November Challenge: A Song Never Written

October 26, 2011 9:39 AM

November challenge: A song never written

My friend photographer and writer Michael David Murphy runs the fantastic site unphotographable.com in which he describes in words photographs he did not or could not take.

It got me to wondering, what's the musical equivalent of a photograph seen but never taken, a letter written but never sent?

Your November challenge is to compose or record a song you never wrote. It doesn't have to be original... it might be a cover you always meant to sing to someone. It could be instrumental. It could simply be a crazy technique you thought of but never tried.

Unphotographable entries always begin "This is a photograph I did not take of...". Imagine yourself saying "This is a song I did not write about...". What comes next?

Submissions should be tagged "mefimusicchallenge" and "unwritten"

Finally, remember that October's 'pantless' challenge will remain open for late entries throughout November but 'we are now drawing down the curtain on September's 'uncool'.
posted by unSane (9 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite

PS You can hear an interview with MDM here (the Freestyle interview). He reads one of my unphotographs at 5'30".
posted by unSane at 9:42 AM on October 26, 2011


(Of course a cover satisfies the "This is a song I did not write..." criterion in a trivial way but to qualify for the challenge it should be a song you never sang for someone, but wish you had, or something along those lines. Anyway, now's your chance.)
posted by unSane at 9:21 AM on October 27, 2011


Careful with those martini's mate......this, of course, is a comment I never made.....
posted by MajorDundee at 11:18 AM on October 28, 2011


I'm getting a definite lack of passion for this challenge!

Want a do-over? It's not too late! I have some other possibles:

SET A POEM TO MUSIC
GENDER BENDER - Sing a song from the point of view of the opposite sex
YOUR THREAD-ENTRY THEME MUSIC (inspired by Fuq's recent post)

my favourite is the last.

December will be HOLIDAY MUSIC, of course, so won't be using them for that.
posted by unSane at 11:33 AM on November 3, 2011


I vote for entry music. Sounds fun. I have ideas for "song never written" but I'm not as excited about them.
posted by edverb at 5:45 PM on November 4, 2011


How about if everyone has to use the same chord progression?
posted by empath at 6:49 PM on November 6, 2011


That's been one of my potential challenges for a while now. Probably the I-V-vi-IV that is that butt of all the jokes.

I think I might make the 'theme music' a special challenge of some kind.
posted by unSane at 6:55 PM on November 6, 2011


come on, slackers, i just posted an unwritten song ...
posted by pyramid termite at 6:02 PM on November 8, 2011


good on ya, termie!

here's how it's going to play out

I'm gonna keep this challenge for November (and it will be open into December too as usual).

December will be holiday music as usual.

Then on January 1 we will launch theme music and I'm gonna publicise it widely and make it a big deal, so it's not just the music regulars but I hope will pull in some other lurkers and driveby-listeners. It's such a cool idea. We'll give it two months to the end of February and then we'll do a full on podcast/compilation of theme music.

I'm sort of thinking of allowing people to do theme music for others, by mutual consent only.
posted by unSane at 6:06 PM on November 8, 2011


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