Song Challenge Challenged by Subject!!

Subject: RE: Song Challenge Challenged by Subject!!
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 08 Sep 01 - 12:16 PM

Oh, behive!

Subject: RE: Song Challenge Challenged by Subject!!
From: SharonA
Date: 08 Sep 01 - 12:15 PM

You're welcome, Toots.

Subject: RE: Song Challenge Challenged by Subject!!
From: Amos
Date: 08 Sep 01 - 12:09 PM

Thanks, Honey!!

A

Subject: RE: Song Challenge Challenged by Subject!!
From: SharonA
Date: 08 Sep 01 - 12:01 PM

*whew, what a relief* Amos, I'm so glad to hear that Doctor Dyer enjoyed your song, as well as the rest of the songs on that thread, instead of running to his lawyer. Maybe my Song-Challenge-songwriting muse will come out of hiding now.

You handled that situation with great aplomb! A "bee-sharp" has been played in your honor.

Sharon

Subject: RE: Song Challenge Challenged by Subject!!
From: The Shambles
Date: 08 Sep 01 - 06:16 AM

*Smoles*

Subject: RE: Song Challenge Challenged by Subject!!
From: Amos
Date: 07 Sep 01 - 10:18 PM

I had named my entry "Fred Dyer's Bees" based on the news story but as you will see from Fred's response below, the research was not all his own -- he was merely a spokesperson and never made claims of originating the work.

Anyway you can see he does indeed have a sense of humor.

I think this e-mail dialogue should be added to the song on the web site as clarification. A disclaimer on these pages to the effect that song entries are based on imaginative constructions that are not intended in any way to reflect on the characters or experiences of actual persons might be a good idfea in general though!

Here's Fred's answer:

From: "Fred C. Dyer"
Subject: Re: Fred Dyer's Bees

Dear Amos:

Please rest assured that I am by no means offended by your use of my name in a song. Quite the contrary, I got a kick out of it. It is almost as good as the time (in 1994) that my research was used as the basis of a joke on the Weekend Update segment of Saturday Night Live. I'm just happy you're not some wacko stalker digging up info on me. One striking thing about your lyrics is that you used two women's names, Amanda and Nancy, which if fact are names of women who have worked as my undergraduate research assistants in the past. Discovering this would have required considerable detective work beyond what was described on NPR, which did lead me to wonder what else you knew about me!

I do have to correct you on one important thing--the research on radar tagged bees that was featured in the NPR piece was not mine, but that of a former student, Elizabeth Capaldi, who did the work after she left for another research position. I was interviewed for the piece, but I'm pretty sure I didn't give the impression that I was the one who had done it. But I guess some poetic liscence is allowed in the realm of folk music.

Thanks for sending me the link to the thread with all the other contributions. I enjoyed it a lot.

Fred

to which I replied:

Fred:

Thanks so much for a wonderful reply. I am delighted you enjoyed the song, and the links on the Mudcat thread about it.

As regards the names of Nancy and Amanda, I can only attribute it to psychic bleed-through from the Akashic records, as I had no information of a normal sort that these names were part of your actual cadre!! A charming coincidence, anyway. After all they are not terribly uncommon names, and I used them as much for rhyme as from inspiration. I have not pursued any information about you other than the somewhat garbled version of events in the original relay from the NPR article.

Please accept and pass on my assurances to Elizabeth that I stand wholly corrected as regards her original work, and hope no offense was taken, as none was meant, from my inaccuracy.

Oh, and if you ever want to see a bunch of wildly inventive characters come up with funny stanzas about a research project, just let me know and we'll unleash a Song Challenege about it!!

Very best regards,

Amos

Subject: RE: Song Challenge Challenged by Subject!!
From: SharonA
Date: 04 Sep 01 - 10:58 AM

By the way, DOCTOR Dyer's name was not included in the Song Challenge as it was issued. Was it mentioned in the original NPR story?

Subject: RE: Song Challenge Challenged by Subject!!
From: Wolfgang
Date: 04 Sep 01 - 10:21 AM

Fred Dyer seems to be reasonably friendly and Amos' song harmless, but in principle it is an interesting question: Does a songwriter have to make sure that all his statements are correct when using a name or something else that identifies who is meant, even if he relies upon a newspaper report?

Christy Moore lost a lot of money in a lawsuit for writing They never came home and the song had to be replaced by another on the LP. As far as I know he relied upon newspaper articles when writing a line of the song and this particular statement of fact was hotly debated in a lawsuit and Moore lost.

Christy Moore still has the relevant line blacked in his autobiography 'One Voice'. It is the line 'And all just because the fire exits were chained' in the third verse.

But that is serious threadcreep in a lighthearted thread. Though I still wonder.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Song Challenge Challenged by Subject!!
From: SharonA
Date: 04 Sep 01 - 10:11 AM

Áine lives!!! (I was beginning to wonder...) Where you been keepin' yerself, lady?

Hope you're right about DR. Dyer being "pretty cool"; after all, he IS at Princeton, Land of Uptightness (or maybe it was just the individuals at Princeton whom I knew).

Subject: RE: Song Challenge Challenged by Subject!!
From: Charley Noble
Date: 04 Sep 01 - 10:01 AM

Maybe we should issue a song challenge of Mudcat song challengers ducking for cover.LOL

I guess that I should be expecting a similar letter from some Russian flight crew members, Japanese trawler crew, and one cow or their legal representatives any day now.

Subject: RE: Song Challenge Challenged by Subject!!
From: Áine
Date: 04 Sep 01 - 09:38 AM

Since the SONG CHALLENGE! ideas are taken from news reports, therefore putting the subjects in the public domain, I don't think anyone has to worry about 'disclaiming' anything. So everyone please put your hands on your knees to stop them from jerking, OK? ;-)

Amos, Dr. Dyer sounds like a pretty cool guy, and your response was humourous and to the point. Sounds to me like he's quite flattered about being memoralized by one of our Major Mudcat Poets -- as well he should be!

-- Áine

Subject: RE: Song Challenge Challenged by Subject!!
From: SharonA
Date: 04 Sep 01 - 09:16 AM

Good grief! I shudder to think what some of the other "SONG CHALLENGE!" subjects would have to say about what we've said about them!!!

A disclaimer sounds like a REALLY, REALLY, REALLY good idea.

Let's hope Mr. Dyer does have a sense of humor. Perhaps he'll post even more bee trivia to the "part 3" thread than MMario already has (eek!).

Anyway, Amos, that was an extremely well-written reply you composed for Mr. Dyer. Please do keep us updated on his reponse and any future correspondence; I'm on the edge of my seat!!

Sharon (bookmarking this thread right now!)

Subject: RE: Song Challenge Challenged by Subject!!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 04 Sep 01 - 07:17 AM

Just ask Aine to write a boilerplate disclaimer into each song challenge when she gets one going.

~S~

Subject: RE: Song Challenge Challenged by Subject!!
From: Wolfgang
Date: 04 Sep 01 - 05:51 AM

the real Fred C. Dyer

Wolfgang (who often has wondered about the facts on which the song challenges are based)

Subject: Song Challenge Challenged by Subject!!
From: Amos
Date: 04 Sep 01 - 02:25 AM

Well I never thought it would happen, but lo and behold in my email tonight I found a letter from a researcher named Fred Dyer -- the same gentleman who was responsible for the actual research which formed the basis for Song Challenge Number 3!!

He writes:

Dear Amos:

During a web search done for quite a different purpose, I ran across a Mudcat Cafe page with a lyric by you entitled "Fred Dyer's Bees." It seems quite obvious that I am the Fred Dyer referred to (although some of the facts are wrong!). My friends are very impressed that I would have somehow ended up in a song, and I was just wondering, out of sheer curiosity, how you came upon the idea for those lyrics, and the factual material you put in them.

Fred

I responded as follows:

Dear Fred:

This is my moment of truth, my terrible nightmare come true!!

Here's the story:

The Mudcat as you may know, is a community of folklorists and folk musicians and afficianadoes of folk music. It is also a riproaring lot of fun and good talk and creative wackiness. One of the entertainments of the site is the occasional "Song Challenge" thread, in which the "Keeper of the Mudcat Songbook" , a fine sassy Texas lass, cites a recent news article usually with something humorous in it, and challenges any members of the Mudcat to compose a song around the article.

An NPR story describing your research involving gluing transistors onto bees and tracing their peregrinations caught her eye and she posted it as a song challenge, to which I responded with the composition you found, to the the tune of The Big Rock Candy Mountain. At that time, of course, you were not really a living communicating person in my thoughts, but a name in an amusing news story, and since the notion of a humorous composition sort of underlies the whole Song Challenge idea...well, you probably see the picture.

In the course of composing a fanciful flight of doggerel around the news clipping, I took certain liberties which would normally come under the heading of poetic license, which were perfectly normal in the context of the song challenge. But getting an email from you brings home to me the fact that I should not have entitled the song using your name, since there is no basis in truth in the somewhat slippery character I attribute tot he researcher in the song. I have no way of knowing from your post whether your sense of humor extends far enough to forgive this liberty of mine or not. But it might please you to know that your research was the topic not of one song, but of many! Actually, all told, thirteen of them! They are interspersed with a lot of silly dialogue and banter, but if you want a few chuckles about the various flights of fancy so to speak) touched off by this Challenge, you can see them in sequence at

http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?ThreadID=17761#172495.

So that's the background. I do want you to know that no personal offense was intended by associating your name in the title of my entry with the exaggerated character I portrayed, who of course does not (I assume) resemble the actual person or his story at all. And if you wish, I will have the name of the song changed so that it makes no reference to you. Alternatively, if you feel comfortable just taking it in the spirit in which it was generated, then we can leave it as it is.

Finally, thanks for a really interesting e-mail!! It's not often I hear back from someone I have scribbled couplets about from a news clipping.

Wishing you ongoing success in your researches,

Amos Jessup

(I will be out of town on business the rest of this week, but will catch up with any response after my return on the 7th).

So there you have it, Challengers!! I hope Fred Dyer turns out to have a good sense of humor, as he seems to have from his letter. More as it develops.

Regards,

A.