In the Mix with Karl Blau - Steal Some Music the Old-Fashioned Way

Reading Wikipedia entries on public domain I came across these factoid snacks:

Music enters the public domain 70 years after the death of the author in most countries other than USA. This year of 2012 in the U.S.A. any song or musical work published in 1922 or earlier is in the public domain.

Not for songwriters only, the concept of public domain: "There are certain materials—the air we breathe, sunlight, rain, space, life, creations, thoughts, feelings, ideas, words, numbers—not subject to private ownership.” So much of our world today that we interact with and experience is tied with consumerism, ownership, and territory. In the wake of this ship of time is an ever-expanding volume of knowledge and creativity. From the early twentieth century fragments of actual culture gobbled up by time and by pop culture and after 90 years of cold limbo, they lay stacked out on the street side of the sidewalk.

It’s fair game you can borrow, take, steal, claim—however you want to believe yourself—any American song that is written in or before the year 1922.  Any song at least 90 years old can be remade as is, or whose parts may be manipulated or stripped legally.

What I see as the low-lying fruit here: the melodies and the changes. Sure, I will slave away at finding some incredible chord change or key change by playing my guitar for hours in the garage. If I have any kind of an ear for picking out parts or I can read music well enough, I may as well also lean into the vast vaults of music ripe (legal!) for the sifting—and lifting!

Writing this it occurs to me that American thrift stores generally have ancient sheet music in the craft section or next to the vinyl. If you find out the song is from 1922 or before (cha-ching!). Of course the internet is a no-brainer-giant-vault-of-free-shit. I foresee YouTube fathoms dived—dark beams of Decca discs motionless, frozen screen, and later a read-a-long flowered remembrance posted from the Senior Center. Don’t forget the vastness of the library. 1922 baby.

And should we not generally think their use encouraged even? We are talking about the soul of the people where we came from: at times what healed our ancestor’s ailments, and pieces of the conversation going on emotionally underneath the surface of Americans as well as overtly—politically speaking much of the time.

So, creeping up on you Robert Johnson catalog and—oh! What’s this? George Gershwin’s "Rhapsody in Blue" (1924) is just a stone’s throw away from running amuck.

It’s cool to give credit to the original writer if you record it onto any medium. Please give credit where credit is due. And then it will remain everyone’s. If you wrote a little something like (Public Domain) or (trad.) next to the song title in the credits or at least the date it’s from, it may encourage others to try out the song. It’s all about passing on the glow. Enough of this “I’m the one that’s glowing” bullshit.

Here’s "April Showers," a huge hit in the twenties for Louis Silvers, and now it’s mine and yours alike:

"April Showers" by Louis Silvers (1921)

Though April showers may come your way

They bring the flowers that bloom in May

So if it’s raining

Have no regrets

Because it isn’t raining rain you know,

It’s raining violets

And where you see clouds

Upon the hills

You soon will see crowds of Daffodils

So keep on looking for a bluebird

And listening for his song

Whenever April showers come along

Previously: In the Mix with Karl Blau: Dandelion Morning Spell