Talk:(I'd Like to Get You on a) Slow Boat to China

Move?

• I would very strongly support moving this artcle to "On a Slow Boat to China". Does anyone object? I haven't seen any objections. Solomon Douglas (talk) 00:32, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

• Just want to point out that "I'd like to get you..." is incorrect. Published lyric is "I'd LOVE to get you"; this is what is copyrighted, and it stands as such in the published Complete Lyrics of Frank Loesser. The "like" lyric is a variation amongst some recording artists, but it is not a correct lyric in Loesser's song, and it is certainly not the title. I would suggest that the parenthetical be removed entirely, since it is not part of the actual title anyways (http://frankloesser.com/work_songs/69). Also, the date was wrong ('48, not '47 -- I fixed that). 68.174.96.131 (talk) 19:41, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

• (I'd Like to Get You on A) Slow Boat to China → (I'd Like to Get You on a) Slow Boat to China — Caps — —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:01, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
• The brackets in the page name don't look very standard. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 08:55, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
• Someone moved this page to (I'd Like to Get You on a) Slow Boat to China. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 08:57, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
• The most common name for the song, and thus the preferred name for the article, is "On a Slow Boat to China". Allmusic lists 407 recordings with the name "On a Slow Boat to China", 137 for "Slow Boat to China", and only 5 for "(I'd Like to Get You) On a Slow Boat to China". Also, jazzstandards.com gives the title as "On a Slow Boat to China", with "Slow Boat to China" as an alternate title. Jafeluv (talk) 19:25, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support, although I'd more strongly support (I'd Like To Get You On A) Slow Boat To China, since non-orchestral song titles typically have all words capitalized, contrary to other title capitalization standards. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:15, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

• Umm, no they don't. See Category:Rock songs, Category:Pop songs, Category:Jazz songs, Category:Blues songs, Category:Hip hop songs, etc. Prepositions, articles and coordinating conjunctions are uncapitalized throughout (you can probably find a counter-example, though). Nowhere does it say that the capitalization guidelines don't cover non-orchestral song titles. Quite the opposite, actually. Jafeluv (talk) 05:40, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm basing my opinion solely on my experience as a well-seasoned musician, not on any written law. But in my experience, song titles use a capital for each word, unless they're classical, in which case the first letter, proper nouns, the word "major", and the key of the song are capitalized and the rest are lowercase. If there's actually a rule somewhere, though, follow it. It's really not worth my fussing. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:50, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I misunderstood that you were talking about how Wikipedia typically capitalizes song titles. You may be right that the common usage is to be to capitalize everything. However, Wikipedia has adopted a standard capitalization which goes for song titles, album titles, and band names. That's how those names should be formatted in articles. Jafeluv (talk) 12:09, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

• I removed this article's entry from Wikipedia:Requested moves, because someone already moved the article (and rightly so, since the previous capitalization was incorrect). If someone wants to discuss my proposition to move this page to On a Slow Boat to China, go ahead. I'm fine with either name, really. Jafeluv (talk) 12:09, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Usage

I still don't get why you would say "I'd like to get you on a slow boat to China" to someone who had been losing at Poker. So that you could milk them some more? Maikel (talk) 10:00, 4 March 2013 (UTC)