two-fer tunesday! (two song poems)

It's easy to make fun of song-poems. Lyrics written by amateurs set to music by scammers. But sometimes such fun-making isn't really justified -- and this is a good example.

By way of background, the song-poem industry was one that preyed on the gullible. Wikipedia explains it better than I can:

The business of recording song poems 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. Those who sent their poetry to one of the production companies 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. The early 20th century versions of this business involved setting the words to music and printing up sheet music from inexpensively engraved plates.

In producing the recordings, 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 hundreds of times. The recordings were then duplicated on 45 RPM vinyl singles or on individual cassette tapes, or they were released on compilation LPs with dozens of other songs by amateur lyric writers. 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.

There are several compilations -- I have three -- of these song-poems, and there's a certain cultish interest in these -- often of the "hey isn't this crazy song a trip!" variety. And in many cases, the songs are pretty awful. With some exceptions, the authors sent in their money thinking that they had a hit on their hands, but such fare as "All You Need is a Fertile Mind" (a song arguing that one shouldn't need pornography to masturbate) and "Jimmy Carter Says Yes!" did not really have top-40 potential.

And yet, some of these songs aren't really bad.I present two examples here. Neither of them can be considered great by any stretch, but they're both better than one might expect, given the ridicule given to song-poems.

"I Like Yellow Things" is pleasant fluff. It's reasonably well constructed to be a pop song. "I Can't Decide if It's the Beatles, Elvis or Rick" is similarly well-constructed. And it has the added advantage of having a niche that was at one time marketable. There was once a market for semi-novelty songs about the male hearththrobs. I note here that, in both cases, I am trying to judge these song poems by their lyrics alone.

I couldn't decide which of these to share today, since each has its strengths over the other. If I had to choose one, I like the recording of "I Like Yellow Things" better, but that's partly a function of the production value and the melody. On the other hand, I think "I Can't Decide..." was more along the lines of something that could have been a hit -- specifically because of that niche I mentioned above.