TRACK #419:

The Halloween Queen by Buddy Mix

Song Poems: that wonderful intersection of predatory con artists, studio musicians just trying to make a living and average Americans with a pen in their hand and a song in their heart. The things born of this unlikely junction are works of wholly unique art that, stripped of even just one of their 3 components, would cease to be the kind of special that they are.

If you’re unfamiliar, Song-Poems were a strange sort of scam with roots that can be traced back to almost the very beginning of recorded music itself.

Unscrupulous “producers” would put ads in the backs of pulpy publications looking for the next big thing with the promise of fame and unfathomable royalties. Could that be you?

They’d solicit “Song-Poems,” a sort of a condescending shorthand for “lyrics” that they figured the unwashed masses could understand. You’d send them your “song-poem” for “evaluation” (which it would invariably pass) and then the onslaught of salesmanship would pour in. Which, of course, was followed by entreaties for money.

See, they’d have their army of highly skilled professionals record your song, and then put the weight of their aggressive marketing department behind you to make it a hit! Cause your song was just that good. All you had to do was fork over some money, which would be nothing compared to the amount of money you’d make once your song hit the top!

Only there was no top, because there was no marketing. There was just some studio, filled with working class musicians cranking out maybe 12 of these things a day as fast they could. Then they’d slap those puppies on wax and shoot ‘em your way. Now you got a song. Thanks! Onto the next mark.

It was a weird scam, because these companies actually made good with the records, which seems like it would involve far more effort than it was worth. But I guess not, because there are literally hundreds upon hundreds of these things floating around, and lord knows how many that are still undiscovered. For collectors of the bizarre, they’re like a dream come true.

And it is from this unlikely Venn Diagram of greedy but thrifty producers, talented yet rushed musicians and inexperienced and possibly batshit songwriters that these wholly unique, outsider-esque but semi-polished and sometimes tonally discrepant head-scratchers were born. And thank the maker.

As you might imagine, there’s a metric stocking’s worth of Christmas Song-Poems. There’s even a whole compilation of them that’s easily heard called Daddy, Is Santa Really Six Foot Four? Hell, some of those tunes even appear on our That’s One Weird Ass Christmas playlist.

However, as you might also imagine, the world isn’t exactly inundated with Halloween Song-Poems. In fact, there’s only 2 that I’m aware of, thus far anyway.

You’ve got the virtually non-existent Halloween by Cinema Records’ in-house band The Real Pros. This one seems so rare that the only mention of it I can even find is the discogs page which states it’s from 1979. It has never sold, no one owns it, and apparently only 1 person other than me even wants the damn thing. And that person better be prepared for a serious fight if one finally does appear for sale.

The other song seems equally rare, but a year ago, some kind soul whom has done the world a great service, posted it to YouTube. And that song is tonight’s inclusion, Charles E. Warren’s The Halloween Queen as sung by Buddy Mix.

Now, a lot of Song-Poem enthusiasts don’t seem to have the same amount of love for the Song-Poems of the late 70’s and 80’s. I’m not sure why though, because I love ’em. Some of my favorites are from this era; AIDS Is Out, Spock and Lucifer are all fantastic. There’s something about the lifeless drum machines, synth heavy arrangements and 80’s stylings that suits the slapdash nature of these weird songs so well.

Rainbow Records seem to be the leading purveyors of such song-poems, cranking out as many as 24 Hollywood Gold albums, each boasting roughly 16 songs a piece. Now that’s somewhere in the vicinity of 400 songs, from just one label, during just the 1980’s. At least I think it’s the 80’s. Sounds like it would have to be, but those damn records ain’t got no dates on ‘em. Go fig.

Buddy Mix here is featured on most of the early installments. All the Hollywood Gold albums have the same art and are differentiated by a strange 3 digit number code. This one’s HG-504. It seems like they started at 500, but 500 and 501 appear to be unaccounted for on the American Song Poems Music Archives. I have HG-548, which is also not present on the archive, but that page hasn’t been updated in over 10 years, so I’m not sure how definitive that discography is any longer.

Between the different records he appears on, Buddy’s got roughly 30 of these things under his belt, and that’s not too shabby.

Here, he lends his vocal stylings to a song about a stripper from San Francisco. At least I think it’s a stripper, anyway. One can never be too sure, and there’s room for interpretation here, I think. What the hell that has to do with Halloween exactly, I couldn’t rightly say, but man do I think I love it more for that fact.

I suppose you could suggest her role as a stripper (or even perhaps as a woman) is a disguise – her costume if you will – and doing that every night to earn a living could very well make her a Queen of Halloweening. Then again, there’s maybe a more compelling argument that The Halloween Queen is in drag, or even trans perhaps, adding an extra and fairly compelling layer of complexity to the whole affair. Maybe I’m reading too much into Charles E. Warren’s writing. Maybe I’m offending him. If so, I apologize. Whatever’s going on, it’s turning his flame up higher than he’s ever seen.

Seriously though, I have written far too many words now for what amounts to a weird song written by some guy who thought maybe it might be a hit cause some fast talking producer convinced him it could be. Or who knows, maybe he just wanted to hear it recorded and had an extra couple hundred bucks laying around. Either way, we win with Charles E. Warren’s The Halloween Queen.

So, thank you Chuck, Buddy, all the session musicians over at Rainbow and whichever producer decided this one…ya know…“made the cut.” Without y’all we wouldn’t be able to count a Song-Poem amongst the ranks of Halloween Shindig, and what sort of an wannabe all-inclusive musical compendium would that make it?