John,
I chose poor wording on mentioning tj as having cited it as an inexact science. I deliberately did not use quotation marks, nor did I say I was quoting him as having said those word,thankfully, lol, as that would have been rather incorrect as you can see in quote box here of my own previous post. I feel bad I spoke so casually of it. Thrust being: that there was another number out there so to speak, as being quite close to your number John, and now I know why ! lol.... His number came from YOU ! Me Thinketh the answer begeth the question lol..... Heck, if we all just cite AND quote one another, and agree to a number, we can have a properly cited and footnoted treatise on the number of songs ! lol.... We'll call it the mutual citation society, backing one another up on whatever we say, as having derived it from our colleague, and our colleague citing it as coming from us !
All joking aside, as unintentional and unaware of TJ's source (you John
), I have in fact encounted, as I'm sure many of us have, this sort of accidental mutual cross-referencing being done DELIBERATELY AND KNOWINGLY in academia, and in the publish-or-perish competitive world of white papers. You know, when you start seeing the same names juxtaposed in two different writers' works citing each other annualy for "preezentation" at the big conference, lol. Make no mistake everyone, this was purely accidental, and kind of funny... In any event what I AM hearing so far in pure data sounds to be ranging from 270 - 300, the modal by observation being around 276.
Interesting number came up in the 70's, one I feel to be unlikely. Had it come up in the late 90's, or in the first decade of this millenium, I could almost believe it. It came from an article in the mid 70's, witten in interview style; I recall Gord in the article photo wearing that kinda lace (?) white shirt we've all seen the picture from c '76 of him wearing, looking a bit on the ...relaxed side ( I say that only to help evoke the image of the picture for you, really.) I'll bet I can find the article in Char's clippings if I recall correctly.
Well, POINT BEING, I could swear this article, the date being quite incompatible with the number of songs given ( as I recall the number to be) said that
as of the date of writing of the article ( again c '76) GL was quoted as having said [roughly paraphrased] 'I've
written about 540 songs, but thus far I have recorded around 210' . Knowing that is from vague memory, it is interesting to note however that if he was interviewed in '76 after the release of SD, by my count,Songbook & GG2 aside, there were 8 more unique releases published and recorded, by my memory.
After SD, - EW, DSR, Shadows,Salute,EOM,WFY,Painter,& Harmony makes 8. An then lets say for discussion's sake there were on average 11 songs
per , that would make 88 more
recorded, call it 90, plus the vague memory of him saying in interview in the article he'd
recorded c 210 under his name (versus two tones, etc.). So, hypothetically, 210 + 90 = 300. That article I believe to be remembering more visually than content, 540 and 210 being the content I recall, right or wrong, produces a possible number,
plausability being most suspect ( that is to say, my memory of it is unlikely to have only 210 recorded of 540 written way back then).
That ratio of recorded to written very loosely speaking begins to approach 1:3, which at current best estimate of 300 recorded, would by the same
actual ratio of .39:1, represent [recorded: to written] would yield at same unlikely rate of proliferation the immense number
written of around 810. Applying this quantitative aproach to a qualitative subject doesn't work in real life, but it does make me wonder about what the original ratio was, because one thing I do remember for sure is the article, numbers themselves aside, DID give BOTH songs written, and songs recorded values. I do wonder what the written number is now. It could very well approach Mr. Anka's 900 ! But thats a horse of a very different color. And it is foaling. (
just a little humour...)
Having said and romped around with numbers in mere speculation, all said and done, sorry to have you scrutinize tj's channel comments for the wording "inexact science", John. But as you said, it appears to be just that !
Sorry to obfuscate the allready involute subject !
Quote:
John,
On source that comes to mind in support of this question comes from the Lightfoot Vistory Tribute Team. In an updatede coment as to the total qty. of songs, I read today in You Tube, at the Stonewall Team's G.L. Tribute Channel Home Page, it was Thomas J I believe that he now has revised his estimate to just over 300, as close as one could be to your number estimate.
TJ also cited the inexact science at present as new surprises keep popping up here and there.
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