This is an argument I used to have with my kids all the time. They scoffed at my folk music, and insisted that every musician needed to be completely original in every recording that musician made - and then my kids would try to sing the song exactly like what they heard on the record.

So, OK, my oldest son became a punk rocker, and he's now 33 and making a living as a musician and touring Europe and the US and Japan, and he's writing the songs. I guess the songs are mostly original, although he does copy styles and riffs. Interestingly, though, he wrote and recorded one song that actually threatened to make some money - Me and Giuliani Down by the School Yard (A True Story). Now, the song is original - but the title sure ain't. Toyota offered him $250,000 to use the song in a commercial, but he turned them down because the band didn't want to be known as "that band in the Toyota commercial." Hey, Amazon says that this week, the song is #118,850 on their charts. Beats the hell out of anything Jerry Rasmussen has recorded lately, doesn't it?

And I feel vindicated because I was proven right, that tying a song to a previous one is a good idea. I think that an element of familiarity makes a song more approachable to people, and they're more easily able to understand the message in the song - Not that I found a message in my kid's song at all.

When I buy music, I usually tend to buy CD's that have mostly songs that I know, mixed with a few new ones that look interesting.

-Joe Offer-

(Oh, and my kid's other hit single is called
"Dad, there's a little phrase known as Too Much Information." The album is called Street Dad - he named them after me. Isn't that sweet?)