[music]

Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It. I'm Kousha Navidar, filling in for Alison Stewart. It's been a few weeks since we last talked about the Public Song Project on the air. That's our music project where we invite anyone to send in a song based on work in the public domain. The window for listener-submitted songs closed on May 12th, but the team has been hard at work listening through them and preparing to pick some favorites to feature on the air. For a quick check-in to talk about what's next, I am lucky to be joined by producer Simon Close. Simon, welcome.

Simon Close: Hey, Kousha. Long time no see.

Kousha Navidar: That is a very kind and false thing to say because we were just talking outside before the show, but the window for members of the public to submit songs closed on May 12th. What's been going on in your life since then?

Simon Close: Where do I start? Personally or professionally?

The window to submit songs closed on May 12th, and now we've been in the judging period. We've got a cool list of judges helping us sort through all these songs and give some ratings, some reviews to figure out which are our favorites that we can feature on the air in July.

Kousha Navidar: How many songs came through?

Simon Close: We got around 80 songs, I think, which was a pretty exciting number. The way it broke down, there were some familiar names, which was cool to see, but also a lot of new names in there that ranged from some sort of just amateurs singing groups, ukulele players, just people who had a little extra time, to some artists who were more professional recording artists. A broad span of people submitted.

Kousha Navidar: Out of those 80-ish songs, was there anything that stood out to you? Either a theme or something in particular?

Simon Close: There were a few things. I was crunching the numbers before coming down here. Some of the stuff that jumped out to me was-- well, one of the things is that there were quite a few submissions from 1928. That's the batch of public domain work that entered the public domain this year. We got a couple versions of-- let's see, I want to Be Loved By You, which is from a musical called Good Boy, that's from 1928.

Let's Do It Let's Fall in Love, that's the Cole Porter song also from 1928. We got four versions. I think this was the highest number of versions we got of any one particular song of Mack The Knife by Kurt Vile and Bertolt Brecht, and that's from 1928.

In case anyone needs a reminder of what that sounds like, we've got the clip.

Speaker 3: Look, there goes Mack The Knife.

[MUSIC - Kurt Vile and Bertolt Brecht: Mack The Knife]

Simon Close: That's Mack The Knife, and we got four versions of that. What's really cool about that also is that they were all very different takes on it. I think one was like '80s synth stuff, so I'm excited when we put these out for people to hear all of the different ways that the submitters interpreted these songs. Besides that, let's see, another song that we got, the second most popular one was Blue Skies by Irving Berlin, which I wanted to shout out because that's a favorite of mine. Again, I think we have that clip if we want to remind people what that sounds like.

[MUSIC- Irving Berlin: Blue Skies]

Simon Close: That's Blue Skies. Again, we got different interpretations of that. I think one was instrumental, some others had lyrics. Beyond that, the song covers probably the most popular by far type of song that we got, but people were also welcome to take other types of artwork from the public domain and make new songs out of it. The second most popular category was poetry, I think. Some of the themes that came out of that were we got three Langston Hughes poems turned into songs. We got two Edna St. Vincent Millay poems. That's a name that came up a lot last year too, which has been interesting to see.

We've got a lot of Edna St. Vincent Millay fans out there. Besides that, Robert Frost showed up, Dorothy Parker, T.S. Eliot, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and some other poets. Then, beyond that, lots of other kinds of submissions. Some people combined two different sources of work, so maybe like a book that they took characters from and then took a song and replaced the lyrics with those characters or something. There were literature inspirations, film inspirations. Someone wrote a song about Mickey Mouse, Steamboat Willie I think the song was called. That's another one that entered the public domain this year.

Kousha Navidar: Which just entered the public domain. Yes.

Simon Close: Just this year. Exactly. Beyond that, there was one really cool one that was inspired by a book of photography from 1922. They took inspiration from the photos in that, but also some of the text that was included in that, and made a song out of it. Those are some of the themes that emerged this year. [chuckles]

Kousha Navidar: That's wonderful. What's that unifying theme? It was of creativity, I guess.

Simon Close: Absolutely. Creativity, freedom of expression, freedom of using these source materials. I took a couple touching quotes from some of the emails that we got from submitters of-- Here, I'll just read some of the messages we got. One submitter said, "Thank you so much for doing this project. It's provided me with a renewed inspiration to write and a treasure trove of great material." Another one said, "Thank you for this project. It not only inspired me creatively, but my research also exposed me to other poets of the early 20th century who I plan to read in the future."

It was really cool to hear from people about how this allowed them to discover new stuff and also engage a creative part of themselves that they maybe didn't have a reason to before.

Kousha Navidar: You've got all these songs, you've got these wonderful messages, you're going through, what happens next?

Simon Close: Next, we're going through them, and shout out to our judging panel, which I won't name everybody, but it includes some in-house names that also helped us out last year. John Schaefer and Caryn Havlik and Irene Trudel of the New Sounds team. Paul Cavalconte is a part of it again this year. Some other arts institution friends, so Shanta Thake from Lincoln Center is a part of it again this year. Isabel Kim, who's with Joe's Pub, is helping us out again. Some musicians, Lara Downes, Nicole Zuraitis, who we've heard on the air already, and some public domain experts, including Jennifer Jenkins, who's been on to talk about the public domain, and Michael Weinberg who comes from NYU's Law School, and they also focus on public domain issues.

They're all sorting through them, giving us their reviews, and then will aggregate all of their reviews of these songs. We'll be getting in touch with our favorite submitters over sometime in the next month. The plan is to feature them on air in July. We'll be interviewing them on the air. Those are the "winners," but if you're part of the project, everybody is a winner. That is true in the sense that everyone who submitted a song that qualified, is based on something in the public domain, will get their song featured on WNYC's website. Just like last year, we'll put a big playlist together.

Anyone can go on there and listen to any of the songs we got. If you submitted a song yourself, you can share it with family and friends and say like, "Hey, I'm part of this big project," same as everybody else. What else? We're also going to be putting it all together in an album that we plan to put up on streaming. We'll combine that with some of the special guests whose songs some of whom you've already heard on the air. Like Rhiannon Giddens, They Might Be Giants are part of that. Then, songs that you haven't heard yet that are also still part of this big album. The Lemon Twigs are part of it. Who else?

Béla Fleck's part of it, Rosanne Cash, and the list goes on. To hear those songs, you'll just have to stay tuned. What else? Beyond that, there's also the final thing, if I may, Koushar. [laughs]

Kousha Navidar: Absolutely.

Simon Close: Is that we're going to be at Lincoln Center on July 20th. It's a free event. We're calling it the Public Song Project, the People's Concert. It's part of their Summer for the City outdoor series. It'll be in Jaffe Drive, which most other parts of the year is a driveway out front of the main campus of Lincoln Center, but they turn it into this cool speakeasy thing. That'll be a free event that features a couple of special guests to be announced and also a roundup of members of the public who have been part of the Public Song Project, and it should be a really fun evening.

Kousha Navidar: It sounds like July is when a lot of this is going to-- [crosstalk]

Simon Close: July, yes, so that's also WNYC's 100th birthday, as I have probably said many times on the air already, is July 8th. The month of July is when all this stuff is going to be concentrated and coming out.

Kousha Navidar: Where can people go to find out more info?

Simon Close: I would say pay attention to our social media accounts, AllOfItWNYC on Instagram and Twitter, also wnyc.org/publicsongproject. I'll try to keep that updated with new announcements, and I guess keep listening to the radio. If you'll have me back, I'll give updates on it. [laughs]

Kousha Navidar: It's always a pleasure to have you here, and it sounds so cool. We've been talking to Simon Close who's a producer on the Public Song Project. Listeners, thank you so much for submitting those 80 songs inspired by so many things. Simon, thanks for hanging out and all your work you're doing on-- [crosstalk]

Simon Close: Thank you for having me, Koushar.

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