Hello everyone,
How far do we take error correction? I have two releases with a song on them called ‘‘Bed of Rose’s’’, except the song is spelled different on various releases. On the original album it is spelled ‘‘Bed of Rose’s’’ like you can see here:
Now I see some various releases also listing it as ‘‘Bed of Roses’’, without the apostrophe, like here:
The Statler Brothers, the artist of the song, it is a play on words.
The song is about a young orphaned man in a small town that perhaps referenced The Statlers’ hometown in Staunton, Virginia. For some reason, the poor orphan becomes avoided by the polite members of the society. Sadly, he was forced to beg on the streets. One day, he met a woman named Rose. This streetwalker who is nearly twice his age takes him in. In the long run, he becomes her lover. The song contrasts the hypocrisy of the nominally Christian townspeople who would “go to church and leave me in the street”. Also, the people were envious of Rose who “managed a late evening business / like most of the town wished they could do”. The care and tender love evolved between the two outcasts.
The song is both a challenge of narrow-minded religion and moralism and a gentle celebration of love, in some ways not unlike the theme of Luke 7:36-50. The title of “Bed of Rose’s” is a play on words (like some of the other Statler Brothers’ tracks). Here “bed of roses”, a common English idiom, means an easy and pleasant life.
Source: Harold Reid and The Statler Brother's "Bed of Rose's"
Now the question is, do we change ‘‘Bed of Roses’’ to ‘‘Bed of Rose’s’’? I have seen some similar things with other titles that make use of the apostrophe. For example, there is a song called ‘‘Wreck of the Old 97’’, which is also often titled as '‘Wreck of the Old ‘97’’. This seems inaccurate to me as the ‘97’ is not a year in this instance, but the name of a train. Source: Wreck of the Old 97 - Wikipedia
I’m going on too long, but basically the question is: do we change these titles under the rule of error correction here on MusicBrainz, or do we prefer to leave it as it was originally there?
Thanks as always,
Ronan