The Post-1955 Great American Songbook. What songs qualify?

[Elmer_J.Fudd]

@LH75

Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash

Until I came to your post, I was wondering where all the prison songs and murder ballads were. I’ll add…
Hey Joe
&
I Fought the Law

[Ukulele_Ike]

@Eonwe

…Limiting it to “jazzy” songs turns it into an exercise in mimicry and nostalgia mining, instead of trying to identify the music of the people, which, I think, is what TGASB is all about.

My knowledge of TGASB is based on the five-disc anthology put out by the Smithsonian back in the 1990s. While a good percentage of it is “music of the people,” it also includes very sophisticated, complex, and downright difficult-to-sing numbers, like Hoagy Carmichael’s “Baltimore Oriole.”

Baltimore Oriole

[casdave]

Wichita Lineman

I say a little prayer

Respect - find out what it means to me

You’ve got a friend

Rainy night in Georgia

Suspicious Minds

California Dreamin

Both Sides now

A rocking good way

(I love you) Just the way you are

They need to be songs that can be carried by any good vocalist and not based on the performance of one artist - they should basically be standards.

[kaylasdad99]

On Broadway

[Thudlow_Boink]

@Horatio_Hellpop

I’m not sure “American Songbook” means what a lot of the respondents here think it means.

I agree. To me, it suggests “If you encountered this song in an actual, literal songbook, would you recognize its greatness?”

[Treppenwitz]

As a non-American, I may be off the mark here, but surely The End by The Doors is so closely intertwined with historical events (albeit by a separate work of art) that it must qualify? (cf Fortunate Son in the OP)

And again, on the outside looking in, I would go for Perfect Day by Lou Reed. Is this version inappropriate?

j

[kenobi_65]

@Treppenwitz

As a non-American, I may be off the mark here, but surely The End by The Doors is so closely intertwined with historical events (albeit by a separate work of art) that it must qualify? (cf Fortunate Son in the OP)

I think that “The End” has two strikes against it:

1. It’s probably not particuarly familiar to Americans under the age of 50 – even as songs by the Doors go, it’s likely far less well-known than a number of their other songs
2. While I’m sure it’s been covered by other artists, i don’t know that any cover version of it is particularly well-known

[Periwinkle]

New York State of Mind by Billy Joel

You Are So Beautiful by Billy Preston and Bruce Fisher

[Periwinkle]

I will also add Daydream Believer by John Stewart

[Telemark]

Horse with No Name written by Dewey Bunnell of the band America. He is a dual citizen, I believe, with US and British parents, but I think the song would make the cut. I don’t know if it has been covered much.

[Horatio_Hellpop]

@Eonwe

I’ll pick that nit.

I think The Great American Songbook feels like “being jazzy” should be definitional, but it’s simply a side-effect of the fact that the artists who performed those songs came from or were directly influenced by jazz.

Or, to put it another way, TGASB is, by in large, jazz/pop because that was the popular American idiom at the time. It makes complete sense for a more contemporary “Song Book” to reflect the idioms of its time.

Limiting it to “jazzy” songs turns it into an exercise in mimicry and nostalgia mining, instead of trying to identify the music of the people, which, I think, is what TGASB is all about.

A lot of music categories are tied to a specific era and style, and aren’t meant to be open ended in either direction. “Jukebox Musical” refers to shows evoking a time–1945-65, maybe–when a jukebox was the only way you could reliably hear your favorite tune (Radio was very unfriendly to “race” music, and jukeboxes were an alternate distribution system). And while we could argue about what constitutes “classical” music, most people understand it to mean European orchestral music from circa 1750-1850. These are, for the sake of usefulness, not particularly inclusive terms, and neither are “standards” or “Great American Songbook.”

[casdave]

King of the road

Nathan Jones

Don’t leave me this way

I am what I am

[LLCoolL]

I’m going to nominate a couple of songs which are cheesy good fun.

**Copacabana **- written by Barry Manilow, Jack Feldman, and Bruce Sussman. (Yanks all three of them.) Put this up at karaoke, and the place goes crazy. Everybody sings along, because everyone knows the tune.

Livin’ on a Prayer - by Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, and Desmond Child. Mind you, it’s not my favorite song, but everyone knows the tune.

[Cabbage]

A few more:

Southern Nights - Allen Toussaint
The Gambler - Don Schlitz
Sixteen Tons - Merle Travis (which, while I am nominating it for the Great American Songbook, was (perhaps unsurprisingly) a big hit in the USSR. Tennessee Ernie Ford was invited to perform the song in Moscow, and I believe he fell under suspicion of being a Communist because of that).

[Telemark]

Angel from Montgomery - John Prine

Perhaps not so widely known as some of the others on the list but covered dozens of times and extremely evocative.

[Ukulele_Ike]

John Prine IS the Great American Songbook.

[Telemark]

@Ukulele_Ike

John Prine IS the Great American Songbook.

This is why we need a Like button.

[Eonwe]

@Horatio_Hellpop

A lot of music categories are tied to a specific era and style, and aren’t meant to be open ended in either direction. “Jukebox Musical” refers to shows evoking a time–1945-65, maybe–when a jukebox was the only way you could reliably hear your favorite tune (Radio was very unfriendly to “race” music, and jukeboxes were an alternate distribution system). And while we could argue about what constitutes “classical” music, most people understand it to mean European orchestral music from circa 1750-1850. These are, for the sake of usefulness, not particularly inclusive terms, and neither are “standards” or “Great American Songbook.”

Sure. But the OP is, I believe, asking us to come up with a new definition of a “Great American Songbook” for modern times. “What modern music follows the form and structure of TGASB?” is not the question (and is a pretty boring and mundane question), but rather, “what modern music occupies the same cultural space as music from TGASB did/does?”

[MrDibble]

@Eonwe

“what modern music occupies the same cultural space as music from TGASB did/does?”

A lot of the GAS is musical music, but wasn’t it also dance music? i.e. versions were played in jazz clubs - orchestral and Big Band and swing.

Is there more modern music that fits that? Motown, possibly? Disco (again, with that intersection of movies and music). I don’t know, I think you want the Venn intersection of media and movement.

Dylan ain’t it. No-one dances to Dylan.

[Elmer_J.Fudd]

@MrDibble

Dylan ain’t it. No-one dances to Dylan.

Sure they do. Just pick up a Byrds record. We’re talking about songs, not performances.