Re-name that tune

Over in the Macworld forums, member alan_m was looking for a way to change song names in iTunes in one fell swoop. Or as he put it:

I was wondering if it is possible to create an [Automator workflow] (or some other script) to batch change the name of some songs in iTunes to include the artist. For instance: instead of the song name being “Breathe Me” by artist “Sia” the program/script/whatever would change the name to “Breathe Me - Sia” and the artist could be whatever I wanted it to be.

To make a long story short, alan_m tried to do it himself using Automator, the automation tool built into Mac OS X 10.4. But he found the results wanting.

Whenever I need a script for iTunes and don’t have the time—or the inclination—to build it myself, the first place I check is Doug’s Scripts for iTunes, a terrific resource for all your iTunes needs. A quick search of the site uncovered This Tag, That Tag Scripts 1.6, a collection of four scripts that help you swap, copy, or append data between two tags selected by the user. The four scripts are:

Swap This With That, which moves data between tags;

Put This In That, which copies data from one tag to another;

Put This After That, which appends data from one tag to the end of another; and

Put This Before That, which does the same thing as up above but puts it at the beginning of another tag.

That third script—Put This After That—should solve alan_m’s problem.