Song poem

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Song Poem usually refers to song lyrics which have been set to music for a fee. This practice, which has long been disparaged in the music industry, was also known as song sharking and was conducted by several businesses throughout the 20th century in North America.

Typically, the service 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.

People who sent their poetry 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 (early 20th century versions involved setting the words to music and printing up sheet music from inexpensively engraved plates). The melodies were either improvised or recycled and musicians often recorded dozens of songs per recording session using minimal resources, often in one take. Some of the companies recorded new vocals over pre-recorded music backing tracks, using the same music tracks over again hundred of times.

The recordings were then duplicated on 45 RPM vinyl singles or compilation LPs with dozens of other songs by amateur lyric writers, or individual cassette tapes. 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. The practice played off the intense desire of unsophisticated people, who often lived in remote areas, to realize their ambitions of making money from writing popular songs.

Some surviving recordings of song poems (especially from the 1950s and 60s) gained interest during the 1990s, when they were uncovered and researched by record collectors who sought out old vinyl recordings. For some listeners, unusual, amateur lyrics combined into recordings made by rushed or at least marginally professional musicians almost half a century earlier offer a unique, discordant sound heard nowhere else. The intensity and naivety of the lyrics combined with the workaday listlessness of the musical performances creates a tension which fuels whatever artistic merit may be found in these relics.

Many of the lyrics involve subject matter relating to the passing fads of the day, providing a unique and sometimes fascinating sort of window into a past pop culture universe.

Tom Ardolino (drummer for the band NRBQ) curated several compilation CDs of the material. His work , along with the efforts of others such as musicologist Irwin Chusid of WFMU radio, has allowed these scraps to reach a level of notoriety unthinkable in their own time. Most of the lyric writers are still unknown but among the professionals paid to record these songs, the "Mozart" of the song-poem genre is often said to be Rodd Keith (born Rodney Keith Eskelin, AKA Rodd Rogers and many other pseudonyms). Several compilations of his made-for-hire song poem recordings have been released on CD with comments by his son, avant-garde saxophonist Ellery Eskelin, who never actually met Rodd but was always told his father was some kind of musical genius. In 2004, a documentary film about the song-poem industry (Off The Charts) was aired on the Public Broadcasting System in the United States.

Gary Forney, star of "Off the Charts: The Song Poem Story", is perhaps the most famous song poet and has toured with his song poem band Iowa mountain tour to some degree of success. He also maintains one of the most comprehensive sites on the subject. [1]