Off the Charts: The Song-Poem Story
I was first informed of the world of song poems by my friend Tony who is the founder of my favorite Chicago band Let's Get Out of This Terrible Sandwich Shop. For decades musicians have been placing adds in periodicals asking for people to send in their written lyrics or "poems" to be actually sung and set to music and recorded. The idea is that "the music industry needs writers!" and your song may turn into the next big hit. The truth is out of hundreds of thousands of song poems ever recorded, none of them have been a big hit. But the songs are recorded and put on records (or probably CDs these days) and sent out to the poem writer. Of course this is all after a certain fee by the poem writer has been sent.
Eventually collectors began to discover copies of these records and sometimes entire collections. As you can imagine, when eccentric people are implored to send in their lyrics and some often equally quirky but sometimes talented session musicians are pumping out versions of these songs, there are quite a few recordings out there that are fascinatingly odd. Like nothing you've ever heard!
It's a wide world out there with many different personalities on both the poem writer and the musician end, and even on the collector end as well. This documentary introduces us to some of the most interesting and notable personalities in this culture. If you are interested in all things weird and beautiful but not too offensive (uh mostly, except for John Trubee who I had actually been quite familiar as a very oddball prank phone call artist from the 70's before I'd seen this movie, and I'd recommend finding his recordings for something extra weird and fucked up!) then you should really pick this one up.
And my friend Tony, by the way, along with Tom who is also in the afore mentioned Let's Get Out of This Terrible Sandwich Shop have played a few shows as a song poem cover band titled Ecstasy to Frenzy, one of their favorite Rodd Keith song poem titles. And I've heard rumors they may be playing a show with song poem writer turned performer himself Gary Forney sometime soon in Chicago. I hope to see you there!
(oh and if you do rent this DVD make sure you watch "America Sings" on the special features. It's absurdly horrible!)
Rating: 8/10