Prompted by a YouTube video about a successful trackdown of a long-unidentified song, I ended up joining a “lost media” forum that has subforums and posts in a structure similar to SDMB.
So far, nobody has identified any of the items I’ve been trying to track down over the years. Most of which, incidentally, I’ve posted about in here to no avail (in case anyone’s wondering whether I’ve tried that).
Anyhow, it occurs to me to ask if any of you know of similar forums (or FB groups or listservs or whatever) where I’m more likely to garnish positive identification, given that most of the items I’m trying to identify date back to the 1960s or early 1970s.
Reddit has thousands of specialized sub-reddits.
Perhaps you could post a comprehensive list of what you are looking for and readers here might be able to suggest specialized groups for each.
Sure!
Here’s the first pair:
I’m trying to track down two anti-drug public service spots on American television from the late 1960s or early 1970s.
THIS IS ME SINGING THEM AS BEST I CAN REPRODUCE THEM:
link
I recall hearing both of them repeatedly, circa 1969, 1972; I was in South Georgia at the time but it seems unlikely that these were local productions. I mean, I assume they ran on national television. I don’t know either of the performers, but lots of celebrities were doing anti-drug PSAs on national TV in that era — for example, here’s one from Robert Lamm 1972:
The first one was similar to Richie Havens — fast-moving driving guitar-picking with syncopation.
The lyrics, such as I can remember them,
…got himself acquainted
with a weed named mary jane
he took it ahead
and he let it go by
I can handle it
I can handle it,
I can handle it,
I can hannnndle it.
The second one was a lot bouncier and more cheerful, more geared towards mocking people who would use drugs.
I knew a dude named John
He let his deal go down
la la la la laaaah
he ended up laying in bed
oldied and dead
try living with it instead
Cuz dope can’t get it together
you gotta get it together yourself.
Dope can’t get it together
you gotta get it together yourself.
… and here’s the next pair, from a missing Peter Pan musical:
When I was an elementary-school-aged kid (between 1965 and 1972, most likely the early part of that timeframe) I heard and/or watched a version of Peter Pan that, in later years, I just assumed was the same Disney cartoon that everyone else has seen. But I didn’t rewatch it at any point.
As an adult with access to Google and YouTube, I had a whim to go find the crocodile song I remembered, a song set to the ticking of a clock. I easily found a Crocodile Song from Peter Pan that prominently features a ticking clock but it’s not the same song! Then I went looking for the song that Peter Pan sings about going off to Neverland where he could “be anything that I wanted to be”. Nope, that one doesn’t appear to be in the Disney movie either.
Here is me singing as much of the two tracks as I am able to remember.
This next one is also from a musical.
When I was in early elementary school, some time between 1965 and 1968, our class was taken to the assembly room and a musical was performed for us. I don’t remember if it was older kids or an adult theatrical group or what.
It was about a sequence of events in a village called “Bow and Arrow Town”, with each performer being a mayor or chief of police or villager or whatever.
This one fragment of a song is all I remember about the music:
Lyrics:
Everything is turvy topsy
Everything is upside down
in Bow and Arrow town
When I Google turvy topsy “upside down” “bow and arrow town” I get told that there are no hits for it.
Finally, this one was a song, and unlike the other entries, I’d be happy with a copy of the lyrics, although a recording of it would be really nice.
It was a song I l learned in early elementary school (circa 1966-ish) about a mare and her foal, with some of these snippets amongst the lyrics:
Eat the grass upon the hill
Drink cool water from the pool
,
Leafy shade is <?> and cool
Do you know this wobbly colt
Stumbling by me by the lane
Soon a handsome horse will be
This colt a- something ’ing me
Reddit also has https://www.reddit.com/r/tipofmytongue/ which is specifically about media identification.
Reddit also has a Lost Media sub. Reddit - The heart of the internet
I wasn’t aware of that one but came to recommend r/obscuremedia which seems similar.
I vaguely recall the “i can handle it” anti-drug PSA song now that you’ve mentioned it…other lyrics were something like:“He never feels glum now /He never feels dumb” and “he rides the white horse now…”. I was a quite young kid at the time, indeed, I didn’t even know I remembered that PSA until I just now read your post.