(3/35) — Book Three
Introduction
I don't play an instrument. I don't sing. But I've always been a writer, and I've always had great taste in music.
When I was seventeen, I was in the car with my father driving to the laundromat. Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" came on the radio. I knew in that moment what I wanted to spend my life doing: coming up with great song ideas. I couldn't play them. I couldn't sing them. But I could write them. So I did. For 29 years.
My name is Tom Jensen. I began writing poems on a bathroom wall at sixteen and never stopped. What started as teenage rebellion became a decades-long obsession. Over 29 years I have written lyrics for approximately 434 songs. 120 of them have already been recorded by musicians from around the world. The rest are waiting for music and voices.
There will ultimately be three versions of this book.
Book One
The essentials — the titles, the index, the intro, the premise, and the rules for using these lyrics for free. The bare minimum you need to start.
Book Two
A full reference library for the Collaborhythm Collabtunes 34 Albums catalog. Charts. Ratings sorted by audience age from G to X. Four-word emotional descriptions for every single song and poem in the collection. Mood and tone breakdowns. Theme comparisons. Rolling Stone style reviews for all 34 albums. One-sentence summaries for quick navigation. Category indexes. Business plans in multiple lengths. Legal analysis. A complete social media and contact directory. Comparisons to songwriters of the last sixty years. The cassette tapes that built the taste. And a closing statement from the author that pulls none of his punches.
Book Three
All 35 sections from Book One and Book Two combined. It is not actually a book you can put your hands on — it is a PDF file you can use to maximum efficiency by copying it and using one as just text and the other as the companion guide. Good idea.
Use any lyric. Record any song. Perform it. Cover it. Build on it. Make it yours. The only requirement is that you credit: Lyrics by Collaborhythm Collabtunes' Tom Jensen. The artists own their own vocals and musical arrangements, and if you use their version of the song then they are due all normal rights and reimbursements under law. My words you can use, rearrange, edit, add to — whatever you want.
That is it. Let the music begin. LFG!!!
NOTE: I think it might be a good idea to have a clause that allows for different versions of lyrics that people do based on my songs to also be used for free to make songs by other artists, provided they credit me and the other lyric writer or writers who added their own work. The music would still be fully protected. But I think whoever ends up being a co-writer of a new song — based off my lyrics and their own new lyrics — should, in the spirit of the project, allow others to build off their lyric writing and open up their new co-written lyrics for others to make music from, so long as they are not copying that co-writer's music.
That way we can have the potential for these stories to be told generation after generation and passed on like stocks, bonds, and jewelry. Making me, of course, the greatest songwriter in the history of….