forgotten songs

Subject: Origins: forgotten songs
From: mkebenn
Date: 01 Jun 16 - 09:31 AM

Sorry for the category, was totally unsure how to label. I have had the wonderful feeling of having songs that I had written 30 or 40 years ago, and had been lost due to life changes and low self opinion of their worth come back to mind. With that much extra time playing and changes in moods, plus a little more sophistication in music in general, they seem more viable now./It seems like they are "new" songs to me, though hardly rewritten in tune or lyric. I was wondering if any other 'catters with similar mileage have had this happen Mike

Subject: RE: forgotten songs
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 Jun 16 - 12:26 PM

Hi mkbenn-
You don't have to use a thread label if one doesn't fit. Just leave that part blank if you cannot find an appropriate label.
I don't write songs. I only make up lyrics to annoy my children and grandchildren. Unfortunately, my children just get bored now, and I have only one granddaughter to annoy. She gets a rather heavy dose.
But I know what you mean. It often takes me several years to come to love a song well enough to want to make it part of my repertoire. I may not have liked the song at all at first, and I may well have forgotten and rediscovered it at a better time.
Joe

Subject: RE: forgotten songs
From: GUEST,LynnH
Date: 01 Jun 16 - 01:22 PM

On the other hand, I look at some of my old songs and realise that they've long since passed their 'sing by' date and deserve to be forgotten.

Subject: RE: forgotten songs
From: mkebenn
Date: 01 Jun 16 - 01:43 PM

LynnH. yea, plenty came back that demonstrated why they were lost in the first place. Mike

Subject: RE: forgotten songs
From: khandu
Date: 01 Jun 16 - 07:29 PM

I have shared a couple of my oldies with a few friends to show how absolutely terrible my song writing was. Some say it has not greatly improved. As I replay some written 30-35 years ago, I am surprised to find I like them better now. But most just make me cringe!

Then there are those that I loved when I wrote them and and still love today.

But I often discover that I have lost a line here, a phrase there and cannot find a copy anywhere. That is maddening!

k

Subject: RE: forgotten songs
From: mkebenn
Date: 02 Jun 16 - 07:15 AM

Khandu. I know about lost lines. I have one that's bugging me at present. However, I have a book of them in storage so it's not lost. I'm resisting the urge to just write new. Do you update older songs to make them applicable to younger folk? Mike

Subject: RE: forgotten songs
From: khandu
Date: 02 Jun 16 - 05:01 PM

No. I write them and leave them alone when I am certain they are complete. To update them to make them relative to younger folk would devalue them in my own sight; thus making them non-applicable and no longer relevant to me.

That is probably one reason why I am an unknown. :-0

Thanks, mkebenn!

k

Subject: RE: forgotten songs
From: mkebenn
Date: 03 Jun 16 - 02:45 PM

Khandu. what I meant was: To change " wish I never drove no turbo carerera,80 thousand dollars worth of rich man's toy" to make price more modern, or "I'm like a rabbit, running on my rims" to make sense to people who don't remember the U.S. badge worn by the V.W. golf Mike

Subject: RE: forgotten songs
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 Jun 16 - 08:04 PM

mkebenn (and khandu) - I got an email from somebody named Graham Johnstone. He thought you might be interested in an article he posted in his blog about songs he wrote while in the RAF in the early 1950s:

http://mightysparrowaz.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/raf-maurpur-to-tin-pan-alley.html

-Joe-

Subject: RE: forgotten songs
From: mkebenn
Date: 05 Jun 16 - 08:28 AM

Thanks,Joe, brought back memories from my 20s. fell into a recording scam that never did hurt me, Thanks be to... Mike

Subject: RE: forgotten songs
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 Jun 16 - 11:35 PM

Sometime in the last 15 years [memory getting foggy] an American record label approached my old writing partner
about including one of our old tracks on a compilation CD.

Songs written in the late 70s when we were 18 or 19.

That was a motivation to dig out old tapes and try to rescue them to PC hard drive.

The music was still good for it's age, but the lyrics as bad as I thought they would be to my middle aged ears.... 😬

The last time I was inspired to write a batch of new lyrics was circa 1999.

At the time I considered them not good, but potential for revisiting in the future, with a view to improvement..

Maybe I should try to find the notebooks....????

.. but realistically... why...!!!???

Subject: RE: forgotten songs
From: mkebenn
Date: 06 Jun 16 - 07:44 AM

PFr,what do you have to lose? A lyric from 20 or 30 yrs ago can remind you of something you've forgotten, for better or worse. Mike

Subject: RE: forgotten songs
From: Gda Music
Date: 06 Jun 16 - 11:05 AM

mkebenn, Yes "those were the days". My own particular dozen or so 1952/3 song titles never managed to frighten anyone in Tin Pan Alley as I had hoped they would on my return. It must have been something then that I needed just to pass the time whilst away from home because in all the years since then I have not tried once to compose anything similar. I do still have my exercise book complete with lyrics which I occasionally read through to sometimes give myself a good laugh - and a cringe! "but they were happy days".

GJ

Subject: RE: forgotten songs
From: mkebenn
Date: 06 Jun 16 - 02:24 PM

GDA music. Some happy days, some not so. I'm struck by how naive I was, or maybe just less jaded. The only relly great reception I ever got for one of my songs was from a live audience of 5 or 6 hundred people, but it was a talking blues with great local interest and empathy.What a fuckin' rush. Mike