Singing in the shower is a safe place to rock out to your favorite tunes, even if you’re not sure what all the lyrics are, because it’s fun to fill in the “not sure” blanks with whatever we want. Out in public Karaoke is fun, too.
Singing along to some favorite tunes is what inspired us to team up a super smart robot, IBM Watson, to be exact, with professional transcriptionists (who “crossed their singing hearts and hoped to die” that they didn’t know any of the songs) to see who is better at getting the lyrics right. The results might surprise you.
First on our playlist was Taylor Swift’s hit, “Trouble.” And trouble it was for our metal buddy. He finished with 4 boo boos and left out 6 words changing the tune from “I was in your sights, you got me alone,” to “I was then you say. You got me a loon.” That’s loony alright! Not our idea of a top hit! Scheane stepped up next and had no “trouble” at all. She finished with zero errors and zeros missing words.
Next Colby takes on Van Halen’s classic, Runnin’ With The Devil. Our robot friend rolled right over these lyrics with 9 errors and 15 missing words changing the song’s whole theme from “I live my life like there’s no tomorrow” to “I live my life lacked is” whatever that means.
Colby hit all his notes perfectly with zero errors.
Sir Elton John’s song, “Tiny Dancer” proved Watson is still a bit rusty when it comes to song lyrics. He scored 8 errors and 3 missed words. Maybe it’s Elton’s English inflection that threw him off. He turned “Blue jean baby, LA lady” into “Blue gene bear bear yeah, lazy lately, yeah. seamstress for the man,” We know Elton loves fancy clothes but didn’t know he had a thing for his seamstress! Scheane got every Tiny Dancer lyric correct.
Last, but not least is country star Brad Paislely’s “Ticks.” Watson changed the hit from a country tune to a mission for peace, we think. He turned, “You press that bottle to your lips” into “You press at bottom to your live in peace.” He racked up 12 errors and 5 missing words on this test while Colby rocked in at zero errors and zero missing words.
So as you can see, Watson, isn’t going to make the top of the rock charts, anytime soon. He obviously doesn’t have an ear for music. We can all rest assured that right now, we humans are irreplaceable, at least in the music world. It’s ok Watson, we can’t all be rock stars
