Musical webmaster enjoys big hits

July 2001

A Wexford man is creating a musical web and has so far attracted thousands of visitors, and the number of hits is growing all the time.

Not content with just strumming his guitar and playing along to the songs that he loves, PJ Murphy is also using his keyboard skills to put lyrics and chords on the world wide web.

After a slow start, the last six months have proven phenomenal, mainly because PJ has targeted various search engines like Yahoo, making the website more accessible to people all round the world.

Now, if any internet surfer in any country types in a key word such as guitar, music, song lyrics, etc., into a search engine, it’s is PJ’s site (www. pjm.mainpage.net) that appears at or near the top of the list.

To date, PJ’s site has had over 300,000 visitors, or ‘ hits’.

The site contains the words and music to a total of 794 songs from artists such as REM, David Bowie, Tom Waits, and U2. All the artists featured are favourites of PJ himself.

PJ stresses that the details on the site are his interpretations of the songs only.

‘ The chords and lyrics are my interpretations only, some from listening to the songs, some from downloading from other sites, and some from just dim and distant memory!’ he says.

The layout of the words and music on the site is very simple, so even learner guitarists can easily play them.

PJ also lets visitors of the site know that he is a Wexford native.

The background of the site consists of a photograph of the town, while at the bottom of the page, PJ writes: ‘ This site comes to you from Wexford, in the sunny south east of Ireland. It is a great town, buzzing with music, and well worth stopping by if you’re in the area.’

If you want to see PJ’s website yourself, log on to www.pjm.mainpage.net