Dead Radio
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About / FAQ
Back by popular demand!
Back and more legal than ever before. Lots of great songs were affacted by the purge—my favourites of the bunch, actually—but now this radio station is totally fully legit and plays only songs with licenses that permit this. Thus you may hear a mix of modern music by people who are cool with it, classical music of varied sound quality and old crunchy phonograph recordings!
Apart from music you can also enjoy short stories, poems and audiobooks from the public domain, as well as a few programmes and original work by myself if I feel so inclined.
How do I know what I may use?
I look for some of my favourite old songs online, if it says "public domain" next to it I am safe. Additionally, some songs you can hear were licensed under various Creative Commons licenses, all of which apply to the context of this radio.
I have linked to the source of each song which might show you why I thought this recording is ay-okay to use. It also serves as a neat little overview of what you might hear and could help someone to identify a song.
Music
Classical
| Artist | Title | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Bach | Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 - I. Allegro | wikimedia commons |
| Bach | Suite No. 1 in C major, BWV 1066 Overture | wikimedia commons |
| Beethoven | Symphony No. 5 Op. 67 - I. Allegro con brio | wikimedia commons |
| Jeremiah Clarke | The Prince of Denmark's March / A Trumpet Voluntary | wikimedia commons |
| Mozart | Die Zauberflöte 18 Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen | wikimedia commons |
| Strauss | Künstlerleben Op. 316 | archive.org |
| Tschaikowski | Piano Concerto No. 1 Op.23 | TBA i forgor |
| Mahler | Symphony No. 2 - V Im Tempo des Scherzos | archive.org |
| Debussy Rachmaninoff Tchakovsky Paganini | Clair De Lune (Arr. for Music Box); Prelude in C Sharp Minor (Op. 3 No. 2) - Arranged for Strings; The Seasons: October, December, August, November, Semptemper; Sonata in A minor, Op. 2, No. 6, MS 26; Tempo di Walzer - Arranged for Strings Caprice No. 24 in A minor - Arranged for Strings | Gregor Quendel on freemusicarchive.org |
Traditional/Phonograph/Cabaret
| Artist (Performer) | Title | Source |
|---|---|---|
| J. Fred Helf (Florrie Forde) | A Picture no Artist can Paint | wikimedia commons |
| Traditional (i legit cannot find the mp3 source. I'll look into it) | Bella Ciao | TBA |
| Kurt Schwabach, Mischa Spoliansky (Marek Weber mit seiner Künstlerkapelle) | Das lila Lied | archive.org |
| Traditional (User:Rabanus_Flavus) | Die Gedanken sind frei | wikimedia commons |
| Traditional/hymn (@esthermendia) | Dona Nobis Pacem | archive.org |
| Florrie Forde | Down At The Old Bull and Bush | archive.org |
| Traditional/Folk (Noel De Selva and his Pan-American Orchestra) | La Cucaracha | archive.org |
| Frank Harris | Masculine Women! Feminine Men! | archive.org |
| Traditional (Yoichi Hiraoka) | さくらさくら(Sakura Sakura) | archive.org |
| Unknown | Zenda | freemusicarchive.org |
Blues/Jazz/Rock
I had to get rid of almost this whole section of songs, which is a terrible shame! Copyright of old jazz songs is more complicated than all that 70 years business and it's better to be safe and say none of them are fair to use, sadly. Still keeping the section here in case you want some recs
| Artist | Title | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Bessie Smith | Gimme a Pigfoot | archive.org |
| Bessie Smith | I Got What It Takes | archive.org |
| Bessie Smith | Kitchen Man | archive.org |
| Bessie Smith | On Revival Day | archive.org |
| Bessie Smith | Preachin' the Blues | archive.org |
| Bessie Smith | Send me to the 'lectric Chair | archive.org |
| Bessie Smith and her Blue Boys | There'll be a Hot Time in the Old Town tonight | archive.org |
| Bessie Smith and her Blue Boys | Young Woman's Blues | archive.org |
| Bessie Smith | Nobody knows you when you're down and out | archive.org |
| Billie Holiday and her Orchestra | Blue Moon | archive.org |
| Billie Holiday | Easy Living | archive.org |
| Billie Holiday and her Orchestra | Fine and Mellow | archive.org |
| Billie Holiday | Georgia on my Mind | archive.org |
| Billie Holiday | Gloomy Sunday | archive.org |
| Billie Holiday | God Bless The Child | archive.org |
| Billie Holiday | Good Morning Heartache | arhive.org |
| Billie Holiday | I Can't Get Started | archive.org |
| Billie Holiday and her Orchestra | I gotta Right to sing the Blues | archive.org |
| Billie Holiday | Miss Brown to you | archive.org |
| Billie Holiday + Louis Armstrong | New Orleans (from "New Orleans") | archive.org |
| Billie Holiday and her Orchestra | No Regrets | archive.org |
| Billie Holiday | Summertime | archive.org |
| Teddy Wilson + Billie Holiday | That's Life I Guess | archive.org |
| Billie Holiday + Louis Armstrong | The Blues Are Brewin' (from "New Orleans") | archive.org |
| Billie Holiday | The Very Thought of You | archive.org |
| Billie Holiday | They Can't Take That Away from Me | archive.org |
| Billie Holiday and her Orchestra | You Go To My Head | archive.org |
| Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman and his Orchestra | Your Mother's Son-In-Law | archive.org |
| Cab Calloway | Minnie the Moocher | archive.org |
| Chuck Berry | Johnny B. Goode | archive.org |
| Louis Armstrong and his Orchestra | Bye and Bye | archive.org |
| Louis Armstrong and his Orchestra | I Can't give you Anything but Love | archive.org |
| Louis Armstrong | Mack the Knife | archive.org |
| Lesley Gore | You Don't Own Me | archive.org |
| Ma Rainey | Prove it On Me Blues | archive.org |
| Ma Rainey | Traveling Blues | archive.org |
| Peggy Lee | Them There Eyes | archive.org |
| Ruth Etting | Nobody's Baby Now | archive.org |
| Ruth Etting | Talking to Myself | archive.org |
Modern
Tom Lehrer
Tom Lehrer kindly donated all his cool songs into the public domain!
These are my favourites, played on my radio:
- Alma
- I Hold Your Hand In Mine
- Oedipus Rex
- Poisoning Pigeons In The Park
- Pollution
- The Elements
- The Hunting Song
- The Masochism Tango
- The Vatican Rag
- Wernher Von Braun
- We Will All Go Together When We Go
- When You Are Old And Grey
- Who's Next
- entire Copenhagen live performance
Lemon Demon
Lemon Demon allows for the sharing of his first four albums, as stated here. Some of his other songs are licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA, as I've noticed by browsing his bandcamp
- Action Movie Hero Boy
- Consumer Whore
- Dizziful Blizz
- Everybody Loves Raymond
- Geeks In Love
- Gonna Dig Up Alec Guinness
- I've Got Some Falling to Do
- Lawnmower
- Lemon Demon
- Mr Wolfgang
- My Trains
- Never Ending Hum
- New Way Out
- Nothing Worth Loving Isn't Askew
- Ode to Crayola
- Rainwater
- Really Cool Wig
- Subtle Oddities
- The Ceiling
- Two Trucks
- Vow Of Silence
- What Will Happen Will Happen
- Word Disassociation
- Your Imaginary Friend
The Sevateem
"The Caves" is a Doctor Who fanalbum for the 1984 Doctor Who episode "The Caves of Androzani". I was so lucky to find the band released it under CC-BY-SA.
If you like what you hear, check out the album on bandcamp or find other music services to stream it and support them for their work.
Librivox audiobooks
These largely reflect the classic literature I collect in my gopher hole.
| Type | Author | Title | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| short story collection | Arthur Conan Doyle | The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes | librivox |
| novel | Arthur Conan Doyle | The Valley of Fear | librivox |
| short story | Charlotte Perkins Gilman | The Yellow Wallpaper | librivox |
| short story | Edgar Allan Poe | The Tell-Tale Heart | librivox |
| short story | Edward Page Mitchell | The Clock That Went Backwards | librivox |
| short story collection | E.W. Hornung | The Amateur Cracksman | librivox |
| short story collection | E.W. Hornung | A Thief in the Night | librivox |
| novel | H.G. Wells | The First Men in the Moon | librivox |
| short story | H.G. Wells | The Moth (Genus Unknown) | librivox |
| short story | H.G. Wells | The Star | librivox |
| novella | H.G. Wells | The Time Machine | librivox |
| novel | Mary Shelley | Frankenstein | librivox |
| novel | Oscar Wilde | The Picture of Dorian Gray | librivox |
| poem | Lord Byron (George Gordon) | Darkness | librivox |
| poem | Stephen Crane | selected poems from: Black Riders and other Lines | librivox |
| poem | William Butler Yeats | Easter 1916 | librivox |
How does this work?
I will write a blog post about this once I figured out all of the things I'd like it to do. For this check out the #radio tag.