The business of recording song poems was promoted through small display ads in popular magazines, comic books, tabloids, men's adventure journals and similar publications with a headline reading (essentially) Send in Your Poems - Songwriters Make Thousands of Dollars - Free Evaluation. The term lyrics was avoided because it was assumed potential customers would not understand what the term meant. Those who sent their poetry to one of the production companies usually received notice by mail that their work was worthy of recording by professional musicians, along with a proposal to do so in exchange for a fee. The early 20th century versions of this business involved setting the words to music and printing up sheet music from inexpensively engraved plates.
In producing the recordings, the melodies were either improvised or recycled and musicians often recorded dozens of songs per recording session using minimal resources, often in one take. Some of the companies recorded new vocals over pre-recorded music backing tracks, using the same music tracks hundred of times. The recordings were then duplicated on 45 RPM vinyl singles or on individual cassette tapes, or they were released on compilation LPs with dozens of other songs by amateur lyric writers. Copies were sent to the customer. Promises that they would also be sent to radio stations or music industry executives were rarely if ever kept, partly because the recordings would not have been taken seriously by professionals. The practice played off the desire of unsophisticated people, who often lived in remote areas, for fame and fortune.
During the 1990s, some surviving recordings of song poems (especially from the 1950s and 1960s) attracted the interest of record collectors, who were then seeking old phonograph records. For some listeners, unusual, amateur lyrics in recordings made by rushed or at least marginally professional musicians almost half a century earlier offer a unique, discordant sound heard nowhere else. The intensity and naiveté of the lyrics combined with the workaday listlessness of the musical performances creates a tension that fuels whatever artistic merit may be found in these relics. Many of the lyrics involve subject matter relating to the passing fads of the day, and thus provide a window into a past pop culture.
In 2003, a documentary about the industry, Off The Charts: The Song-Poem Story, was aired on the Public Broadcasting Service in the United States. It has since been released on DVD, and the soundtrack was released as a recording.
Tom Ardolino, drummer for the band NRBQ, curated several compilation CDs of the material. His work, along with the efforts of others such as musicologist Irwin Chusid of WFMU radio, has allowed these scraps to reach a level of notoriety unthinkable in their own time.
Caglar Singletary is probably the best known songpoet, his most famous composition being "Annie Oakley."
But among the professionals paid to record these songs, the "Mozart" of the song poem genre is often said to be Rodd Keith. Several compilations of his made-for-hire song poem recordings have been released on CD with comments by his son, avant-garde saxophonist Ellery Eskelin. Eskelin never actually met his father, but was often told that his father was some kind of musical genius.
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THE WITCHES' SPELL
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth, boil and bubble.
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth, boil and bubble.
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
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