Songs Without Words

A few years ago I bought a fairly early mono copy of Frank Sinatra Sings For Only The Lonely (the 1958 LP where Frank is depicted as a sad clown on the cover), which had an interesting inner sleeve: one advertising a songwriting competition. Capitol Records' “Songs Without Words” contest was staged in 1961. The would-be entrant needed to buy (or at least listen to) an album with ten instrumental tracks, and then come up with lyrics for one or more of them. Two of the numbers were classed as Country & Western, two as Rock’n’Roll, and the remaining six as generically ‘Popular’.

Among those listed as composers of the instrumental tracks were such big names as Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Mercer (though oddly, Mercer was primarily known a lyricist – and, perhaps not coincidentally, as a co-founder of Capitol Records). Entrants were instructed to print or type their lyrics on blanks on the back of the inner sleeve, but with those allowing only about 3" x 4" of available space, they would have been obliged to use either tiny text or very few words. It doesn’t appear as though any erstwhile amateurs were catapulted into the limelight as a result of the contest. Information about the winners has apparently proven to be elusive. The whole contest, moreover, was a re-tread of one run in 1949, with some of the earlier tunes ending up recycled on the 1961 record.