A painful task

I just removed all the copyrighted Xmas carol lyrics from Xmas Carol, my horror novel, and replaced them with lyrics from public domain Xmas carols. After I tossed the religious public-domain carols aside, all that was left was:

Jingle Bells
Deck the Halls
The Twelve Days of Xmas
We Wish You a Merry Xmas.

Slim pickins -- truly slim. At least The Twelve Days of Xmas is irritating. I was able to use that to good effect.

Originally (i.e., before I realized the public domain issue was going to clunk me on the head) I chose the carols with care, making sure each lyric went perfectly with a scene. It was difficult to toss all that out the window and be forced to use these four tunes.

It's a sad day in Xmas Carol land. Truly. But it needed to be done and I've done it. Sob.

Song update

Correction related to post below this one.

Hmmm. It seems there are public domain Xmas carols, after all. Quite religious, most of them, making them useless to me, but there are a few hopefuls in the list. There's light at the end of the tunnel, after all. The following info comes from easysonglicensing.com. I'm greatly relieved that I can use a few songs in the book.

Angels from the Realms of Glory

Angels We Have Heard on High

Auld Lang Syne

Away In a Manger

Bring a Torch, Jeanette Isabella

Deck the Halls

The First Noel

Gesu Bambino

God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen

Go Tell It on the Mountain

Good King Wenceslaus

Hark, the Herald Angels Sing\\

Here We Come A-Caroling

The Holly and the Ivy

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

I Saw Three Ships

In the Bleak Midwinter

It Came Upon the Midnight Clear

Jingle Bells

Jolly Old St. Nicholas

Joy to the World

O Christmas Tree

O Come All Ye Faithful

O Little Town of Bethlehem

Silent Night

Toyland

The Twelve Days of Christmas

We Three Kings

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

What Child is This?

While Shepherds Watched

Lotsa jeebus in there. But at least I've got something to work with. Phew.

Xmas bummer

The other day, it occurred to me to wonder whether I could legally include lyrics from Xmas carols in my horror novel, Xmas Carol. They're all over the place in the book right now because I considered them to be in the public domain.

Well, I'm glad I looked into this before publishing the book. It seems you can't include song lyrics in a novel unless you pay exorbitant rates to the copyright holders. If you include lyrics in your novel without paying the title holders, lawyers will swoop down on you and sue you for a zillion dollars. Apparently, you can mention a song's title but not one word of the actual lyrics. Oy.

This strikes me as weird and unproductive. Yes, I know people wrote those songs and they deserve something for their work -- but you're not copying the song and playing it on your TV show; you're just giving the tune some free advertising. And you're certainly not competing with the songwriter in any way. You're not re-selling his song, in other words. (Though I could see how someone might think differently about this.)

But at the core is something deeper: we're talking about Xmas carols here. They're as American as apple pie and "The Star-Spangled Banner". We were weaned on these songs. They are us and we are them. For this reason, it seems ridiculous to say you can't quote the lyrics of an Xmas carol in a book.

Anyway, it's a major bummer. I used the lyrics well in the book. They added something essential by connecting readers' Xmas memories to the story. I hate to lose that. Sigh. Now I have a huge hole to fill. Song titles ain't gonna do it. Bummer.