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Song poems are songs with lyrics by usually non-professional writers that have been set to music by commercial companies for a fee. This practice, which has long been disparaged in the established music industry, was also known as song sharking and was conducted by several businesses throughout the 20th century in North America.
From the early 20th century, the business of recording song poems was promoted through small display ads in popular magazines, comic books, tabloids, men's adventure journals and similar publications with a headline reading (essentially) Send in Your Poems - Songwriters Make Thousands of Dollars - Free Evaluation. The term lyrics was avoided because it was assumed potential customers would not understand what the term meant. Those who sent their poetry to one of the production companies usually received notice by mail that their work was worthy of recording by professional musicians, along with a proposal to do so in exchange for a fee. The early 20th century versions of this business involved setting the words to music and printing up sheet music from inexpensively engraved plates.
In producing the recordings, musicians often recorded dozens of songs per recording session using minimal resources. Using a method called "sight-singing," they wrote the music as they read the lyrics and played along, sometimes finishing a song in just one take. [1] Musicians would "sight-sing" Some of the companies recorded new vocals over pre-recorded music backing tracks, using the same music tracks hundreds of times. The recordings were then duplicated on 45 RPM vinyl singles or on individual cassette tapes, or they were released on compilation LPs with dozens of other songs by amateur lyric writers. Copies were sent to the customer. Promises that they would also be sent to radio stations or music industry executives were rarely if ever kept, partly because the recordings would not have been taken seriously by professionals.
Many of the lyrics involve subject matter relating to the passing fads of the day, and thus provide a window into a past pop culture.
Noted examples of those who have used the song poem approach include:
In 2003, a documentary about the industry, Off The Charts: The Song-Poem Story, was aired on the Public Broadcasting Service in the United States. Gene Merlino, who claims to have sung on more than 10,000 song poems, was featured in the documentary. It has since been released on DVD, and the soundtrack was released on CD.
The 2007 Craig Zobel drama Great World of Sound depicts a modern-day version of "song sharking," and featured scenes where real unsigned musicians audition for the actors portraying the ersatz music producers; these artists ultimately had their songs properly licensed and featured in the finished film.
Tom Ardolino, former drummer for the band NRBQ, curated an LP and several compilation CDs of the material taken from his personal collection (The Beat of The Traps, The Makers of Smooth Music, The Human Breakdown of Absurdity, & I'm Just The Other Woman). His work, along with the efforts of others such as Phil Milstein, musicologist Irwin Chusid of WFMU radio, Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, Bob Purse, James Lindbloom, and magician Penn Jillette has allowed these scraps to reach a level of notoriety unthinkable in their own time. [8]
Devo is an American rock band from Akron, Ohio, formed in 1973. Their classic line-up consisted of two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs and the Casales, along with Alan Myers. The band had a No. 14 Billboard chart hit in 1980 with the single "Whip It", the song that gave the band mainstream popularity.
Mark Allen Mothersbaugh is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and composer. He came to prominence in the late 1970s as co-founder, lead singer and keyboardist of the new wave band Devo, whose "Whip It" was a top 20 single in the US in 1980, peaking at No. 14, and which has since maintained a cult following. Mothersbaugh is one of the main composers of Devo's music.
Outsider music is music created by self-taught or naïve musicians. The term is usually applied to musicians who have little or no traditional musical experience, who exhibit childlike qualities in their music, or who have intellectual disabilities or mental illnesses. The term was popularized in the 1990s by journalist and WFMU DJ Irwin Chusid.
Ready for the House is the debut studio album by Jandek, and was released in 1978 by his own Corwood Industries label, with the catalog number #0739. The artist has said in letters that the number was meaningless. Corwood Industries reissued the album three times on CD, first in 1999, then sometime in the early 2000s, and again in 2005. Jackpot Records, with exclusive permission from Corwood, reissued the album on LP in 2008.
Bernard John Taupin is an English-American songwriter, singer and visual artist. He is best known for his long-term collaboration with musician Elton John, a songwriting partnership that is one of the most successful in history. Taupin has written the lyrics for most of John's songs.
Y. Bhekhirst is an outsider musician based in New Hyde Park, New York. Although not much is known about him, his sole known record, Hot in the Airport, released in 1986 and re-released in 1994 on New Hyde Park-based label HDG Records, is prized by some outsider music collectors for its decidedly dadaistic, shambling songs. Both releases of Hot in the Airport were cassette-only, and this, along with a 7" vinyl single containing songs from the cassette, is in fact the label's only release to date.
All Star United is a Christian rock band that was formed by solo artist Ian Eskelin in 1996. The band is known for clever and sometimes sarcastic lyrics, as they frequently use their songs as vehicles to lampoon perceived excesses in Western culture. Their musical style combines elements of alternative rock and Britpop, anchored by melodically powerful choruses.
Rust Never Sleeps is the seventh album by Canadian American singer-songwriter Neil Young and American band Crazy Horse. It was released on June 22, 1979, by Reprise Records and features both studio and live tracks. Most of the album was recorded live, then overdubbed in the studio, while others originated in the studio. Young used the phrase "rust never sleeps" as a concept for his tour with Crazy Horse to avoid artistic complacency and try more progressive, theatrical approaches to performing live.
Irwin Chusid is a journalist, music historian, radio personality, record producer, and self-described "landmark preservationist". His stated mission has been to "find things on the scrapheap of history that I know don't belong there and salvage them." Those "things" have included such previously overlooked but now-celebrated icons as composer/bandleader/electronic music pioneer Raymond Scott, Space Age Pop avatar Esquivel, illustrator/fine artist Jim Flora, various outsider musicians, and The Langley Schools Music Project. Chusid calls himself "a connoisseur of marginalia," while admitting he's "a terrible barometer of popular taste."
Rodd Keith was an American multi-instrumentalist and songwriter. He is perhaps the best known figure in the obscure musical subgenre known as song poem music.
Ellery Eskelin is an American tenor saxophonist raised in Baltimore, Maryland and residing in New York City. His parents, Rodd Keith and Bobbie Lee, were both professional musicians. Rodd Keith died in 1974 in Los Angeles, California, and became a cult figure after his death in the little-known field of "song-poem" music. Organist Bobbie Lee performed in local nightclubs in Baltimore in the early 1960s and provided Eskelin an introduction to standards from the Great American Songbook as well as inspiring an early interest in jazz music.
Chris McHugh is an American musician. He began his career as the drummer of Christian rock band White Heart from 1986 to 1989. He also worked in the recording of several of their later albums.
Keef Trouble is an English singer, songwriter and musician.
Lars Gulliksson is a saxophonist, composer, and arranger now living in Stockholm, Sweden.
Wind's Poem is the fourth full-length album by Mount Eerie, released on July 14, 2009. Several of the tracks are inspired by black metal, and showcases Phil Elverum's "relatively newfound affinity for Xasthur and other lynchpins of the unholy genre."
Richard Farrelly was an Irish songwriter, policeman and poet, composer of "The Isle of Innisfree", the song for which he is best remembered. His parents were publicans and when Farrelly was twenty-three he left Kells, County Meath for Dublin to join the Irish Police Force. He served in various Garda stations throughout his thirty-eight-year career, ending up in the Carriage Office in Dublin Castle. At heart Farrelly was very much a songwriter and poet. He was a private, modest and shy man who wrote over two hundred songs and poems during his lifetime. He married Anne Lowry from Headford, Co.Galway in 1955 and the couple had five children. His two sons Dick and Gerard are professional musicians.
Thomas Robert Ardolino was an American rock drummer best known as a member of NRBQ.
Ian Eskelin, is a record producer, songwriter, solo artist, and founding member and lead singer of the Grammy-nominated Christian rock band All Star United, and president of recording and publishing company Radiate Music. He won the Dove Award for "Producer of the Year" in 2011 and 2008, and was nominated for the same award in 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2012. Eskelin also has received multiple Dove and Grammy nominations for his songwriting and production work working with artists such as Francesca Battistelli "Holy Spirit", 7eventh Time Down "God Is on the Move", Sidewalk Prophets, Chris August, and Hawk Nelson to name a few. As an artist and writer Eskelin has had more than fifty Top 10 singles in the United States, including 25 No. 1 charting songs. He has additionally had international No. 1 songs in various countries including Japan, Singapore, and Australia. Ian's songs have been licensed for use on major networks including ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, ESPN and feature films.
Phil Haynes is an American jazz percussionist and composer.
Norridge Bryant Mayhams was an American singer, songwriter, bandleader, and record producer, whose recordings between the 1930s and 1980s covered a wide range of genres including jazz, gospel, R&B, and novelty songs. He used a variety of performing names, most notably Norris the Troubadour, and released many of his recordings on his own independent record labels. His best known song as a writer, "We'll Build a Bungalow", was a chart hit for Johnny Long in 1950, and was performed by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in I Love Lucy. According to one source, "Mayhams authored a body of work that is staggering in its scope, quality and general strangeness."
Milstein is a collector and historian of song-poems--songs that are written by amateurs but performed by professional musicians who "sight-sing," improvising a melody on first read and recording it in a single take.