Hardcover, 368 pages, June 30, 1995. Usually ships within 24 hours. Amazon Review From Booklist
Locating the words or music to any given song will be easier with the addition of Song Finder to one's collection of song indexes. As stated in the preface, "over 75% of these [621] books have never been indexed, and 85% are not included in any index currently in print . . . approximately one-third of the 32,000 songs included do not appear in any standard index." Published between 1854 and 1992, the song collections include theatre, folk, children's, African American, military, patriotic, pop, rock, and country music. Movie and TV themes ("M*A*S*H Theme Song" ) and advertising jingles ("Chiquita Banana" ) are also covered. The first part of Song Finder is a list of books indexed; it is arranged alphabetically by letter code used for each title. OCLC numbers are even provided as part of the citation by the librarian author. In the second part, songs are listed alphabetically by title, followed by letter symbols for source books and the letters M and/or W indicating availability of the music and words for the song. Lyrics in foreign languages are also noted. Cross-references to alternate titles and variant spellings are provided where appropriate: "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" lists two entries and a see also for "Christmas Song." The composer's name or other identifying feature is added in parentheses when different songs with identical titles are listed. Song Finder also provides a useful bibliography of other published song indexes. Havlice's Popular Song Index (Scarecrow, 1975) and Sears' Song Index (Wilson, 1926) and their supplements provide access by composer, lyricist, and first line, while Song Finder indexes by title only. However, it provides indexing to so many songs and books not covered elsewhere that it is a useful and necessary addition to the reference collection.
