When headlines sing, the trills follow, follow, follow...

Geri sent me this link:

http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/2297/

Titled "Headlines that sing", it shows how a clever allusion to a song can make a great headline, one that is catchy, gives the gist of the story, and works in the song's title or part of its lyrics.

The author, Bob Greenman, uses several examples from the New York Times. One NYT article is about how the the original investors in the 1960 musical The Fantasticks are still receiving dividends, because the production is still being staged. The headline?

'Fantasticks' pays back for 50 years -- from a small investment in 1960, the cheques Follow, Follow, Follow

If you don't know there's a song alllusion in it, you still get the gist of the story. But if you have spotted the familiar refrain from one of the musical's better known songs, Try to Remember, it's a bonus!

Other such NYT headlines cited include:

City sidewalks, packed in holiday style, hint at end to lingering slump in tourism
(The story is about how a disastrous slump in Christmas sales in New York city in 2001 had been largely reversed by 2003. The alluded song is the well known Christmas song Silver Bells.)

Strangers in the Net, exchanging glances
(The story is about the popularity of social networking sites. The song? Strangers in the Night.)

I'm singing in Beijing
(This one is fabulous, because of the parallel events from the story and the song, Singing in the Rain, which is alluded to! The NYT story is about how one little Chinese girl with an angelic voice  -- but plain-looking and not telegenic -- was actually the "voice" in the opening song at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. But what people got to see was another, prettier and cute-looking, girl pretending to sing the song.)

Summertime and the markets are fluctuating
(American stocks were see-sawing through the summer of 2009. Song: Summertime)

More itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny than ever before
(American teenage girls are wearing skimpier bikinis now. Song: She wore an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, yellow polka-dot bikini.)

Birds do it. Bees do it. Dragons don't need to
(Story: It has been found that female komodo dragons can produce fertile eggs on their own. Song: Let's Do It.)

-----------------------------------------

I started to recall if I had conjured up song allusions in my headline writing days. I'm sure I have, but it's been so long, if not yet farewell, auf weidersehen goodbye....

So, what I have done is to "chope" (reserve) these for-future-use headlines:

Amazing graze (for a story on genetically modified cows grazing on genetically modified grass)
You'll never blog alone (that social networking theme again!)
The long and winding rote (for a story defending the merits of rote-learning)
Diamonds are a bra's best friend (for yet another wacky designer's coming up with women's upper underwear studded with bling-bling)
It was constipation, I know (for the appropriate Mind Your Body article).

----------------------------------------------

Come to think of it, now I recall, there was a Mind Your Body article that used, as its headline, an introduction I had crafted for the story, on the dangers of over-exposure to the sun's UV rays. The headline was Here Comes the Sun.

And an essay I once wrote for a Masters political-economy module had this title... Oil Prices: Got to take a fundamental journey.