Radio Sweethearts

I have been obsessed for years with the musical phenomenon known as song-poems.

Song-poems were a semi-scam that ran for a while from the late 50′s to the late 70′s. People would write lyrics to songs and pay services to put them to music and record the song. The budding lyricists were then sent the 45 RPM single of the resulting songs. Read a few of the above articles for an explanation of why it was a scam.

“This American Life” has a story posted about one of the men who wrote the music for these songs. It’s act three in its episode. The story is called “Reverb.”

The reason I bring this up is that we’ve been looking for a way to raise money to keep this blog going – and any money we raise after our expenses are taken care of will be money we donate back to public radio.

We’re strongly considering writing song-poems as a gift in exchange for donations. We haven’t set the price yet, partly because we’re still trying gauge the demand.

So, for a few days, I’m opening this email address for song-poem submissions. The first three people will have their (hopefully terrible) lyrics set to (hopefully hilariously terrible) music for free. Genre suggestions will be considered, but likely ignored.

Go for it.

Keep in mind a few things: the spirit of this little project is fun, but taking your lyrics too seriously can result in some hilariously awful results. Which is why I reccomend mining your teenage journals and diaries for material.

Also, please keep in mind that by submitting material, you are giving us the rights to use the song however we want, in perpetuity (though we will release under Creative Commons).

For a couple ideas of how song poems can go, here’s a couple of my favorites:

The good:

Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Potassium

The bad:

Jimmy Carter says Yes

The ugly:

Green Fingernails