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How to Find a Song With a Particular Line

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Have you ever watched that old TV show "Name That Tune'' where contestants guess the title of a song just by listening to a few notes? Yes, it can be done, although it's often not that easy unless you really know your music. Fortunately, it's even easier to find a song if you know a line from the song. And the reason is the Internet, which provides search engines that can find just about anything if given enough information.

Ideas

Go to a karaoke bar and sing a line from the song. You never know. A lot of these people are music buffs who might come up with the answer.

Type a line from the song into an Internet search engine. Place quotes on both ends of the line, and hit search. As an example, type, "Oh Say Can You See.'' The search engine's result is "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Go to an artist's (or band's) Web site, if you know who recorded the song. Many Web sites for bands list all their songs along with the words for each song. Scroll through the songs until you find the line.

Go to one of the multitude of Web sites that are specifically designed to help you find songs. These sites can find a name of a song by the words in the line. They also can often find the name by you typing in just a few keywords. There are even sites that can identify songs by you humming (or singing) the tune into a microphone on a computer.

Tip

Type in the word "lyrics'' before or after the words in the line. This helps your search engine identify it as words to a song. Many times the words from the line turn out to be the name of the song. Try different variations on the words. For example, the word "grooving'' might be the word "groovin" in the lyrics. The less words you know from the song, the harder it can be for a search engine (or Web site) to identify it.

Warnings:

  • Some Web sites that search for names of songs are a lot better than others. The key is the number of songs in the site's library. Some sites also charge money, which usually is not necessary if you look around enough on free sites and search engines.
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