You keep your New Year’s celebration. For me, today is all about celebrating Public Domain Day!
This has become one of my favorite yearly posts. Every year for the last few years, music from 95 years previous has entered the public domain. 2023 is no exception, welcoming all music published in 1927.
We are well into the early years of the Great American Songbook – Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Rodgers & Hart, and more were all presenting new shows and publishing new songs exactly 95 years ago. Here’s a sampler of the songs that are now freely available for “derivative” use.
Funny Face (George & Ira Gershwin)
Hallelujah! (Vincent Youmans)
My Blue Heaven (Donaldson/Whiting)
Old Man River (Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein II)
Sometimes I’m Happy (Youmans & Caesar)
S’Wonderful (George & Ira Gershwin)
Thou Swell (Rodgers & Hart)
These are all songs with iconic, indelible versions by the great jazz and pop singers of the 20th Century. Fitzgerald. Sinatra. Tormé. Holiday. Astaire.
There are a lot more songs on this list (and follow the links to full scores from shows).
The newly free material is a gift to arrangers seeking to explore the Great American Songbook without fear of copyright infringement. I arranged at least one song from the 1926 list last year, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few of these songs in new arrangements by me in the near future. (And heads up, next year’s list is full of amazing tunes!)