The following pages contain lyrics I wrote for songs. The music I lifted from other songs whose copyright is in the public domain.
These pages are under construction as of September, 2008. I'll add to them as I write lyrics. Questions and comments should go to everson@golden.net .
Tarmac of an Empty Airport
The Tunes
If you don’t recognize the tunes, you can probably find them online or at the local library.
I’ve provided guitar chords, or at least those that seemed to work for me.
Feel free to change the tune, chords, and/or the lyrics to suit yourself. There are usually a number of tunes that will work with any of the lyrics.
The Using of the Songs
I really don’t care how you use the songs, and don’t ask for any payment. But if you print any of the lyrics, make sure I get credit, as in “lyrics by Lenny Everson,” or “based on lyrics by Lenny Everson.”
You might want to add a chorus or use a different tune to a song. No problem.
Old Tunes, New Words
Since I haven’t yet learned to write music, I casually borrowed tunes from any songs no longer under copyright protection.
Bless old tunes with no copyright attached. It’s a long tradition to pen new lyrics to old tunes. “Amazing Grace” was based on an old Scottish folk song, and “Danny Boy” used an earlier Irish tune.
In the U.S. civil war, when the North borrowed a church tune to write “John Brown’s Body,” the South responded with a parody of the lyrics. Then someone wrote new lyrics to the same tune and called it, “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” And that was long before small kids heard it as “John Brown’s Baby” or teens sang “The Burning of the School.”
Those kilted highlanders with skein dhus (black knives) in their socks, (playing the great highland bag-pipes to drown out my screams) may hunt me down for borrowing one of his tunes but truth is, Bobbie Burns lifted the tune to “Ye Banks and Braes o Bonny Doon” from ‘The Caledonian Hunt’s Delight.” So there.
The list is long, and I have no hesitation in walking off with old tunes for another go-round.
Where possible, I've added guidance to the tunes, often providing a link to a web site where you can hear the tune (with the old lyrics) performed.