The Dangers of Crowdsourcing Song Titles
Naughty Gnome is older banjo original that I wrote on my honeymoon (I married a good one) and recorded with Free Range Pickin’ on our Flight Risk release in 2008. In many ways it was a study in picking in Bm, in particular, exploring ways to use the D melodic scale in this key (relative major/minor). While I’m still proud of this tune, I kind of wish I would have spent a little more time on the name 🙂
In the months preceding the recording I had asked audience members at shows to help me choose a title. It was a fun process, people would shout out titles and some wrote suggestions down and handed them to me after the show. In retrospect, I feel I should have picked a name myself (mine or a suggestion) that actually fit the feeling of the song. Instead, I took a vote. While the title seemed “funny” at the time I always thought it was too whimsical for the minor mood of the song…
Here is a recent video of me playing the song solo, what do you think of the name, does it fit the tune?
Original Version w/ Free Range Pickin’
Live at the Cedar Cultural Center in 2007
