Million Dollar Baby, or Not?

“Never Is Forever” is Floyd Murray’s lottery ticket to a happy retirement, if he has his way.  He is offering the copyright to this song for auction on eBay for a million bucks.

When I read the CNN iReport it said that a search of “hit song copyright”, including quotes, would bring up the auction, which was reportedly to begin on March 26, 2010.  However, when I went to eBay and did the search, it did not come up.  Did he perhaps have second thoughts?  Here is an excerpt of his response when asked why he is selling the rights to the song:

“My age and my life situation (and the current industry and economy) dictates that I won’t be going on tour any time soon to promote and perform my music, and I haven’t actively pursued any publishing or licensing deals. I’ve been sitting on this song, and every time someone hears it, they tell me how great it is and ask why it’s not on the radio. So I’m just offering it up to someone who sees it on its merits and can take it and run with it. I guess I’m selling my pension plan. I’m creating my own economic stimulus package.”

I listened to the song and you can too on the video posted below.  While I appreciate that Mr. Murray may really only be hoping to create a little nest egg for his retirement, the fact that he has been sitting on it and not pitching it to publishers himself first, was a mistake.  What most songwriters with any experience will tell you is that you need decent and honest feedback from people who are objective and know what they’re talking about.  Your friends, family and acquaintances don’t count!  Some smaller publishers will respond within a few weeks as to whether or not they are interested in the song, and sometimes they will give some feedback in their response.

Why am I saying all of this?  Because as far as I can hear, the song has some glaring flaws.  First of all, it has the same chord progression throughout, the same three chords, so there is no contrast between verses and chorus (if, indeed, there was a chorus).  That alone wouldn’t necessarily spell disaster, except for the fact that it’s a county song and most country publishers or labels won’t even let you in the door without a big, splashy chorus.

Secondly, the word “never” is used ad nauseum.  Now I know that the song has “never” in the title and this is obviously the theme, but using it in almost every line is enough to put anyone to sleep.

Which is why I only made it through the first half of the song.  So he may have actually switched the chords up at the end of it, or used the word “never” less as it went along, but I wouldn’t have heard it.  And neither would most industry-types if they threw it on in its present state.  Which is the sad reality:  most songs sent to publishers or industry people aren’t listened to past the first verse and chorus (if there is one).  It doesn’t take long for them to decide that “this ain’t it.”

It could very well be that Floyd Murray is just trying to get a little attention for himself, but actually I think he is probably sincere and really thinks he has a hit on his hands.  Which kind of reminds me of that guy I wrote about a couple of months back who wants to sell a million CDs.  I wonder how he’s doing? [Update Nov/12…his video and website disappeared and now he has only a website with himself doing mostly cover songs. So much for the million sales!]

I wish them both luck.  This is the day and age when it takes a lot of creative thinking to come up with ways to draw attention to yourself and your songs.  But first, the songs have to be good.

IJ

Nothing To Write About?

 In another article called Songwriting Topics I went through a myriad of things you can do to inspire yourself in terms of what to write about (what?  you don’t have anything to write about? :-), and most of them were the obvious such as using your own life experiences or those of others.

Image by janusz l via Flickr

But what if you are bone dry in terms of ideas?  Where else can you get them?

I’ll focus on a few places on the web that might help you get some ideas.  In fact, you might learn to get really creative about being creative!  The web is an excellent way to get ideas if you know how to use it and what’s out there.

Interestingly enough, as I’m writing this blog I’m looking at something called Zemanta.  Zemanta is essentially a media and article/information gallery that you can use as a plugin in Firefox or in a WordPress blog like I have.   You can try it out on the demo page on their website.  Type anything in the text box and Zemanta will come up with images, articles, links and tags relating to whatever you’ve typed.  It’s a pretty clever little tool.

Which brings me to another idea.  Pictures can be really inspirational sometimes, especially photographs.  If you go to a website like Photography.com, you can browse through hundreds of stock photos;  pick a subject like flowers or landscapes and see what you can come up with.  I often peruse a website called BOOOOOOOM! which has photography, but also art and sometimes even videos, all in blog form.  It’s a very cool site to look through even if you’re not looking for something to write about :-).

Okay, but what if you’re looking for musical inspiration?  Aside from listening to other songs, where else can you get some musical ideas?

A few months back I found a really neat little site called Jam Studio where you can literally create a whole music bed right on the site.  It leads you through entering some chords and picking some instruments, including drums, bass, guitar and piano and even a “feel” or genre like country or rock.  Then voila!  You can create a whole song in any key and come up with all kinds of ideas!  Try it out.

And last, but not least, I wrote an article for the Muse’s Muse awhile back where I featured an NPR series called “Project Song“.  The whole idea is that an artist or band is given a set of photos and words to choose from, and is given two days in a studio to come up with a song representing them.  It is a very interesting premise and on the Project Song website you can watch a video showing how songwriter Nellie McKay came up with her song “Cavendish” using the tools at hand.

You might do the same for yourself…take a random photo from one of the websites I recommended and go to a dictionary and pick out a word or two and see what you can come up with!

In fact, I’m thinking of coming up with a songwriting challenge to do exactly that.  Keep your eye on this blog in the coming weeks…!

IJ

What Fred Taught Me

 

Fred Booker

I started writing songs when I was about 12, but it wasn’t until I was almost 20 that I took my first songwriting workshop. It was an 8 week course, facilitated by a fellow named Fred Booker. Fred was a real character and a great teacher, who was born in Chicago and ended up living in Canada for reasons I never quite figured out. He would teach songwriting classes at Douglas College in Vancouver, but he also traveled and performed constantly, applying for arts grants to record and tour. So he pretty much made his living from music, not an easy thing to do at any time!

His style of writing was very blues-influenced with a smidgen of folk, totally character-driven and very entertaining. In the course he talked about exploring the guitar and doing different things with it without getting too much into theory, which was just what I needed and something I still remember. Sometimes he would sit in front of the class, clasping his head in his hands, looking for the right words to make his point, and then he’d deliver this compelling and passionate monologue on some aspect of songwriting that would mesmerize me. Yes! I knew EXACTLY what he meant! And there was a word for the technique, and others did the same thing too! Fred’s course introduced me to the lingo that described what I had always done instinctually, without labels or any thought to what I was actually doing. I knew what a verse and a chorus were, but what I didn’t have names for were things like “tension” and “contrast” and “dynamics”. I was so thrilled to listen to someone speak in my language and put words to my efforts.

At the risk of sounding like a prima donna, I was one of the stronger songwriters in that class. I was not very good when I think of it now, but most of my classmates were less experienced than I was. I was also the biggest chicken. When it came to introducing a new song to the class, which we each had to do at least once over the 8 week period, I was tortured with nerves, and on the night of the very last class where we each had to perform a song, I didn’t show up. What a coward, eh?  And here I am many years later, writing articles about songwriting for newer inductees, thinking about what Fred taught me and realizing how important it was for me to understand the mechanics of writing, not just the inspiration behind it. Being inspired is one thing; just letting it all spill out in one big blob of emotion and getting it out of your system.

But the craft is something entirely different…sometimes I think the crafting of a song is where true inspiration kicks in, because you have to mull it over and over and find some way of tying everything together, which takes so much time and patience…and ultimately talent! What Fred taught me was to THINK about what I was saying, to push my musical and lyrical boundaries and most importantly to enjoy the process. He made me think of myself as a songwriter, not just a person who happens to write songs.

What’s the difference? I think your attitude about yourself and your purpose changes when you take your craft more seriously…I don’t mean that you become an arrogant snit; in fact there is something humbling in the recognition that you can do something that really affects people. Not everyone hits the point in their songwriting where they want to take it outside the bedroom (or wherever they write!) into the rest of the world. Some never desire more from it than a way to entertain themselves, and so it should be. But some of us feel that nagging or yearning for others to hear what we’ve created. And even though I was a coward at the time, I realized the importance of making my message clear, and I took that new understanding and still carry it with me.

Fred came to see me perform at a place called the Soft Rock Café in a Vancouver neighbourhood called Kitsilano months after that last class . He came up to me afterwards and commented on one particular song where I had done some of that exploration of the guitar neck that he had spoken about. I knew he had been listening with a critical ear the whole evening, and it made me nervous, so I was very pleased to get a positive response. Not long after that, when I joined a band along with another fellow who had also taken Fred’s class, Fred came to visit us one night and we enthusiastically discussed songwriting for hours. It was a heady time. And then I lost touch with him.

Recently, I tried to find some trace of him, using the internet of course  I found a link to a book of poetry where one of the contributors was a guy named Fred Booker, but not much else. I still have his album “On The Road”, autographed, of course, and my guess is that Fred is probably still out there creating something, whether it’s a song or a poem, still thinking about the process and maybe even still teaching, who knows? I never had the chance to thank him for all that he gave me, so I’ll do it now. Thank you, Fred! What a great teacher you are!

[PS…this was an old article written perhaps five or six years ago that I recently decided to dust off and re-post. Just for fun I thought I’d look for Fred again too, and to my surprise I found him!  He had recently written a book called “Adventures in Debt Collection” and was still living in the Vancouver area.  I also found a picture of him, posted above.  As I researched more into his book, however, much to my sorrow I discovered that Fred passed away in 2008 at the age of 69.  I’m very sorry I never had the chance to thank him for his enthusiasm and inspiration.  I found him and lost him again in the same day…there must be a song in that…]

IJ