His real name is John Ondrasik

Because I work near Boston's legendary Paradise Rock Club, I get to see its marquee each day. Lately, it's been a parade of bands that make you say "They're still around?"

Today, it's Five for Fighting. What happened to the Paradise's glory days -- U2, The Police, INXS?

Stalker hall of fame

I've put together this certainly incomplete list of the best stalker songs of all time. A "Stalker Hall of Fame," if you will.

Naturally, we must first give a nod to Sting and the Police for 1983's "Every Breath You Take." Hidden behind the upbeat chord progression is, in Sting's own words, a "very, very sinister and ugly" song.

But Sting isn't the only one to encapsulate a threatening message in pop music. How about Hall & Oates' "Private Eyes," where the smooth music duo promise, "You can't escape my private eyes/They're watching you."

And who can forget Blondie, who promises in 1978's "One Way or Another:" "I will drive past your house and if the lights are all down, I'll see who's around.... I'll follow your bus downtown. See who's hangin' out."

My favorite is the sweet-sounding "Hey There, Delilah," by the Plain White T's. With lyrics like "I'm a thousand miles away/But girl, tonight you look so pretty," you'd think it was a beautiful love song to a long-distance girlfriend. That is, until you realize that this song was written by Tom Higgenson after he met a girl named Delilah who told him she already had a boyfriend.

It's one thing write a stalker song, it's another to write it about a specific person and use her real name.

Offstage, everything was falling apart

I've got to say I'm worried about my band. I know we've got the talent, but will petty egos get in the way? Will we be ready when the big break comes? Will the rigors of the road leave me a broken shell of a man?

Heady stuff, I know, but it comes with the territory when you're as dedicated to music as I am.

I refer of course to the video game Rock Band, to which I've recently become completely addicted. I'm the drummer. The fact that I'm not that bad is all the evidence you need that the game is clearly not an accurate representation of an actual band.

This song's popularity if unbelievable

Strange as it may seem, I don't listen to the radio very often. Probably only a couple hours a month.

Yet somehow, I manage to hear the Primitive Radio Gods' 1996 hit Standing Outside a Broken Phonebooth with Money in My Hand at least once a week. I'm just baffled by the continued popularity of this song 12 long years after it peaked at No. 7 on the Top 40 charts.

I'd love it if someone could shed some light on how this song remains in such heavy rotation, while the much more deserving songs, like EMF's 1991 No. 1 "Unbelievable" for example, go largely unplayed.

Maybe if we can make a list of these songs that continue to get airtime well after their due, we can find the similarities and determine why they remain popular.

In a bubble

Wouldn't it be funny if there were a way to see what song someone had in their head, just by looking at them? I think somebody should be working on this Thought Bubble Technology (tm).

In case such a scientist is reading, I'll go ahead and say that I'd like artist and album information, as well as any mistaken lyrics highlighted.

Speaking of mistaken lyrics, I have for years thought the Steely Dan song "Kid Charlemange" contained the line "Did you realize/That you were Italian in their eyes" when in fact it's "a champion in their eyes."

I realized this after Kanye West sampled Steely Dan in a song called, not coincidentally, "Champion."

Oddly, Steely Dan's "Kid Charlemagne" has another misheard line about Italians: "dayglow freaks," which I thought was "Deigo freaks." In "Champion" Kanye says "I shop so much I can speak Italian." That's a lot of coincidences.

Well that wasn't what I expected at all

I'd heard a couple songs from Amy Winehouse, and Mrs. N-B even downloaded her album with the big hit "Rehab" on it. But no amount of listening could've prepared me for seeing a picture of her.

Her voice is so big and sultry that I had it in my head she would look like Shirley Bassey, whose searing vocals make the Goldfinger song my favorite James Bond theme.

Here's a picture of Shirley Bassey so you could see what I was expecting.


So you can imagine my surprise when I saw what Winehouse looks like.


She's like a rooster on heroin. In the words of one of the celebrity blogs that I admit to reading: If I saw her walking in my yard at night I'd skip the warning shot because I'd assume she wanted to eat my brain.

Time has not been kind, Sporty Spice

Tell me what you want what you really really want. If it's a Spice Girls reunion, your wish is my command.

After many years of false promises and vicious reunion rumours (British spelling out of respect), the Spice Girls now say they'll get back together for a world tour in December and January.

It's been a long time since their breakup (in 2000), even longer since they were kind of a big deal in the U.S. (in 1997). Let's see how father time has treated them.

Well, it's hard to say how well time treated them, on account of all the plastic surgery. Might Victoria (Posh) Beckham nee Adams be the fakest woman on earth? And what happened to Melanie (Sporty) Chisholm's face?

I'd have to say that Geri (Ginger) Halliwell looks the best. What does it say about the evolution of my own tastes over the last 10 years that she went from my least favorite to my No. 1 spice?

George Michael, rethought

I'll admit (proudly?) that I like George Michael. But a fresh listening to the 9th track from his 1987 smash hit album Faith, "Kissing a Fool," makes me realize that only a fool wouldn't have realized he was gay, even back then.

There's a hint as the song opens "You listened to people/Who scared you to death, and from my heart."

But then he really makes it clear in the third stanza:

But remember this/Every other kiss
That you ever give/Long as we both live
When you need the hand of another man
One you really can surrender with
I will wait for you/Like I always do
There's something there/That can't compare
With any other.

I mean, that's pretty obvious. Of course, I was nine when this album came out, so all my attention, understandably, was devoted to figuring out "I Want Your Sex."