Doktor Frank writes about a site called The American Song-Poem Music Archives. Now I finally know what to buy with this Amazon gift certificate I got for my birthday. The site has MP3s of a bunch of "Send Us Your Lyrics (and Money)!" song-poems, and there are others floating around if you know how to type stuff into Google. "Blind Man's Penis (Peace & Love)," which Frank writes about, must be heard to be believed.
The one I can't get out of my head is "Ecstasy to Frenzy", which sounds like what would happen if Anthony Newley joined the Beach Boys and did more drugs than all of them put together. It was done by a guy named Rodd Keith. He died in obscurity in 1974, but apparently he's become known as "The King of Song-Poems." If that MP3 and the others I've heard are any indication, his stuff was definitely better than you'd expect from some tired hacks cranking out one-take ditties for a bunch of weirdo lyrics that came in the mail. He'd just read a poem and make up the music on the spot, but you wouldn't know by listening to it. And he might do up to 20-30 song-poems in a day, in all sorts of different styles. After reading about his remarkable (and remarkably sad) life, it occurred to me that the guys who wrote Ed Wood and The People vs. Larry Flynt should do a movie about this guy.
Update: Lileks did a review of that anthology CD. There's just too much good stuff out there to keep up with it all. I keep having to remind myself of the good stuff...
Posted by Jim Treacher at June 26, 2003 08:55 AM