Of thee I sing

Posted September 7th, 2006 at 12:19 pm by Nicki Dugan, Blog Editor

 9 Comments / Filed in: Our Users

Could there be any finer compliment than having a song written about you? It’s happened to Yahoo! a few times, and we’ll admit it — we blushed. I caught up with two songwriters who’ve penned songs in which Yahoo! plays a major role to find out how we ended up in the mix.

The Stephen Davis Project came out with a toe-tapping single called “Yahoo Girl.” It’s about a hapless guy named Bob in a dead-end job who’s smitten with a woman he spies crossing the street at Yahoo! headquarters (in front of his dented Honda). To him, she represents optimism, happiness, and coolness. Have a listen or check out the lyrics.

Turns out the song is a bit autobiographical for songwriter Harry Lockwood, who’s worked at a neighboring Sunnyvale aerospace company since well before Yahoo! took up residence at the corner of Mathilda and First Avenue. I invited Harry over to Yahoo! for some free coffee and to unveil the mystery behind the Yahoo! girl (on the condition he wouldn’t write any songs about me).

Harry is a systems engineer who’d grown increasingly frustrated by the off-schedule and over-budget program he’d been working on. Every morning, he’d sit stewing at the stoplight, watching Yahoos walking blithely between buildings. “People were all in such a good mood. I just remember being in awe of them,” he recalled. When he saw a particular young woman crossing Mathilda Avenue, he said the song started developing in his head.

“I have a masters in English, and songwriting just became sort of a creative outlet for me,” he explained. Ironically his brother-in-law, Stephen Davis, a programmer for a major aerospace company in Washington, had been struggling to find lyrics for some chords he’d been playing with on his guitar. The two ran into each other at a wedding in Vegas, and their needs collided like peanut butter and chocolate.

“We wrote the whole song via the Internet. Steve would call me and say, ‘What’s Bob thinking?’ to help put him in the mood. Then he’d send me an MP3 file. I’d work on it on my end and email back some verse. It was the first song I’d ever written.” After hearing the song, Harry’s daughter asked if he was having a midlife crisis. Harry, don’t worry — we understand.

The second song is by a 20-year-old singer who hails from a small town in Western Ukraine. Mika Newton came out with “Yahoo.com” (listen here) earlier this year. (Read about her here if you speak Russian) It, too, is an autobiographical song about unrequited love. During a recent visit to London, Mika befriended a local guy and spent the day sightseeing with him. Since they were living in different countries, they exchanged email addresses instead of mobile numbers. But when she returned to Ukraine, Mika had lost the piece of paper and any chance of reconnecting with him. Heartbroken, she wrote a song about this beautiful stranger. (You can guess who hosts his email account.) Here are the lyrics. Mika has toured around Ukraine singing since she was nine and is currently recording her second album in London. We hope she’ll run into her Prince Charming again.

And to round out our list of love songs, we leave you with a custom version of “A Public Affair,” the title track from Jessica Simpson’s new album. Listen carefully and see if you can identify the object of her affections.

Got a ditty? We’d love to hear it.

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9 Comments Add your own

Nikol | September 8th, 2006 at 1:16 am

WOW! Really cool song! :-) Thank you guys for such great job and for a pleasure I have listening to Mika’s songs!!!

Mango | September 8th, 2006 at 3:00 am

Very Very NICE! Goo work, Mika

Claudia | September 13th, 2006 at 6:13 am

Fantastic song, cool web site. How can get album of Mika in US?

Catharine | September 14th, 2006 at 4:21 am

Awesome song, Mika. You go, girl!!! My favorite web page and my favorite singer now together :) Where can I order your CD???

Alexis | September 14th, 2006 at 11:11 am

Cool!!!I fined Mika’s CD on her website http://www.mikanewton.com. Mika is the BEST.

Alexis | September 14th, 2006 at 11:19 am

But I has not understood language on shop

TREV HARWOOD | September 15th, 2006 at 2:24 am

Mika Newton’s cd is at lots of websites, but often these do not sell to outside Ukraine or Russia. BUT I obtained my copy, for under five dollars, from

http://www.allruscd.com/view_disk.asp?sn=1.1&nExp=Y&cod=19960

The site is all in Russian, but there is lots of other good material - and they take PayPal, too :)

Trev.
Morecambe, England.

Hyperfly | September 15th, 2006 at 2:44 am

Yeah, Mika is a really best pop-rock singer!

Marina | September 18th, 2006 at 2:00 am

Dear all,

the CD you are looking for will soon be available at http://www.mikanewton.com (official web site). Mika Newton Store page is currently under construction. May you need any aditional info, do contact me at ms@cfc.com.ua. Thank you for your interest!

Mika Newton management team
http://www.mikanewton.com