OF PLAYS AND PUBLISHERS...

Should’ve mentioned last time (but there wasn’t room, and I forgot anyway) I have sent off another song to a publisher. I’m on the mailing lists of a couple of publishers, one in Nashville and one not, and they’ll occasionally send out a call to the mailing list for songs for an artist, or for a film or TV show, if they don’t have something in The Catalog that fits. I try to respond if I can; I want these guys to remember who I am.

In this case, they wanted a “not too pop” love song to be sung by a teenage girl, and I happened to have one. Not one of mine, of course—my material mostly isn’t what you’d call “mainstream”—but I’ve musicated a lot of mainstream-ish material written by others. I sent them “About Love,” a Marge McKinnis song I’d musicated and recorded a few years ago; I had the demo done in Nashville, at a “demo derby” at the Pineyfest songwriters conference in 2007.

The lesson, I think, is the old Boy Scout motto: “Be Prepared.” If you’ve got something that’s good—and I think I’ve been in music long enough to tell when something’s good—grab the opportunity when it happens to have a commercial recording done. It positions you to take advantage of opportunities. Note that this one happened more than four years after the song was recorded. One should accordingly not be making a big investment in the demo—payback may be a long time in coming, if it ever does happen. And I have no idea if anything will come of this submission. I simply know that I’ve given it my best shot, and my best shot was pretty good.

Also on the plus side, there’s a bluegrass band called The Crazed Weasels that may end up performing one of my songs—“Armadillo on the Interstate.” They heard it at the Rainbow Lotus, performed with 45 Degrees North’s trademarked Heavenly Chorus, and they got given the lyrics. We agreed songs about armadillos were in short supply—particularly songs about dead armadillos in love.

Theme song for the “Cinderpiggy” play is done, I think—short, simple country music, one verse and one chorus. Hight “My Happily Ever After.” Should come out about 1 to 1-1/2 minutes with a lead break—ideal for rolling credits (except I don’t know if this one will get filmed—it’s at Garibaldi City Hall, not the Arts Center). However, people have requested the sock-puppet band “play” again, and I do like to deliver what people want.

Merle Haggard wrote quite a few short songs like this; it’s very “old school”—back in the early days of recorded music, one couldn’t fit much on a record because of the limitations of the primitive technology. It’s not a bad “box” to work in—I seem to be able to do them pretty fast—and it forces one to be really concise. Not a lot of room for character development, but since this follows the play, all it’s got to do is recall some of the imagery from the play. The audience can (and no doubt will) fill in the details.

The song could use a good country-blues female voice (Princess Leah will be “singing” it on stage), and I’d like to tap Candice for that, if she’s willing. Either “Doc” or “Chippewa Bob” on blues harp, and either Charlie or me on lead guitar. The sock-puppet band has (besides Leah) Yoda on harmonica, Luke on washtub bass, Chewy as the drummer (and Darth Vader as the drum), and Hansolo on guitar (I’d like to borrow the the miniature Les Paul again).

Joe