Elmer Paisley:

Florence Foster Jenkins is generally regarded as the worst singer in history. You may not even recognize it in its present state, but this is the famous Queen of the Night aria (“Der Hölle Rache”) from “The Magic Flute”. It sounds more like an alley cat in transitional labour.

According to Wikipedia:

Despite her patent lack of ability, Jenkins apparently was firmly convinced of her greatness. She compared herself favorably to the renowned sopranos Frieda Hempel and Luisa Tetrazzini, and dismissed the abundant audience laughter during her performances as “professional jealousy.” She was aware of her critics, but never let them stand in her way: “People may say I can’t sing,” she said, “but no one can ever say I didn’t sing.”

“Walking on the Moon” from “Into Outer Space with Lucia Pamela”, a very….unique? album (c. 1969)

‘It’s difficult to describe Into Outer Space with Lucia Pamela, though many earthbound music critics have tried. “Imagine an LP of a peyote-soaked klezmer band, recorded with Joe Meek passed out at the console, wavering on your turntable between 31 and 35 rpm,” wrote Chusid.

It has “the feel of a warped bebop children’s album,” Neil Strauss ventured in the New York Times. R. J. Smith wrote in Los Angelesmagazine that it sounded “like a Dixieland band carrying boxes of silverware stumbling down a staircase.”

At first, listening to the album is a painful experience. Yet there’s something endearing about Pamela’s raspy voice, her swingy piano-playing and her absolute conviction that she is, indeed, on the moon. “Ooooh, I see animals!” she exclaims impatiently at the beginning of the song “Walking on the Moon.” “Let’s take a walk on the moon! Come on! Come on! Comeoooonn!”

“Her voice sounded like a woman in her second, third or fourth childhood,” Chusid observes.”’ (source)

“‘Emily’s Illness’ is a forgotten 45 from late 1967 recorded by a 17-year-old non-singer named Nora Guthrie. (…)

Like the singer Nora, the character Emily is a teenage girl. Her illness, the exact nature of which is never disclosed, is slowly killing her. She is a musician and a composer. Music is her sustenance, and the greater tragedy of her dying will not be the loss of her life, but the loss of her music.” (more)

This song came on a compilation of outsider music I’ve got. It struck me as being the only track that wasn’t overtly bat-shit insane; the strangeness is there, but it’s almost haphazardly artful. 

“Off the Charts: The Song-Poem Story” 

A feature-length documentary about the sometimes unsettling but always fascinating world of the song-poem industry. In this little known subculture, ordinary people send in their heartfelt, but often bizarre, poems to companies that – for a fee – turn them into full-fledged musical productions. Advertising in the back of magazines, these companies lure the would-be songwriters with promises of fame and fortune.

This peculiar concoction of American commerce, musicianship, and poetic longing create oddly compelling songs that are unlike anything you’ve ever heard. Off The Charts: The Song-Poem Story explores the lives and dreams of the songwriters and musicians who operate within this strange world.

Features not-so-famous songs like, “Non-Violent Taekwondo Troopers”, “I Am A Ginseng Digger”, “Richard Nixon”, “Jimmy Carter Says Yes!”, “Annie Oakley”, and “How’s Everything in Denmark?”

Are you nuts? Are you nuts?
Have you lost your guts?
Are you nuts? Are you nuts,
Eating cigarette butts?

Outsider music