Samuel's Blog

Samuel’s Musician Of The Week

This week I am giving the award to Fats Waller, and I have a special surprise for you. The copyright has expired on the feature song which means I am able to publish the audio version of it, and not just the lyrics.

If you’re wondering why the copyright expired, it is because Fats Waller passed away in 1943, which means that under Australian copyright law, the copyright on all of his works expired at the end of 1993. This 50 year provision changed to 70 years in recent years due to the Free Trade Agreement with the US, however the change did not revive the copyright on expired works.

The feature song this week is one Fats Waller made very popular in 1935, and one that has recently had a lot of people awake in the wee hours of the morning asking 2UE’s Clive Robertson for the artist and title due to him using an extract of it to introduce the email “sub program” hosted by his producer, Abe.

Perhaps I should name it…I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter.

Warning: This song is provided under the provisions of Australian copyright law. If the copyright on this song has not expired in your jurisdiction, do not download it.

Download link

I’m gonna sit right down and write myself a letter
And make believe it came from you
I’m gonna write words oh so sweet
They’re gonna knock me off my feet
A lotta kisses on the bottom
I’ll be glad I got ’em

I’m gonna smile and say
I hope you’re feeling better
And close with love the way you do
I’m gonna sit right down and write myself a letter
And make believe it came from you

Gonna smile and say
I hope you’re feeling better
And close with love the way you do
I’m gonna sit right down and write myself a letter
And make believe, make believe, make believe it came from you

Samuel

May 27th, 2007 at 05:24pm

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll: Two Party Preferred

Who needs Newspoll or a Galaxy Poll when you can have a Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll?

I’ve had just about enough of the constantly different twice weekly “x will win the next election according to the latest poll” headline news story, so I’m taking action, I’m going to run this poll, and the entire media can refer to it until the election…well OK, I’m joking, but it would be interesting to see how closely (or differently as the case may be) the audience of Samuel’s Blog resembles the sample groups of the various national polls.

I’ve decided to go with the two party preferred (with an “other” option) model as it would be almost impossible for anyone other than the coalition or Labor to win, but it would be interesting to see what percentage of the seats could belong to other parties and independents.

I’m not going to publish my opinion, or cast my vote just yet, as I don’t want to swing the vote too much. If you really want to know what I think, I will post my thoughts in a comment a bit later in the week…although I get the feeling that a number of you already know what I think.

Last week’s result surprised me.

I actually thought there would be stronger sentiment one way or the other…however it is possible that the low number of votes is the true indicator on this matter…it probably indicates that people are tired of David Hicks, and the less they hear about him, the better. I can honestly say that after correctly predicting that the media would be waiting breathlessly for David to emerge so that they could tell us what colour shirt he was wearing, I can understand why people are bored with the matter.

For a list of all previous results, see the Weekly Poll Results page.

Samuel

2 comments May 27th, 2007 at 05:20am