Some friends clued me in to the existence of this documentary entitled Off The Charts: The Song-Poem Story that tells the story of the songwriters and composers involved in the industry of Song Poems, a phenomena I was wholly unacquainted with until last night.

Apparently a lot of magazines have ad's calling for songwriters and poets to have their words turned into music under the guise that they might receive fame and fortune if the song makes it as a hit. The craziest part being that the song-poem industry is so insular that no one in the regular record industry would ever even hear the song. So, it becames the tale of songwriters, their interests and the equally fascinating process of actually recording the works. Highly recommended.

Here's a taste of the type of songs submitted: