Customer Reviews

American Song-Poem Anthology

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'd argue that this is the greatest album in the world. It divides listeners into two camps - they either love it or hate it, and make up their minds very quickly. Those who hate it have serious psychological problems and lack a sense of humor. They're the kind of people who are no fun to be around. The rest of us know who we are, and we know the difference between big wood and brush.

...
in nearly every cut.

In a perfect world, the most

popular radio station on earth

would play such fare in perpetuity.

Tears of joy will flow, control of

bladder will be lost, guaranteed,

THIS is Entertainment!

"There's both more genius and insanity in America than

anywhere else," remarked a gifted young man to me on his way to

enjoy his Prix de Rome some 30 years ago... and this priceless

document proves it

You will get a good laugh the first few times you listen through the 20 some songs on this cd, but soon you will be infected by these amazing, bizarre, never-ment-for-the-public pop songs.

I can't stop humming "extacy to frenzy", "Jimmy Carter says yes" is one of the finest political song ever, and it's time to consider playing "Rat-a-tat-tat America" before any sporting event.

Although I usually don't write customer reviews on material lots of others already covered I just couldn't resist on this collection! It seems that in the world of "novelty" there are three basic categories, IMO and each is definitely represented here.

First are the "duds". By definition, either a song so bad overall you just can't stand to listen to it. In this a subcategory - also ones that start out "cute, funny or whimsical" the first time you hear them and are TOTALLY ANNOYING any time after that!

The next are "limited shelf life" tunes that can't help sounding bad now, but they just reflect a bygone era! Here we have "Rat A Tat Tat, America" (about the 1976 Bicentennial Celebration), "Richard Nixon", "Jimmy Carter Says Yes", and one of the Disco tunes "How Long Are You Staying" among a few others.

Then there are the catchy ones! Either so bad they're good, great beat and decent lyrics or (pretty much great beat, weird lyrics as in most here!) Those to me are the most fun and make up for a "risky" purchase of something like this! Tops on my own list are the following:

"I like Yellow Things" - Bobbi Blake! I once saw an early appearance of Gloria Loring on Ed Sullivan where she was a young girl with cascading blond hair and dressed in flower child garb! Although I forget what song she actually sung, I kind of envision this type of a song coming out of her, since this is the type of material she went on to do (remember "Facts of Life" theme and "Friends and Lovers" in the 80s)?!

Groovy beat, weird lyrics faves of mine are "Human Absurdity", "Little Rug Bug", "City's Hospital Patients" and "Convertibles and Headbands". When songs put a funny visual in your head you know you've got something! Like a funky guy on guitar with two groovy chicks dancing and wailing behind him (Human Absurdity). Or a bunch of way-out nurses dancing funk to "Hospital Patients". I think my favorite catchy beat tune here is "Little Rug Bug"; but the weirdest thing about it to me is being a song about a baby but composed to sound like it should have been performed on "Shindig"!

Lastly are the ones so way out there they're funny! "Green Fingernails", "Gretchen's New Dish", "Palace Roses", "Duck Egg Walk" and my last two favorites of this list "Burmese Land" (Doom-doom-doom, dang-dang-dang! Boom-boom-boom, bang-bang-bang!) and the "untitled" performers of "Pinch Me"! Call it a coincidence, but these singers - both by vocal sound and style of song- remind me an awful lot of "Guy and Rolna" (Guy Hovis, Rolna English) from "The Lawrence Welk Show"! Kind of like they snuck out and did something a little more risqué to the chagrin of "Mr. Welk". One could see him tapping his foot and knitting his eyebrows at the couple for defying their "wholesome" image!

This is definitely a great piece of work for the serious collector, though!

Song poem music is a sure cure for when you feel stifled by the creativeless creativity and humorless humor of the corporate media. There's some real musical brilliance here, and I've heard few things in my life more hysterical than the title song, or "Song of the Burmese Land," "Gretchen's New Dish", "The Palace Roses", or the Burl Ives imitation on "Green Fingernails". Like Homer Price with the doughnut song, you WILL walk around helplessly singing "Jimmy Carter Says Yes". Once you hear it, there's no escape.

Not surprisingly, the musical genius here is Rodd Keith, with the beautiful Brian Wilson-ish falsetto descent to a major 7th on "From Ecstacy to Frenzy" or the absolutely swingin' "Run Spook Run", (Dan Hicks should do this one), spoken in a kind of Milton-the Monster type accent. And the way he intones "God in His infinite wisdom placed Richard Nixon on this earth" is priceless. This collection leans a little more "funny" but overall less musically stunning than the Keith collection "I Died Today" on Tzadik, so you should probably get both.

Now if you ask me, and quite a respectable number of singing poets have over the years, then this here album is the firecracker to get your parade started down the avenue of life. If you don't know what I mean, then do yourself a favor and buy this here CD and play the third, eighth, and 20th tracks over and a\over again until you see the light. This here CD is a hoot to hear and a soul searching alternative to all that empty, meaningless, machine-made pop nonsense they got on the radio these days.

Back in the day when me and Mama were still courtin', we'd turn on the radio (I usually listened to "The Hayseed" back then) and hear songs of this type all the time on the AM dial because this is what folk were singing and listening to back then . Now you might commence to thinking, and you would be excused for doing so, that the back-of-the-magazine song poem deal is kind of special and noteworthy because the robot-generated text above rattles on and on about it as if it had some kind of merit when listening to this here music, but truth be node it don't.

Yes indeed, if you want to flog a dead horse and rant on and on about the fact that this here music was composed by regular saps like you and me and put to music in some questionable studio in a strip mall in suburbia by cheesy session musicians... then I'll grant you that point, but you're missing the point if that is all you see (and hear). See, this stuff is real. This stuff is from the soul (down near the spleen) and is full of the richness of life what pop artists can't get near because they are all coated in plastic and airbrushed to blemish-free perfection. That reminds me of the time Mama commenced to have that wart removed from the side of her nose. She went at it with a pair of pliers she found out in the shed and twisted and tugged and yanked and scarred herself up nice, but that ole' wart never did come off.

Now if you want a real treat, and I reckon you do because you need this here type of music in your life on a regular basis, then go ahead on and consider this an American art form and plunk down the change and get yourself a copy because (despite the machine generated reviews that can't get past the fact that this was back-of-the-magazine-ad-music) this is truly an art form... kind of like a Grandma Moses painting... it grows on you after you pay a lot for it.

Do you know the difference between big wood and brush? It's a question asked by the opening track of this latest collection of song-poems, and it's a question that has been burning in my mind since purchasing the CD. I think it's a thought provoking idea that is particularly fitting for an artistic endeavor such as this: do you know the difference between manufactured pop-crap and real soul-searching song craftsmanship? This collection of songs is real, as real as it gets. It represents the real dreams of real people. Every song on this collection deserves mention, but with a satisfying 28 cuts, it would be an impossible task.
The stylistic representation on the CD is vast and includes touches of soul (`City's Hospital Patients), blues (`I'm Just the Other Woman'), country/western (`I Lost My Girl to an Argentinean Cowboy'), and even a track that comes close to a free jazz improv (`Beat of the Traps'). There is also the unmistakable sound of beat poetry hidden amongst this pile of jewels (`Run Spook Run'). There are screaming wah guitars, driving bass lines, and beating rhythms. I found it impossible to keep my foot from tapping carelessly away, and I even caught myself singing a few of the catchier chorus'.
Highlights include A funky `Jimmy Carter Says Yes'; a little disco-ditty written by a man searching for Crisco in order to bake a cake so he can "disco-disco" titled `How Long Are You Staying'; and a space-themed lament to the `Blind Man's Penis'. Also present are all the usual suspects such as Gene Marshall, "Rod Rogers", and "Rod Keith".
So, if you want to know the difference between big wood and brush, buy this CD. Who knows, maybe you will be inspired and end up on the next collection of these magnificent testaments to the human spirit!

You definitely want to read the liner notes for this collection [...] to get a full appreciation for what it represents.

"Your songs or poems may EARN MONEY FOR YOU!!!"

"Popular, Rock and Roll, Country, and Sacred poems needed AT ONCE!"

"Send your poems today for prompt FREE EXAMINATION AND APPRAISAL."

"We need new ideas FOR RECORDING."

Back in the 60's and 70's, the world was more innocent, there was no internet and it was common to see ads like these in magazines and classified ads. Of course they were a mild form of scam designed to extract cash from the average joe who, having committed a rare fit of poetic creativity to paper, allowed him or herself to dream that they had written the next big hit.

Excerpted from the liner notes:

... The writers who paid from $75 to $400 to have their words committed to song never quite knew what they were going to get. Composers employed by the song-poem outfits hastily wrote melodies for the lyrics they received. Then studio players, paid by the hour or per song, would look over a lyric, learn the tune, and cut a track all in a matter of minutes so they could cram a dozen or so tunes into a single session. There wasn't time to mull over the words or correct any mistakes -- in "The Moon Men," for example, vocalist John Muir sings "gem" when he should have sung "germ," and it just makes the long-winded tale that much more strange.

... "Song-poem music is the only scam that produces a unique work of art with every transaction." Despite the assembly-line method of production, there were so many random forces at work simultaneously that the best of these sessions resulted in the sort of happy accidents compiled here. The studio musicians involved were pros, but they used a variety of assumed names, a la porn movie directors, to protect the more legitimate sides of their careers -- and to disguise the fact that it was often the same vocalist singing on so many of the tracks. "John Muir," for example, is but one of several pseudonyms for Gene Marshall; he chose that particular name, he said, because he was an admirer of the famous West Coast naturalist. ...

As a longtime fan of outsider music, I had to buy this CD, and it is now the only other album on the same level as the Shaggs "Philosophy of the World" in my collection (which if you have never heard you need to buy immediately.) This CD has 28 wonderfully bizarre song-poem tracks from some of the giants of the business like Rodd Keith and Ramsey Kearney, and many others who are less stellar in the song-poem stratosphere.

All of these songs have their own peculiar charms, but there are a couple that I consider to be the cream of the crop. My all time favorite has to be the semi-accurate account of the Apollo 11 moon landing in "The Moon Men:" I have never (ever) heard a melody line or rhyme scheme so complex to remember, and in fact I defy anyone to hum it or sing all the lyrics all the way through (I have tried and failed). "Green Fingernails" gets my vote for least lucid content, followed very closely by "Song of the Burmese Land," which features the self-evident lyrics "Boom boom boom, bang bang bang, doom doom doom, dang dang dang, to the lunatic asylum I'm Goin'...." (Really.)

There are too many others here to mention, and other listeners will have their favorites, but nobody will stand stoically aside and listen uncaringly to these songs. Truly, you will laugh, and you will cry (but only because you have been laughing so hard); this is a guaranteed good time for all.

I highly recommend this CD.