Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2016 April 11

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April 11

A song by Céline Dion

Hello everyone. I am looking for the name of a French song by Céline Dion which I have forgotten the name! But, as I remember a sequence of the clip, she is sitting on the floor embracing a doll. The clip has been filmed with something like a yellowish filter as well. I heard it first in 1990s (maybe 1998 or 1999). Would you please inform me of the name? Hamid Hassani (talk) 07:06, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Have you tried looking at Celine Dion singles discography, which covers all of the songs she released as singles? If it had a music video, it was likely also an official single release. Perhaps that list will help you find the song in question. --Jayron32 11:47, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes Jeyron, I did. I tried some and did not find it. But I have to continue. :) Hamid Hassani (talk) 16:37, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

I also checked some clips on Celine Dion videography. She has made more than enough French songs and clips! Hamid Hassani (talk) 17:18, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Maybe her 1996 cover of "River Deep – Mountain High" ("When I was a little girl, I had a rag doll")? Clarityfiend (talk) 00:53, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Clarity. But the song is fully in French. Hamid Hassani (talk) 19:28, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

I thought it was possible that she also sang it in French (like the Beatles did "Komm, gib mir deine Hand/Sie liebt dich" in German), but I see there's a video of her singing it in English on French TV. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:19, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

I found Céline Dion's song finally: Pour que tu m'aimes encore. :) Hamid Hassani (talk) 09:01, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

"Leader of the Pack" and the folk ballad tradition

I'm looking for reliable sources with this query, more than original ideas. Songs in the 1950s and 1960s, like "Leader of the Pack", "Tell Laura I Love Her", "Dead Man's Curve", "Ebony Eyes", "Johnny Remember Me", etc., fall into the category we call teenage tragedy songs - an article which needs improvement. That is - boy and girl fall in love, one of them dies an often violent and certainly tragic death, the other one pines. Now, I'm quite sure that such songs fall into a long and venerable tradition of folk ballads covering similar tragic themes. I'm no expert on that tradition, but one example of a similar song is "Oh My Darling, Clementine", itself based on an earlier song, "Down by the River Liv'd a Maiden", first published in 1863 - lyrics here. Does anyone know of any reliable (preferably online) sources that explicitly link the folk ballad tradition of songs about such deaths, with the similarly-themed melodramatic teenage tragedy songs of the late 50s / early 60s? Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:29, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

This book has an extensive discussion of the influence of (especially) African American folk ballads on early rock and roll. There's a several page discussion in there on the development of the folk song Stagger Lee (Stagolee, Stackolee, etc,) into an early rock standard. Maybe that's a possible source for you. Search for Stagger Lee, it's about 2/3rds of the way through the book. --Jayron32 12:58, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

That's a book I've somehow never got round to reading - thanks for reminding me, I'll check it out. Any more thoughts out there? Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:03, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Another potential entry: "Don't Worry Baby". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:43, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

While the Beach Boys did mine folk ballads for material (i.e. "Sloop John B"), I don't see anywhere in the article you linked that states that "Don't Worry Baby" was based off of or inspired by pre-rock folk ballads. --Jayron32 15:34, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

This [1] page has a nice catalogue, indexed by cause of death! Anyway, it mentions Joan Baez as singing a song from the 1600s in the 1960s, so she might be an interesting bridge between traditional folk ballads and teenage tragedies. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:21, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Have you read Ballad yet? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 19:43, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Who are you asking? If you're asking me, the answer is yes. It doesn't really seem to answer my question. Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:05, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm sure you're right about the connection, but I don't think it's something that anyone has ever noticed or commented upon before, so I don't think you're going to find any reliable sources. It's your own idea, and a very good one at that. You should write a piece about it yourself. --Viennese Waltz 09:15, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

I would think the exact opposite. I'm quite sure there are plenty of scholarly sources for the topic. The problem is the limitations of search algorithms. If you type "folk ballads and rock songs" you get a whole shitload of stuff about Bob Dylan. If you type "folk ballads and 1950s rock and roll" you get a whole shitload of stuff about Pete Seger. The problem is finding the sources that surely exist. --Jayron32 10:39, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Not just the search algorithms, but also the fact that many sources are not online at all. --Viennese Waltz 10:42, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

More than you think are; so long as you go beyond the standard Google search. Google Books and Google Scholar both provide targeted searches to scanned sources, and there are a LOT of old books and journals they have scanned and digitized in a machine-readable form. --Jayron32 14:44, 12 April 2016 (UTC)