The Great Indie Songbook

A thread partly in effort to redeem myself from my speculation about Tracyanne's bladder issues. :lol: :lol:

Well many of you may remember a great while back I posted that I was working on a Camera Obscura sheet music book. You might have guessed that didn't get anywhere. Took way too much time than I was originally willing to invest. But I came up with another idea while driving around in the car today.... as one of the things I miss most about giant music corperation conglermates funding artists is that sheet music, whether for a short period of time or forever, gets published for quite a lot of albums. And then there's all these collections of supposed classics and standards and so forth, so it got me thinking, indie music is primarily supported and generated by the communities themselves, why can't the indie communities come up with a list of the "great" songs of the people we love, and build a songbook out of those? A few of us here on the C/O forum have the necessary skills to transcribe and build some sheets. I'm sure we could find some more folks willing to help out around the world wide interwebs. Maybe even artists themselves.
But at any rate, what sort of songs do you think would fit inside the label of "indie classics" ... and this doesn't necessarily mean your favorite songs, in fact, probably the opposite, more of "what songs made these bands famous, which would you use to introduce somebody new to each artist in the song book"

I came with a short list:
State That I Am In - B&S
If You're Feeling Sinister - B&S
Blues Are Still Blue - B&S
Teenager - CO
Hey Lloyd - CO
French Navy - CO
Eanie Meanie - Jim Noir
I Wonder Who We Are - Clientele
God Help The Girl
Engine Heart - Mirah
Australia - The Shins
Why Do You Let Me Stay Here - She & Him

And that was just the ones I came up with off the top of my head.
Got more?
Got changes?
Songbooks are usually 200 pages thick, we could fit a shitload of stuff in.

i think more and more people look to youtube for songs they may wanna play themselves....i play and i sing,now and again,i believe i sing better than i play,i get put on warblin duty when the talent comes to town, but thats another debate(more and more i am hearin that its better if you are not accomplished) but anyways as for an indie book,well one or two by sevaral different artists,jens lekman,sufjan stevens etc...i wouldn`t have picked australia because i`m quite lazy and wont really"test" myself to much by learning new chords,and try and find songs that fit around my"ability"i realise that is an error on my part,and it gets pointed out quite a lot"how are you gonna get better/how are ya gonna improve?" so songs like t.s.t.i.a.i...the chinese guy on youtube plays it capo 3rd fret..its a decent version...i love the song,and was meant to write them down and learn the song,i like to play"dylan in the movies" and"my wandering days are over"...for me i play for myself(not with myself)well yeah i suppose with myself..and me mates...most are much better than me,some doin their own stuff...i just do it cos i enjoy it...erm i`ve gone off on one..i have played "phantom limb"occassionally and enjoyed that.....only now and again the versions i do are the same as the original..i get slated for that..oh yeah,i was listening to strawberry switchblades"tree`s and flowers"yesterdee...and surprisingly there was a blokey on youtube playin it...looked really tricky..would like to learn it though(loads of flick offs??)

graeme wrote:

.... i`m quite lazy and wont really"test" myself to much by learning new chords,and try and find songs that fit around my"ability"i realise that is an error on my part,and it gets pointed out quite a lot"how are you gonna get better/how are ya gonna improve?"

HAHA - thats EXACTLY what i get told too... i think i'm just a realist knowing that i have limited talent for the geetar (and even less for singing...they dont call me Tone"def" just cause it sounds cool!!) but i'm ok with that.. i can jam with my buds when i want and keep up just fine and all i really wanted to play is for campfires in the summer out at the cottage or in the yard with my kids.. soo, i'm pretty lazy too - went thru the CO library that i could find and picked out what i can play without too much effort.. not my fave songs.. but as Paul idea goes - i like it and i have made my own binder of a few hunnerd songs that i can play over the past 10 years or so but they have all been according to various yahoos posting the chords on sites... and i know a bunch are wrong. anyhow dont think i'd be much help in this area Paul but i will enjoy the fruits of yer efforts!!
bolony

yeah, its definitely true that the way we play other people's music has changed drastically since the internet took it's clammy hold on the world...but there's still nothin like sittin a few dozen sheets on the piano and just playing til your fingers break. granted, scribble down a few chords and you can usually fake your way through any song, but solos and riffs and such can get enormously complicated and that's why having all those lovely notes printed out is so handy...


forgot about "dylan in the movies" graeme, i think that one might be more quintessential b&s than sinister is.