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Public Domain Songs


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More than once now, I've been contracted to play "all original" music. At first, excitement, then realization that the venue is simply trying to avoid paying the license for live performers. Oh well, you know how it is, if you're in certain areas, any chance you get to play originals is taken. It is a paid gig, so that is good. But here's my thing.... first, I always like to throw in known songs every now and then during an original set, as it's a break for my listeners. I have several songwriter friends that I've obtained permission to play a few of their songs during my show, which I love to do... but am always looking for a way to fill up a 4 hour gig.

 

With that said, what public domain songs have you performed/recorded? I am trying to start a list and have a few.....

 

 

Love Me Do - Beatles

House of the Rising Son

It's Alright Baby - Elvis

Happy Birthday (just in case... you know)

Poor Boy a Long Way from Home - RL Burnside

 

Would like to put together a more definitive list of available tunes. Know any?

 

 

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I'm sure Pogo will regale you with his immense list of PD material!

The 95 year rule really hampers finding 'usable' PD material [its tough at 75 years!].

Any venue that expects you to be able to perform 4 hours of original material as a solo should be avoided. If they're too cheap to pay the PRO licenses, then I would look at their business model as being poorly planned out regarding having live music.

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I'm sure Pogo will regale you with his immense list of PD material!

 

If I must. but pre-1922 is going to be a peculiar setlist. Even I would think it was a little dusty! Many of the WWI songs in this list are truly awful.

 

1650 The Water Is Wide

1750 Shady Grove

1823 Home Sweet Home

1825 Shenandoah

1834 Annie Laurie

1848 Oh! Susanna

1850 Careless Love

1850 The Spinning Wheel

1851 Old Folks At Home

1852 My Old Kentucky Home

1852 Camptown Races

1854 Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair

1855 Some Folks

1864 Beautiful Dreamer

1864 If You've Only Got a Moustache

1867 The Maple Leaf Forever

1870 The Hallelujah Band

1873 Silver Threads Among the Gold

1874 My Grandfather's Clock

1875 The Spelling Bee

1880 The Kerry Dance

1883 Molly Malone

1884 All Through the Night

1885 The Boy I Love is Up in the Gallery

1899 Hello! Ma Baby

1899 Keep on the Sunny Side

1902 Bill Bailey

1902 Land Of Hope And Glory

1902 In The Good Old Summertime

1902 Under the Double Eagle

1904 Frankie and Johnnie

1905 Wait ‘Till the Sun Shines, Nellie

1908 Shine on, Harvest Moon

1908 Down By The Old Mill Stream

1909 By the Light of the Silvery Moon

1910 When Father Papered the Parlour

1910 Some Of These Days

1911 I Want a Girl Just Like the Girl That Married Dear Old Dad

1911 Alexander's Ragtime Band

1911 The Floral Dance

1912 Waiting for the Robert E Lee

1912 It's a Long Way to Tipperary

1912 Moonlight Bay

1913 Danny Boy

1913 Ballin' the Jack

1913 You Made Me Love You

1914 The Aba Daba Honeymoon

1914 Saint Louis Blues

1914 Sister Susie's Sewing Shirts For Soldiers

1914 Keep The Home Fires Burning

1914 There's a Long Long Trail A-Winding

1914 They Didn't Believe Me

1915 I Ain't Got Nobody

1915 Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag

1916 I Sent My Wife to the Thousand Isles

1916 Keep Right On to the End of the Road

1916 The Laddies Who Fought And Won

1916 Walkin' The Dog

1917 K-K-K-Katy

1917 I'm Always Chasing Rainbows

1917 For Me and My Gal

1917 Darktown Strutters Ball

1917 Oh, What a Lovely War!

1917 Over There

1917 I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier

1918 Hello Central Give Me No Man's Land

1918 Oh! How I Hate To Get Up In The Morning

1918 After You've Gone

1918 Somebody Stole My Gal

1919 Let The Rest Of The World Go By

1920 Avalon

1920 Look for the Silver Lining

1920 Ain't We Got Fun

1920 After You Get What You Want, You Don't Want It

1922 Chicago (That Toddlin' Town)

1922 Yes! We Have No Bananas

1922 My Buddy

 

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And.... while I trust pogo97's list, will the venue in question trust anyone's list? What then?

 

I agree with daddymack, that any venue that can't shell out a few bucks for performing rights is probably operating too close to the bone. That's a place you want to get paid before you perform, if you perform there at all.

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Love Me Do - Beatles

 

In Europe only not the USA

 

 

If you have about 2 hours of solid original material, break it up and do 2 shows.

 

I'm not sure who would hang for that time frame and listen to 4 hours of original material.

​Call in some of your song writer buddy's, and make it happen.

 

 

Just my 2 cents

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I ran into the ASCAP issue last year. They refused to pay and one guitar player kept a weekly jam going limited to original material. I, too considered pre-1922 material and decided against it. I've never heard of anyone doing that, have any of you? Anyway, the jam lasted a few months before the owner decided to sell.

 

The problem with rooms like these is that the ASCAP fees assume you fill large rooms and have music every night. I was playing Thursday nights and they didn't have music any other night of the week; the ASCAP fees essentially won't take into account limited use of live music.

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I ran into the ASCAP issue last year. They refused to pay and one guitar player kept a weekly jam going limited to original material. I, too considered pre-1922 material and decided against it. I've never heard of anyone doing that, have any of you? Anyway, the jam lasted a few months before the owner decided to sell.

 

The problem with rooms like these is that the ASCAP fees assume you fill large rooms and have music every night. I was playing Thursday nights and they didn't have music any other night of the week; the ASCAP fees essentially won't take into account limited use of live music.

 

which is going to make me wonder why the venue only did music once a week? That makes no sense to me...although, I was at a 'toney' French restaurant Thursday that has a 'jazz band' from 6:30 to 8:30 only on Thursday [my luck, we got there at 6:15]. I was wondering why they di that, because they have a small stage, but only do music once a week? I didn't ask...the service was mediocre, the wine glasses were tiny and the music was uninspiring [actually a duo, who did more blues and Hendrix material than jazz, and they were not that good, and too loud].

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If I must. but pre-1922 is going to be a peculiar setlist. Even I would think it was a little dusty! Many of the WWI songs in this list are truly awful.

 

 

1823 Home Sweet Home

1834 Annie Laurie

1848 Oh! Susanna

1851 Old Folks At Home

1852 My Old Kentucky Home

1852 Camptown Races

1854 Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair

1864 Beautiful Dreamer

1873 Silver Threads Among the Gold

1883 Molly Malone

1884 All Through the Night

1899 Hello! Ma Baby

1902 Bill Bailey

1902 In The Good Old Summertime

1904 Frankie and Johnnie

1905 Wait ‘Till the Sun Shines, Nellie

1908 Shine on, Harvest Moon

1908 Down By The Old Mill Stream

1909 By the Light of the Silvery Moon

1911 I Want a Girl Just Like the Girl That Married Dear Old Dad

1911 Alexander's Ragtime Band

1912 Waiting for the Robert E Lee

1912 It's a Long Way to Tipperary

1912 Moonlight Bay

1913 Danny Boy

1913 Ballin' the Jack

1913 You Made Me Love You

1914 Saint Louis Blues

1915 I Ain't Got Nobody

1915 Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag

1917 K-K-K-Katy

1917 I'm Always Chasing Rainbows

1917 For Me and My Gal

1917 Darktown Strutters Ball

1917 Over There

1918 Oh! How I Hate To Get Up In The Morning

1918 After You've Gone

1918 Somebody Stole My Gal

1920 Avalon

1920 Ain't We Got Fun

1920 After You Get What You Want, You Don't Want It

1922 Chicago (That Toddlin' Town)

1922 Yes! We Have No Bananas

After cutting out the real quirky stuff, these are all 'classics'...that no one has covered in over 50 years...

 

 

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I do some songs from the late twenties, and even some pre-1922 blues [aka race music]. But yeah, a hard show to sell, and pretty much anyone who was alive and listening to music in 1922 is dead, or not going out to a club...

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I played yesterday for a woman's 90th birthday. She was born in 1927, so yeah, probably not hitting the clubs. And the songs I played ranged from the 1910s to the 1950s.

 

I have an aunt who's 91. She remembers songs from long before 1926 because, at that time, songs stayed popular for much longer. Recordings and sheet music were luxuries and not replaced every week with something new. Her father and his brother (my grandfather) were carpenters who built cottages on Charleston Lake. They bought a little plot of land as a base camp and the families stayed there all summer. Because there was no electricity she spent many hours listening to old 78s on the wind-up gramophone.

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After cutting out the real quirky stuff, these are all 'classics'...that no one has covered in over 50 years...

 

I missed one!! The Spelling Bee by Septimus Winner, from 1875, is very quirky and maybe a bit stuffy. (I can't find an online recording.)

But the Three Stooges recorded it as "Swingin' the Alphabet." Surely a crowd pleaser.

 

[video=youtube;usQem53fDH8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usQem53fDH8

 

Public Domain?

 

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Thanks for the list! I've copied them out and should be able to find a few more to supplement our original sets. We played this gig this Sunday. Only a half dozen or so people, but we got 5's, 10's and 20's from them. We have enough original material to go 4 hours, but I still like to throw in other locals stuff (and brag about how great our songwriter community is!). Also was able to throw in some covers like House of the Rising Sun, Danny Boy and Poor Boy a Long Way From Home.

 

As for it being sketch from the venue side? Sure... it's sketch, but here's the thing, if you play it like you mean it, then you'll win the patrons. In our case, those few tables gave the employees enough good feedback that we'll be back in two weeks for another.

 

The dreamer in me thinks it might be the start of an original music venue, as it's in a fairly affluent area with a wildly popular Annual Songwriters Festival that draws in folks like John Prine, Zac Brown and Dr. John, to name a few. (http://www.30asongwritersfestival.com)

 

Bottom line is, play it like it was your last gig... no matter what.

 

Thanks again, and keep playing.... and writing!!!!

 

m

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I play a lot to retirement communities here in Florida - because it's a good, stable market.

 

When I started playing that market, it was all standards from "The Great American Songbook". We played Ellington, Basie, Shaw, Miller, Sinatra, Porter, Shaw, Dorsey, and so on. If we tried to sneak in an early Elvis song, there would be someone in our face telling us not to play any of that "rack and roll" here. But because others wanted it, we did anyway.

 

Then that audience started dying out, and the early rockers came of age, so we played a lot of early Baby Boomer music. Which was really weird, because for year Grey Hair meant "Play Glenn Miller or Sinatra to get them on your side.

 

Then playing a Beatles song followed by thinking "What are these OLD people doing listening to OUR music?" Of course a look in the mirror answered that.

 

Our standards dwindled to a few, and once someone even complained saying "Harry James Is Dead!"

 

Now they want Eric Clapton - man we've been in this business a long time.

 

And of course there are usually a few females who don''t want to grow old who want something new-ish like Blurred Lines or Uptown Funk and they will get out on the dance floor, shake their aged booties, while the rest of the audience is bored. But if you don't play for them, you won't get the gig because they get on the entertainment committee.

 

All this is not a complaint, only an observation. I like playing all kinds of music, so whatever they want, I'll play - unless it comes to EDM - I'm not equipped for that, and I can't talk fast enough for Rap. :D

 

I love a lot of the songs in Pogo's list but they won't cut it anymore. At least around here. More power to you if you can play them, enjoy yourself, and entertain your audience.

 

As far as I'm concerned, ASCAP is out of line here, and live music in a small venue should be exempt. The money doesn't go to the songwriters of the songs you play anyway, but a blanket fund where the people who don't need the money get the most anyway. But I have no influence with the people who make the laws.If I did, there would be a lot of changes made :D

 

Insights and incites by Notes

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I find that nursing homes and retirement homes vary in age group. There are some with residents in their 80s up to 100+. They would enjoy a few pre-1922 songs but not too many. I've had requests for some and I've learned a couple. If they're good sing along songs I'm game.

 

I'd rather attempt to do all originals in a bar or restaurant that doesn't wanna pay ASCAP. I could write a few real quick to add to those that I've already written.

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