Off the Charts: The Song-Poem Story
February 2004 Reviewed by: Marc Mickelson Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

You've probably seen the ads in the back of magazines: "Songs and Poems Wanted" or "Songs into Dollars," all from companies with names like Magic Key Productions and George Liberace Songsmiths. The idea is to lure aspiring writers with songs in their hearts into sending lyrics for evaluation -- and presumably fame and fortune thereafter. What people get in return is an official-looking letter stating that their lyrics have been chosen to be made into a song -- at the cost of the person who sent them. In the '70s, tapes were made and albums cut, but nowadays CDs are burned, with the writer receiving a copy of his or her song, sometimes as a single, sometimes as part of a complete album of similar works.

This is the song-poem industry and the subject of Off the Charts, a documentary that neither romanticizes nor makes fun of the relationship between would-be songwriters and the people who make money from turning any words into a song. For the most part, such music is benign. But in some cases, the songs, and particularly the lyrics, can be embarrassingly bad or downright funny. Ellery Eskelin, song-poem collector and the de facto narrator of Off the Charts, says, "10 to 20% are from another planet." Off the Charts displays such musical mistakes, but it is more about the entire song-poem industry, its story told by various aspiring songwriters, song-poem collectors, and those who perform the songs themselves. If you think William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy's attempts at making music were misguided, you ain't heard nothing yet.

So often a documentary lives or dies on the personalities of the people in it, and in this respect, Off the Charts is a huge success. Rarely in any kind of movie do we meet characters that are as compelling as these. Song-poem writers Gary Forney and Caglar Juan Singletary tell us the sorts of things they write about ("martial arts, the ladies, religion, and science fiction" in Singletary's case) and generally give us an idea of what drives song-poem writers to do what they do. Singletary's "Annie Oakley" is classic, summing up its sharp-shooting subject with the phrase "rifle nice." Forney's Iowa Mountain Tour is the most painful part of the movie to watch, as he and his son bomb on stage performing Forney's original songs.

However, Ellery Eskelin, whose deceased father was a celebrated song-poem musician and composer with obvious talent, keeps the movie grounded. He gives us insight into what drives the entire song-poem industry: a never-ending supply of people who have something to say and want it said in song. These people provide the words, and the song-poem creators (such as Art Kaufman, a.k.a. David Fox in his New Wave days) and performers (such as Gene Merlino, who sang with Elvis and Frank Sinatra) turn out music as fast as they can -- studio time isn't cheap. Kaufman and Merlino know that they're not making great art, but they also know that they are making something that someone paid for and will value, so they give it their all. In the end, everybody gets something -- money, satisfaction, or perhaps just an outlet for what seemingly has to be said. The song-poets themselves are mostly realists, even as they hope for recognition, but they also prove that P.T. Barnum was certainly right.

There are many positive things about this richly entertaining movie, and only one negative: Its 60-minute running time is too short! I wanted to see more of Forney and especially Singletary. The DVD's extra materials include director and producer commentary, deleted scenes and full-length portions of various studio sessions and performances (including the entire four-song set of Gary Forney's Iowa Mountain Tour), musical clips from the movie's premiere party, and a song-poem ad gallery with commentary. These help make up for the short running time, but they don't do so completely.

Most movies, even documentaries, have a linear series of actions that make up the plot. Off the Charts is more a collage that aims at defining an offbeat piece of our culture, and it does so very well. If you consider yourself a musical omnivore, you will find much to love in Off the Charts.

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