American Song/Poems companies have exisited for decades, basically song sharks who prey on amateur lyricists, exploiting their ambition to break into the music business. Under the guise of a co-writing ‘partnership’, they will hastily arrange accompanying music to basically any lyrics sent in, for a fee! pitting the naivety of aspiring song writers from across North America with bored overworked sweatshop musicians.

Although their heyday was throughout the 50's 60's and 70's Incredibly I discovered these companies still exist to this day so I decided to hear what they would come up with if i presented them with some of Australia's biggest hits that failed to chart in America. So i pretended these lyrics as my own sending them lyrics to two companies, Magic Key in Utah and The Nashville Song Service in Tennessee, asking them to compose music for them.

these are the results, enjoy!

thanks filmcement for this great mash of the original boys in town video and the dire nasgville song service overdub

TRACKLISTING (plus original version YouTubes for your reference)

Part One, as interpreted by David Fox @ Magic Key Productions

01 Come Said The Boy 2:50
Composer : Eric McCuske
Originally recorded by Mondo Rock (1984)

02 Ego Is Not A Dirty Word 3:01
Composer : Gregory MacAinsh
Originally Recorded by Skyhooks (1975)

03 Gimme Head 2:33
Composer : Geoff Turner
Originally Recorded by the Radiators (1980)

Part Two as interpreted by the Nashville Song Service

04 Cheap Wine 3:07
Composer : Don Walker
Originally Recorded By Cold Chisel (1979)

05 The Boys Light Up 3:06
Composer : J. Reyne
Originally Recorded By Australian Crawl (1980)

06 We Can't Be Beaten 2:53
Composers : Anderson / Riley
Originally Recorded By Rose Tattoo (1982)

07 Boys In Town 3:21
Composers : C Amphlett, M McEntee
Originally Released By the Divinyls (1982)

oh and if any copyright holders come across this i do hope you have a sense of humour and enjoy these odd interpreations of your music, as you can see besides any donations for my efforts this is obviously an uncommercial project, i have credited composers and provided links to your websites, please let me know if your unhappy and i'll gladly remove your track.

REVIEWS

Fragmented Frequencies

Oh man the music is terrible. It’s the kind of bland countrified power ballad that makes you want to stab your mp3 device. But that’s not enough, then you feel the need to burn it and drive a truck over it just to make sure it’s definitely dead and you’ll never have to hear those horrible sounds again. But all the same there’s something familiar about it, something that taps into your painfully naive past, a history that you’ve tried to block out while pursuing your newfound love of Dubstep or Turkish psych rock from the 70′s. Suddenly it hits you. You know these words! They’re dead set 80′s Aussie classics. It was the American accent that had you fooled.

You see Dual Plover, a label with one of the sickest senses of humour in Australia (if you don’t believe me check out their catalogue – I recommend Suicidal Rap Orgy as a good place to start) have outdone themselves this time. They’ve tapped into the Nashville song/poem companies, cynical businesses that prey on the dreams of aspiring songwriters. The deal is that you send over your heartfelt words along with a wad of cash, and they’ll put your creativity to music. There’s something quietly devastating about the process, it’s like two souls with one stone. Firstly there’s the sap who pens the words thinking these insipid cliched tunes could launch them into stardom, then there’s the musicians themselves who’s own dreams of conquering the industry on their own terms have been shattered long ago, leaving them with the cold hard economic reality of a paying gig.

While the 50′s, 60′s and 70′s were the heyday for these companies, the ever curious Dual Plover not only discovered that they still exist, but decided to send over some lyrics from some of Australia’s most iconic tunes that failed to chart in the US, pretending of course that they were their own lyrics. The tunes are Chisel’s Cheap Wine, The Boys Light Up from Australian Crawl, Rose Tattoo’s We can’t be Beaten and the Divinyls Boys In Town. What’s so incredible is how these companies are able to expertly, almost clinically remove any power, emotion or spirit of the originals, and replace it with this kind of cliched countrified swagger that simultaneously sounds like nothing and everything else. You can imagine bedroom songwriters getting excited by their package in the mail, thinking they’ve finally arrived in the business, now they sound like the rest of the spittle on the country music charts. You can download the results for free if you’re curious from http://dualplover.com/ozrock.php. Since it cost them a bit to do this if you appreciate the irony and artistic despair at the heart of the project there’s also a tab where you can donate to Dual Plover.