Introduction
Most of the time when you buy a songbook it's not for the introduction, it's for the songs. I can't remember the last time I read a songbook introduction. So I guess it doesn't much matter what I say here. Most of what I want to say is in the songs anyway. But I will take this opportunity to acknowledge some outstanding debts. It makes sense to keep track of who you owe and for what.
Songs are made out of words and tunes. The words and tunes in these songs come from a lot of different places and times. They come to you courtesy of Clarence E. "Hank" Snow, A. E. Houseman, Robert W. Service, Li Po, Woody Guthrie, Thomas Wolfe, Ammon Hennacy and Clement Wood. Most of all, they come from experiences and conversations with other people who said things in simple and memorable ways, ways easily translatable into songs.
I feel that songs are not written but assembled out of what you hear and see in the world around you. The more you keep your eyes and ears open, and the more questions you ask, then the more raw material you have from which to assemble songs. Nothing happens inside your head without something happening outside your head first. For that and other reasons I don't believe that songs can be owned by anybody. If I am talking to someone in a gas station and later on the story he tells me ends up in a song, how can I say that I wrote the song or that I own it?
Now I've made a lot of mistakes about this and allowed myself to be suckered in by contracts and promises. And I've learned from it all. I have discovered that it is nearly impossible to keep the parasites and money grubbers who own the music machine from making money off of our songs. The only way to do that seems to be to avoid assembling them in the first place. And we're not going to do that. So the best I can do is to try and figure out ways to keep these songs out of the hands of people I don't like and at the same time try to figure out other ways to get them into the hands of all the people who helped me to put them together. That's why we made not only a songbook but a little home-grown co-op, Wooden Shoe, to get it and other songbooks out and around.
But I want to be clear about this: I have no intention now or ever of making money out of putting together songs. Sure, I can be conned and duped, I can be outright swindled and robbed. But to the best of my ability, I will never consciously try to make money out of selling what doesn't belong to me.
Bruce Phillips
San Francisco, May 1973
Most of the time when you buy a songbook it's not for the introduction, it's for the songs. I can't remember the last time I read a songbook introduction. So I guess it doesn't much matter what I say here. Most of what I want to say is in the songs anyway. But I will take this opportunity to acknowledge some outstanding debts. It makes sense to keep track of who you owe and for what.
Songs are made out of words and tunes. The words and tunes in these songs come from a lot of different places and times. They come to you courtesy of Clarence E. "Hank" Snow, A. E. Houseman, Robert W. Service, Li Po, Woody Guthrie, Thomas Wolfe, Ammon Hennacy and Clement Wood. Most of all, they come from experiences and conversations with other people who said things in simple and memorable ways, ways easily translatable into songs.
I feel that songs are not written but assembled out of what you hear and see in the world around you. The more you keep your eyes and ears open, and the more questions you ask, then the more raw material you have from which to assemble songs. Nothing happens inside your head without something happening outside your head first. For that and other reasons I don't believe that songs can be owned by anybody. If I am talking to someone in a gas station and later on the story he tells me ends up in a song, how can I say that I wrote the song or that I own it?
Now I've made a lot of mistakes about this and allowed myself to be suckered in by contracts and promises. And I've learned from it all. I have discovered that it is nearly impossible to keep the parasites and money grubbers who own the music machine from making money off of our songs. The only way to do that seems to be to avoid assembling them in the first place. And we're not going to do that. So the best I can do is to try and figure out ways to keep these songs out of the hands of people I don't like and at the same time try to figure out other ways to get them into the hands of all the people who helped me to put them together. That's why we made not only a songbook but a little home-grown co-op, Wooden Shoe, to get it and other songbooks out and around.
But I want to be clear about this: I have no intention now or ever of making money out of putting together songs. Sure, I can be conned and duped, I can be outright swindled and robbed. But to the best of my ability, I will never consciously try to make money out of selling what doesn't belong to me.
Bruce Phillips
San Francisco, May 1973