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SongDex came into being as the outgrowth of my decision to catalogue my extensive library of recorded popular music, amassed over a fifty-year career in radio, television, and theatre. Finding myself retired, and with a computer in the house, I set out to enter each recorded selection, cross-indexed as to any alternate title, composer, lyricist, primary and secondary artists, year, show or film source if any, and where to find it in my library.
I soon realized that the information on the record labels and album jackets cannot be relied upon for accuracy. Some give you little or no information; others are woefully incorrect. Since I also have an extensive collection of sheet music, I was able to fill in some of the blanks and correct some of the errors. But there were several thousand titles still not properly identified, so I turned to books about popular music.
In the course of acquiring over 100 such books, I narrowed down my punch list considerably. However, there were still blanks, and in some cases, the reference books disagreed with one another. As I continued to consolidate this information into my trusty PC, I came to the realization that I was more than halfway home on creating a valuable index of American popular music such as did not exist.
There were excellent books on jazz selections, on songs from films, on songs from the Broadway stage, on the works of leading songwriters. There was a series of books for each year, but, unless you knew the year, it was difficult to find the song you sought. There were books that indexed songs of one era or another, and some which attempted to cover as much as 100 years, including songs of the 19th century and songs of the "rock" era. But nothing came even close to adequately documenting the "classic pop" field of music and its thousands of memorable songs. So I began adding to my database the songs that were not in my library and building it to where it could become the ultimate song index.
The term "Classic Pop" has begun to achieve some acceptance as appropriately representing the type of music that I wanted to document. While this identification placed the bulk of the songs to be included in the 1920 to 1960 range, it was more logical to recognize the type of music even more than its vintage. So the decision was made to include virtually all songs from 1920 to 1960, whether deserving of "classic pop" definition or not, plus some from before 1920 if they were (a) tremendous hits resulting in lasting recognition; or (b) songs that enjoyed successful revival in later years; or (c) songs by major composers and/or lyricists who enjoyed a great portion of their success after 1920; or (d) songs of historical significance.
Then a parallel decision was reached to include songs from after 1960 if they were (a) songs by major composers and/or lyricists who enjoyed a great portion of their success before 1960; or (b) songs from major stage and motion picture productions, most of which were more allied to the 1920-1960 era than to the "rock" age; or (c) songs which, while written and introduced since 1960, are of a type that fit the "Classic Pop" definition.
For me, the songs included in SongDex are the "Classic Pop" of American music....the songs with which I spent my childhood and adolescence...the words and melodies which accompanied my early years in radio, my experiences in World War Two, my courtship and marriage, and my career in radio, television, and theatre. As lyricist Gene Lees has so aptly put it...
"When good music was popular and popular music was good."
Walter Windsor
