Folklore: Smithsonian poems into songs

Subject: Folklore: Smithsonian poems into songs
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 22 Dec 24 - 07:15 PM

A Curious Industry Once Gave Anyone With a Song in Their Heart a (Long) Shot at Stardom

How the dubious tradition of song-sharking led to a strangely beautiful repository of folk art

By Luke Savage
SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE
December, 2024
(Excerpts). full article available on-line

As popular music grew into a mass industry in the early 20th century, a murky assortment of companies popped up and began a practice that came to be known as “song-sharking.” Advertisements enjoined ordinary Americans to send in their original poems and lyrics, which the company would set to music for a rather large fee—a few hundred dollars, depending on the year.

The advertisements, typically nestled inside popular magazines and supermarket tabloids, tended to address readers with the smarmy cadence of a door-to-door salesman, hinting at the possibility of a big payday. “Mail your song-poem on love, peace, victory or any other subject to us today,” announces an emblematic example from a 1922 issue of Illustrated World. “We revise song-poems, compose music for them and guarantee to secure publication on a royalty basis by a New York music publisher.” 

A 1962 ad. Some poems were quite whimsical:
 "Yellow submarines / Corn on the cob and tangerines / I like yellow things." 
Radio / TV magazine.

Of an estimated 200,000 songs that companies produced from the lyrics of would-be folk lyricists between 1900 and the early 2000s, when the practice petered out, not one ever became a hit. Still, the enterprise struck at a deeply rooted American desire to win fame and fortune instantly, based on one’s own exquisite originality. 

As poetry, the lyrics could run the gamut from generic and derivative to just plain weird. But buoyed by the musicianship of studio professionals, and sharpened by the formal conventions of popular songwriting, the effect could be earnest, whimsical, even charming, and plenty of paying customers seem to have been quite happy with the
“I love pop music,” Phil Milstein, who produced (an) album, remarked in an NPR interview shortly after its release. “But I’m aware that for great pop songwriters there’s always some mediation between life experience and the craft of the finished work. With song-poem music there is no such mediation. It’s a much purer expression.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

It is good MAX lost out going into the institution. He belongs, right here, gifting the world.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Smithsonian poems into songs
From: Pappy Fiddle
Date: 23 Dec 24 - 12:11 AM

Señor Gargoyle, this helped me a lot.
I swirl in darkness wondering how things work.

Over on reddit there's a great big flap about Adele being sued for plagiarizing some Brazilian artist's song. Her tune is similar to his, not exactly the same. Her chords are the same as his, altho they are elaborated differently. The mood of the two songs are quite different: his rejoices, hers laments. The lyrics of the two songs have zero in common. A Brazilian judge has issued an order for her recording co. to stop selling copies of her song and recall every copy they have ever sold, anywhere in the world. I don't imagine he has any authority over what happens in the US or UK or Japan or anywhere outside of Brazil, but he did it anyway.

The whole subject of copyrights on music is a puzzle to me. And this throws some light. I still don't see clearly but it's good to have some data.

A similar lawsuit against Ed Sheeran was dismissed after he explained that the chord progression at issue has been used many, many times over years. Actually, over several centuries.

An interesting facet of this was the mention of the work of Damien Riehl and Noah Rubin; they used a computer to generate all possible tunes of 12 notes in 7-note scales, and placed them all in the public domain. Someone claimed that since then (2019), "in the US, all lawsuits claiming musical plagiarism against the original artist have failed". This sort of goes along with my feelings; I mean, Yumpin' Yiminy, of all the things that should be free, isn't music number one?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Smithsonian poems into songs
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Dec 24 - 09:28 PM

Dear Pappy,

Do a wiki read on "Chilling Effects aka now Lumin".
It will give you some condensed information.

For many years Mudcat was hit with hundreds and hundreds of "cease and desist" orders.

For me, the irony was, to find lyrics always look to a C&D order.

Electronic Freedom Foundation has been an awsome resource. Copyright varies by country, however, "Al Gores" creation of the www has broken most borders. Artifical Intel has opened Pandora. This is GOOD.

Mudcat is so full of past discussions on the subject ... a doctorial dissertation could be gleaned.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

. Across the lips and over the tongue ... to the world it now belongs.