Barnes & Noble
Think you've got the stuff to write a hit song? Well, the 20-odd folks whose songs are collected here sure did. They're among the thousands of armchair songwriters who sent in their "song-poems" -- song lyrics in search of a tune -- to any of a number of recording companies that, for a fee, promised to transform their printed words into potential hit records. Well, maybe on the Martian Top 40. Fusing derivative pop, rock, swing, and other styles with often left-of-center lyrics about love, religion, politics, and more, the results are unexpectedly charming -- aural outsider art with the appeal of Daniel Johnston or the Langley Schools Music Project's Innocence & Despair. On the one hand, the writers can sound serious, praising the presidency on the overly glowing march "Richard Nixon" and the equally reverent, Marvin Gaye-goes-disco "Jimmy Carter Says 'Yes'." They yank heartstrings with the painfully sincere, Lee Hazlewood–esque "How Can a Man Overcome His Heartbroken Pain" and the cowpoke country of "I Lost My Girl to an Argentinean Cowboy." On the other hand, some songs celebrate simple pleasures, such as the Dusty Springfield–esque "I Like Yellow Things" (e.g., lemon pies and butterflies) or the burly, give-the-drummer-some "Beat of the Traps," a tune that lent its name to countless "bootleg" collections of song-poems before this succinct compilation. Released alongside a PBS documentary called Off the Charts: The Song-Poem Story, this 28-track disc offers a peek into an alter-universe music industry, one where passions run high, skills run low, and everyone has a whole lot of fun. For more good times with song-poems, visit the American Song-Poem Archives (www.aspma.com). Lydia Vanderloo
All Music Guide
A sometimes fascinating, surprisingly musical, and mostly bizarre collection of independent recordings from the 1960s and '70s, The American Song-Poem Anthology is an outsider artifact tailor-made for hipsters. "Song-poem" was a euphemism employed by shady, fly-by-night recording studios. "We'll put your poem to music!," their classified ads would scream. Would-be songwriters would pay 75-400 dollars to have their words -- however odd, fetishistic, or charmingly mundane -- set to music and performed by the studio's stable of songwriters, musicians, and vocalists. Desperate for content and hurting for cash, these backroom studios would accept anything and perform it in any style, so long as the writer was willing and able to pay. Over the years, thousands of song-poems were recorded, with wildly varying results. And like any cultural backwater, the collecting of them became the preoccupation of such notable hipsters as Yo la Tengo's Ira Kaplan and Tom Ardolino of NRBQ (who sold his vast storehouse of song-poems to infamous jokester illusionist Penn Jillette). Naturally, in a classic case of trickle-down pop culture, Bar/None Records has assembled 28 of the most notable song-poems on the first volume of their American Song-Poem Anthology, subtitled "Do You Know the Difference Between Big Wood and Brush?" Bar/None is a Hoboken, NJ, indie label that's built a reputation as an expert in revisionist hip. It's the same imprint that in the mid-'90s perpetuated the resurgent interest in kitschy '60s bandleader Juan Garcia Esquivel. It also released 2002's Langley Schools Music Project -- a 1976-1977 recording of Canadian school children singing popular rock songs of the day that found favor amongst tastemakers of the so-odd-it's-marvelous camp. Musically, the Song-Poem Anthology offers all kinds of delights. "Rat a Tat Tat, America," "Richard Nixon," "Jimmy Carter Says Yes," and "The Moon Men" are the products of misguided patriots; Bill Joy's "How Long Are You Staying" is the creepy tale of one man's desire to disco at any cost, set to a chintzy retelling of KC & the Sunshine Band's "Boogie Man." The song typifies the quality of much of this anthology. Since time and money were tight, half-baked arrangements, syrupy vocals, and first takes were the name of the game. But "How Long Are You Staying," "Blind Man's Penis (Peace and Love)," or Bobbie Blake's simple, sunny tribute to the color yellow are memorable not simply for their screwy lyrics or sloppy arrangements, but for the by-chance moment of genius that the intersection of both created. There's no question that The American Song-Poem Anthology will appeal more to hipster know-it-alls than the average consumer. But is anyone's music collection really complete without the MSR Singers' languid "I'm Just the Other Woman (Remake)," sung in a goofy faux-soprano by notable song-poem performer Rod Keith? At the very least, the collection is a gold mine of mix tape material. Johnny Loftus
New York Times
The twisted pleasure of song-poems comes from the mingling of oddity and expediency, of conventional forms holding improbable contents, of words their authors wanted to immortalize and music that struggles to contain them. Like indie rock, song-poems have the low-fi flavor of songs recorded in a take or two in low-budget studios, wrong notes and all. Yet there's also the craftsmanship of musicians trying to satisfy themselves.
Jon Pareles
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