A few months ago I googled the lyrics to "When I Paint My Masterpiece" by Bob Dylan - and covered by The Band and The Grateful Dead. Here are some of the results:

• www.bobdylan.com
• www.sing365.com

• www.lyricsmode.com

• www.musicsonglyrics.com
• www.lyricsfreak.com
• www.metrolyrics.com
• www.kovideo.net

Click on one link or click on all of them, but note the sixth line in the song. Some versions claim he's got a date with "Botticelli's niece," while others claim it's with a "pretty little girl from Greece."

I claim it's neither. I claim that he's got a date with "Botticelli's Venus," a famous painting that apparently the transcribers of these lyrics have never seen.

I feel quite certain that if they'd ever seen this painting, these transcribers surely would remember it. Here's a copy of it:

To see a larger version in a separate window, click on the image.

Although dating a painting might sound unlikely, dating a niece of Botticelli, who lived from 1444 to 1510, is impossible. And although dating a pretty little girl from Greece might sound plausible, Botticelli's name is quite obvious in all of the versions I've heard.

I believe it's "Botticelli's Venus," and here's how it looks in the context of the entire verse:

"Got to hurry on back to my hotel room
Where I've got me a date with Botticelli's Venus
She promised she'd be right there with me
When I paint my masterpiece."

OK so it doesn't exactly rhyme, so what? The song is about art and inspiration, and Botticelli's Venus is a classic work of art that is quite inspiring.

I can only hope the web's lyricists see this article, see the light, and make the change.

Lately it's occurred to me that in the past 10-15 years my musical tastes have totally changed.

Back in the 1990s, at any given time I always knew exactly what I wanted to listen to. Whether it was The Clash or or The Rolling Stones or Miles Davis or Pearl Jam or The Grateful Dead or whatever, there was no doubt, I was going to put it on and enjoy it!

Now, I rarely listen to my CDs at home, and when the TV is on or I'm out taking a dance class or in my car or at the club, the music I appreciate most is that which I've rarely heard. I know! What's up with that?!?

These days my favorite radio stations are the Spanish language pop station 92.1, the heavy metal station 106.7, and the hip-hop station 107.5.

Recently I've seen programs about Marvin Gaye and Queen on PBS. These guys were awesome and I am sorry I missed out on them. Curse my closed-mindedness! A couple of other people I'd like to hear more of are Elton John and Prince, and I do catch them at times on my favorite "hippie music" station (aka. the mountain) at 99.5 and "the party" at 95.7.

And it may surprise you to know that in the Hip-Hop dance classes I take at Cleo's we are more likely to hear Michael Jackson and James Brown than contemporary hip-hop. Now don't get me wrong, over the years the teachers have played some Snoop Dogg and Roots and Missy Elliot. But one day, much to my delight, one of my teachers played some Tom Tom Club!

Certainly the most intriguing group I've heard recently though has been Big and Rich. They appeared on a rerun of the show Las Vegas, and blew me away! If you've never heard them, they are truly unique: they do country music with a guy rapping on top of it. It's nice to see someone besides Emmylou Harris (who BTW was on Letterman just last week) bringing the legacy of Gram Parsons into the 21st century!

Over the years it's become obvious to me that any given work of art is not so much good or bad, as it is original or imitative (at best, and plagiaristic at worst). And the bottom line there is I feel a real urgency to get my site groja.com going under joomla! so that hopefully I can keep it secure with minimal effort and finally begin to promote it.

So I organized all my CDs and got them put away and now am just not listening to much music.  What's up with that?

For one thing, the expense.  If I listen to my CDs, I'll just get tired of them and want to buy some more.  In light of the fact that I have a hi-def TV and Comcast is gouging me for $114.99 per month, it seems that leaving the TV on, and getting what I can from those investments, makes more sense than buying more music.

For another thing, art forms like Dancing and TV include music, so I can get it, and more, from them.

Then there's the, oh I don't know what to call it but will say it's the closed-minded genre/ego thing.  So many people have some little genre that they like to the exclusion of the others.  FWIW, it's not nearly so bad now as it was back in the early 1980s, when people's preference for classic rock, punk rock, or disco could actually lead to violence. But I am just sick of people who don't like music X, where X is hip hop, or country music, or hippie music, or classical music, or whatever.

I think it's the record companies: in an effort to sell us more product, they promote this sort of demographically-defined closed mindedness, and people's appreciation of art and others outside their demographic suffers.

For now, I'll get my music from what they play in the clubs and in the background of my favorite TV shows, and from the eleven dissimilar stations I have programmed into the buttons in my car.  (FYI the only one duplicated in the two sets of six is 92.1, Super Estrella!)