Originally Posted By: Notes Norton
Pay phones are history in most places. The reason I got my first cell phone years ago was because pay phones at that time were scarce.

I do 2 Jim Croce songs, Leroy Brown and Time In A Bottle. Regular customers requested them, we learned them, no problem. I learned Sinatra's Summer Wind for a bar owner, and still enjoy singing that one 20 years later.

When someone asks me for a song, I consider it a complement. If I don't know it, the first thing I do is let them know that their requested song is a great one, tell them I wish I knew how to play it and apologize for not knowing it. Then I write it down and tell them it's going in our long list of songs to learn.

If something gets requested either often enough or by a steady customer and if we can cover it, we learn it.

I don't like Maroon 5 - some of the songs I've heard are good ones, but too much auto-tune. IMO Anyone who cannot sing on pitch doesn't deserve to be a star. I worked for years to learn how to sing on pitch, and there are zillions of great singers trapped in small clubs who have great chops and great intonation. Why should some non-singer get the gig?

Back on topic.

I know that top 40 songs have a shelf life of a few months, then you can't play them anymore (with a few exceptions). After 10 or more years, you can bring them back again.

It's probably similar to slang.

If I were to write a song with last decades slang, it would be old and not accepted.

If I were to write a song with 20 year old slang, and set the song in that era, if the song was worthy, it could work.

I remember Bob Seger's "Night Moves". Talking about "Front page drive in news". The expression "Front Page News" was more than 10 years old, and Drive In Theaters were all gone. But the song was set in that period when they were young, restless and bored.

So to bring this post around to it's beginning. You could probably write a song with a pay phone in it, as long as the song was looking back to when the singer was much younger.

Insights and incites by Notes


Insightful observations.

I got a cell phone because in my biz, my customers call when they need me "right now"... and I might go several days without a single phone call then the very next day is grand central station and everything's on fire..... dropping a quarter into a pay phone to check my answering machine was a PITA. Cell phones solved that and spelled the demise of the pay phone.

Top 40 songs and shelf like.... when I was playing live gigs...oh my how I wished some of the songs did have a shelf life and a clearly marked expiration date.

There is a use and purpose for "dated" new songs..... Film & TV loves them when they have a scene set back in the past... it's cheaper to license your song with a 60's groove for a few hundred bucks as source material in a scene than to license the Jefferson Airplane's song. So, YES, by all means write the dated songs and mix/master them well and place them into the better libraries. You just never know.

Last edited by Guitarhacker; 02/02/16 03:52 AM.
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