User:Richhoncho/Songs by theme

The main problem with these categories are two-fold, one is the actual subject matter notable and if notability is established, editors not understanding the difference between "about" and "containing" a certain word.

Song lyrics extensively use Simile, Metaphor, Allegory, Alliteration (sometimes words are added just because they sound nice), and every other literary and poetic device known. Sometimes a song’s meaning could be as plain as day, sometimes it is so obscure that it is possible not even the songwriter understand what the meaning is!

This is all by-the-by, as it is not for Wikipedians to have an opinion when adding categories, the fact should be contained in the article - and preferably in the lead.

Categories are created as "Songs about Foo" but that is then widened by successive editors to include anything that mentions Foo and become depositories for unreferenced and poorly referenced entries. There are also editors out there that think because a word appears in a song title then that is what the song is about.

One of my favourite howlers was adding Kitty Can into the songs about animals category. There is no reference to any animal whatsoever, no comment on the page on the lyrical content, a search found that the chorus line is "Eve never pleases me and Kitty can" so I think we should count ourselves lucky there isn't a category, "songs about bestiality"

Some of the categories are worthy of a scholarly article which references notable songs with lyric quotes (subject to relevant and important constraints imposed by WP) and detail, but creating lists of songs by subject is often an exercise in indiscriminate collection of information, as I will point out below, purely by noting some of the entries :-

Example of contents of typical categories
As can be seen from below, songs are added to categories because an editor "understands" what the song is about and not necessarily because it is the theme of the song.

Category:Songs about poverty
A CfD for this category was "no consensus".

Category:Songs about the Cold War
There were two CfDs for this category, the first was delete and the second outcome was "listify"

Category:Songs about prison
Closed as "purge" which never happened, so still has all the howlers in there.

Example categories commencing with the words "Songs about"
abortion, aircraft, alcohol, animals, automobiles, Barack Obama, BDSM, bicycles, birds, bullying, buses, cannabis, child abuse, cities, countries, crime, dancing‎, death, diseases and disorders, domestic violence, drinking and driving, drugs‎, HIV/AIDS, heroin, homelessness, indigenous peoples, loneliness, Marilyn Monroe, music, nuclear war and weapons, places, poverty, professional sports, prostitutes, radio, school, science, sexuality, suicide, telephone calls, telephones, television, the Holocaust, the media, the military, touring, trains, transport, Witchcraft‎, World War II‎. (Updated 8th June 2015).

Lists of songs about Foo
List articles create the same problems as categories. There are good arguments that some subjects in songs maybe notable, there are cultural references, the almost continuous use of metaphor and simile, but no, we have to reduce songs down to the lowest common denominator, a list of, with no explanation why a specific song is about xxx and inclusion is based on the use of the word "xxx" in the song/title.

List of songs about rain
Prime example. If this had been Rain in culture with explanations, that is a totally different kettle of fish. This list was deleted 1 June 2014.