shows you up to the minute lists of the most popular search terms being used in Google's search engine. It will even indicate if there is a regional bias to the search requests. Often you can be clued into the latest news, pop culture and main stream, before it hits the TV airwaves by monitoring the list. I first learned of Heath Ledger's recent death when I looked at the list and the top 5 searches were all combinations of the actor's name and euphemisms for passing on.

Another feature of this tool is that a click on any of the popular terms on the list will take you to composite search result page for the term. The composite page will include, in separate sections, the top couple of search hits from the web, from Google's news aggregator, and from a search of blogs. The problem is that the search results from blogs are never useful. The top hits are almost always spam blogs. Many of them are nothing more than reproductions of the Google Trends list and lots and lots of ads. So this got me to thinking.

Obviously people are putting these automatically generated nuisances up because posting nonsense content around top search terms is sufficient to get enough eye balls on the ads to make money. But, what if, the goal wasn't in making money. What if the goal was just eyeballs. Getting people to actually see something you created, no matter how frivolous or meaningless. Could you get people to come and read your words if you did nothing but post about the hottest search terms of the day? I am sure someone out there can answer this already. But I thought I would give it a try. I already have a blog that noone reads and I don't expect anyone to read. That is fine with me. What is the worst that could happen by baiting your blog with things people are already telling you they want to see? I would have two blogs that noone reads? At least I am not contributing to the growing internet landfill fill of robot blogs, link farms, and ads disguised as content. Not that I would call future ramblings on this blog quality material but by adding my 2 cents about the day's hot topic, I am contributing to the internet's hive mind, not lobotomizing it. With that, let's get started and see if anyone notices.