“I got about thirty seconds…
To get inside your head
So let us save the small talk
For another time instead
Now I have only twenty seconds left…
To sew this little seed to try to
Turn my belief into your belief
How do I get you to see that
Once you unplug yourself from your screen
You can begin to make a difference
To someone else, yourself and me…
Uh oh…just ten seconds more…
To let you know that there are
Countless caverns
Left within your mind
Just waiting to be explored...”
SO WHAT IS IT YOU ACTUALLY DO?
1I am Tom Jensen and I write lyrics for songs. Thirty-some years of it — 433 of them, across 34 albums — and out of all that time I only spent two years actually trying to turn any of them into finished songs, fifteen years ago.
2The whole lyric catalog is free. All 34 albums of lyrics, free to build on, with one condition: credit the three names — Tom Jensen, Collaborhythm, Collabtunes. Whatever music you write stays yours. The words stay open so no corporation can ever own them.
3I want to take over a bar and make songs live instead of playing finished ones at people. The room throws lines in. The internet throws lines in through a moderator relaying it to the floor. And an app registers every person and writes down exactly what they contributed — so there is no limit on how many people can work on one song at the same time. Ten thousand people on a single song. That is not a metaphor, that is the build.
4I never learned an instrument on purpose — every hour I could have put into a guitar I put into writing instead. So nobody is going to out-catalog me and nobody is going to beat me on range: a hundred of these are about what a wonderful world it is, a hundred about how terrible it is, a hundred are horny and a hundred are funny. If you can feel it, I wrote it.
5So if you need it in one line: I am the Spielberg of music. I do not sing and I do not play. I write the script, I build the thing, and then I find the right people to do the right part — the same way a director never has to act in his own picture.
6And because every contribution is tracked, the money can finally run the other way — from the bottom up, artists first. Nobody at the top takes a cut before the people who actually made the thing get paid. Every song built out of these words can be torn down and rebuilt by the next person, and the one after that. One set of words, a hundred versions, for a hundred years. The Mack the Knife theory.
Thirty years of writing.
Six months building this website, straight through, no breaks.
And three months ago I decided to give the lyrics away.
And if you only remember one thing about me —
I am the one who showed you Lady Weaver.
TWO NAMES. ONE PROJECT.
Collaborhythm · CollabtunesRight now both names bring you to the same place. That is on purpose, and it is temporary. Once this thing gets funded, they split into the two halves of the job:
WHERE SONGS GET MADE
The live room. The bar. The writing, the collaborating, the arguing, the works in progress. Everything still being built.
WHERE THE SONGS LIVE
The finished work. The catalog, the 34 albums, the lyrics, everything already made and ready to be read, used, or turned into something else.
One is the workshop. The other is the shelf.
BEFORE YOU WALK IN
The safeguardBecause the work covers such a vast variety of subjects, and ranges from suitable for all ages to very explicit, there is a system here that safeguards you — so nobody ends up in something they did not want to see.
You pick your own level. Nothing is hidden from you as a punishment and nothing is forced on you either. Pick low and you get a smaller, cleaner site. Pick high and you get all of it.
WHY THIS WEBSITE IS THE WAY IT IS
Built for four peopleFANS AND READERS
Browse and read freely. 300+ artist references, teaching guides, and rated-safe browsing so you only meet what you agreed to meet.
MUSICIANS
The lyrics are isolated from any melody, and read aloud in a plain voice, so you get the cadence and the words with nobody's tune stuck to them. One set of words, a hundred possible versions.
BUSINESS PARTNERS
The business plan, the legal framework, and the ask are all on this site, in the open. The short version is further down this page.
AND TOM
Because this is the legacy. Everything in one place. Two clicks and a song.
HOW THE RATINGS WORK
The Johnny testIt is not really a movie system. The test is simpler: would Johnny get in trouble if his eighth grade English teacher caught him with this open in class? That is the whole rating system. It is not an age bracket. It is a content question, and you are the one who answers it.
THE DEAL, IN PLAIN WORDS
What you can take and what you oweYou can build on the lyrics. That is the whole giveaway — words only. Take them, cut them, rearrange them, add your own, put music under them and make the thing yours.
Whatever music you write stays yours. The artist keeps the rights to their own music, always. Nobody here is taking a piece of your song. The words stay open so the next person can build on them too — that is the only thing that never locks up.
The one condition: credit all three names as the source — Tom Jensen · Collaborhythm · Collabtunes. That is the price. That is the entire price.
A LIVING, BREATHING MODERN AMERICAN SONGBOOK
Why any of this existsA songbook that does not sit still. One set of words, handed forward, rebuilt by whoever comes next, and the one after that — a book that keeps growing after the writer stops.
Which gives one man his best shot at three things he could never do alone: have the greatest album ever made get made out of his words, go down as the greatest songwriter in history — posthumously, and that is fine — and put an entire life's worth of work on the table as a thank-you.
FOR LADY WEAVER
The greatest musician, the greatest singer, the greatest human being and the greatest muse there has ever been. A life's worth of work, offered up in gratitude. Everything here is also a way of getting people to her.
So Tom and Lady Weaver — both of them, one of them already gone — take it on themselves to show people an entirely new way of looking at music. Not another album. A new musical experience, and a whole musical universe you can walk around inside of.
And you get to see what
one man can do —
and what two people can do.
WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR
The ask · in the openThe catalog is done. Thirty years of it, sorted, rated, indexed and sitting right here. What is not done is the machine that puts it to work. Three things build that, and I am looking for the people who can do them.
A BUSINESS PARTNER OR FUNDER
Someone who looks at 433 finished lyrics and a live-music model nobody is running yet and sees what I see. The business plan, the legal framework and the numbers are all on this site, in the open — no pitch deck theater, just read it.
THE APP
Registration, live contribution tracking, and a credit ledger that survives the song. Every person who adds a line, a chord, a harmony, a fix — logged, credited, and standing in line to get paid when that song earns. That ledger is the whole invention. Without it this is just an open mic.
THE ROOM
A bar, a venue, a stage with a screen and a moderator who can relay the internet into the room fast enough to keep up. Start with one night. Prove ten thousand people can build one song together and the rest of it argues itself.
And the one I want most: the person alone in a room somewhere who reads fifty of these and decides they are going to make the greatest album ever made out of them. That one is not for sale and not for hire. That one just has to find this page.
PICK YOUR RATING. THAT IS YOUR DOOR.
Roughly forty ways to start — all of them behind one of these sixEach door opens a full switchboard: your own complete version of this website, with everything in it you are allowed to see and nothing in it you are not. You will not be shown what you are missing. You get to celebrate what you have.
Brand new here? Start here