Songs No One Has Sung

By Steve R. Gans

This collection of forty-plus poems/songs from novelist Steve R. Gans reaches across all musical genres with lyrics about love, loss, life, death, and joy. Whether you're looking for poems or lyrics for your original music, there's something for everyone here. You'll find wordplay, whimsy, attitude, and heartache within these pages. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve R. Gans
• Release date: Feb 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215558577

Steve R. Gans

Steve is in his third decade of working in Corrections. Israfel Rising is his first novel. An Illinois native, he now lives in Florida.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

I love music.

When I was a kid, in the early 70s, my parents would start most Saturdays by putting a stack of records on the turntable and letting them play, one after another, for most of the day. They were, and are, possessed of eclectic tastes. It wasn’t uncommon to hear Glenn Miller or Benny Goodman, then Santana or Curtis Mayfield, then Buddy Holly or The Ventures, etc. Their standard was a simple one: if it was good, they liked it. So I grew up listening to everything, and developing my own somewhat scattered taste.

Mind you, our love for family’s music didn’t translate into any actual music talent. Apart from my Dad playing the drums (strictly for fun, not in a band) when he was young, none of us could sing or play. I learned very early in life that I was essentially tone deaf: I cannot tell when a note is flat or off-key. I have no natural sense of rhythm. And my singing voice is so bad that I used it as a weapon against authority.

Let me explain.

I attended a very small Catholic grade school. Each school day started with morning mass before morning class. Our principal, who for the sake of propriety shall remain nameless here, was nicknamed The Prune by us kids because of her rather pruney appearance (and, for that matter, personality). She fancied herself a fine singer, and loudly sang along with all the hymns every morning. Trouble was, her singing was godawful (pun intended): a high pitched, screechy, nasal whine that penetrated tender childhood eardrums and induced the sorts of cringing, painful headaches normally associated with railroad spikes and sledgehammers. The Lord, we were all certain, didn’t want to hear it, but she sang anyway. Maybe it was his way of punishing all of us.

I haven’t seen her since 1979, but I can still hear her voice.

There was no saying anything to her, of course. We were a small bunch of prepubescent kids struggling to grow up under the harsh, repressive regime of a cabal of elderly German virgins. (Well, that’s how we all felt, anyway.) We couldn’t exactly ask her to stop singing, or plug our ears with our fingertips, or all rush into the bathrooms until the hymns were over. There was no escape. We had to stand there in front of God and the entire school and just endure.

I had to do something. I mean, I couldn’t just do nothing.

Knowing that my own singing voice was (and is) absolutely horrible, I decided that my only course of action was to fight fire with fire. If she was going to belt out every hymn, then so was I. Maybe, just maybe, if I could sound just as bad, or even worse, maybe she’d realize how bad we both sounded and stop. It was a long shot,