COPYRIGHT
The materials on this Website are protected under United States copyright law and may be protected under international treaty. No right or license to copy is provided without the express written consent of the author. The author's copyright applies to the compilation and categorization of the excerpted lyrics and commentary thereupon, not the actual excerpted lyrics; the author asserts no right in the individual excerpted lyrics. Copyrights in the individual excerpted lyrics may belong to the copyright owners of the song itself.
DISCLAIMER
The Websites hyper-linked from this site are not under the control of the author. The author is not responsible for the content located on or through, or the availability of, linked sites. Any links to other Websites are provided only for the purpose of convenience and do not constitute a referral or endorsement to any linked site, its owner or operator.
WARNING
The song lyrics belong to the copyright owners of the song itself. Use of their lyrics without their permission is not allowed unless it meets the requirements of the Fair Use doctrine for copyrighted material. A concerted effort was made by the author to ensure that this book (and web site) met the requirements of the Fair Use doctrine for copyrighted material.
No more words were taken from a quote than necessary to illustrate a point regarding a criticism (i.e., quotes were kept to a minimum in length). This was done because: it was not the intention of the book to list the complete lyrics to songs, but to only to provide samples; it would not make it a practical reference source for quotes; and due to professional legal advisement received regarding copyright law and Fair Use doctrine.
Because of this, it may not be possible for the reader to attain a complete perspective of the full intent of the original artist, which leads to the possibility of taking some songs partially or fully out of context (even though, most of the quotes mean exactly what they say). To ensure full understanding of the context in which the song quote is taken from, it is advised to look up or listen to the full set of lyrics to the song (See links to lyrics sites).
For example, the reader may not know if the performer is using first person, second person, or third person, or using other literary techniques such as sarcasm, ambiguity, humor, exaggeration, etc. In addition, sometimes it may require listening to an entire song, album, the accompanying music, tone of voice, current events, or cultural/political environment from which the artist comes from to attain a full understanding of the intent of the performer (i.e., understanding the context from which it is taken from).
Finally, classifying song quotes into various categories and providing criticisms may influence the reader's interpretation of the song quote because of the associations created. With regards to this last point, some song quotes may have been placed in certain categories, so as to challenge the thinking of the reader or to offer new spins on interpretation. However, again, this also allows some of these quotes to be taken partially or fully out of out of context (Again, see links to lyrics sites).
Therefore, the author suggests the reader exercise extreme caution before arriving at any final judgments or conclusions for a single particular quote without looking up or listening to the full set of lyrics to which the quote came from and analyzing the entire song themselves. For this reason, the titles of the songs from which the quotes were taken from have been provided for additional reference. Almost all of the lyrics can be found on the internet (Again, see links to lyric sites).
However, with all that being said, some lyrics may be extremely difficult to interpret or fruitless in analyzing to establish any rational logic to the meaning or original intent. In addition, even if the intent of the artist may be determined to be innocent, one must still consider the impacts of how it may be perceived or misinterpreted. This becomes a concern with regards to a “sound bite” driven society, by children who have not yet developed the faculties to make good judgments, and by other individuals in society who may be in susceptible situations.