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"Legal Title"[]

Similar to the discussion on America (song), but in reverse, I propose this be moved back to "Fugue for Tinhorns." Why? Well, I was initially suspicious since the playbills I've seen, and soundtrack albums of both movie and play call it "Fugue for Tinhorns." A little research shows that it was indeed copyrighted under that name, in 1950. In 1951, Loesser produced a variant of the same melody, recorded by Dina Shore and apparently with lyrics more suited to a female singer, and *that* was "Three Cornered Tune." Even Frankloesser.com admits it: "Copyrighted April 17, 1951. Music previously copyrighted as "Fugue for Tinhorns". Recorded by Dinah Shore (RCA Victor), Blossom Dearie (Painted Smiles), and Sarah Brightman (Polygram). Performed as a round." I found the lyrics to the Brightman recording, and they're completely different. I haven't seen the Bailey episode, but unless they did in fact use the alternative and not the race-oriented lyrics of the original, this should be moved. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 01:00, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I had put it under "Three Cornered Tune" because that's what it's entered under in ASCAP [1]; I had searched "Fugue for Tinhorns" incidentally because that is the name I'd always seen, and this is all I got. It is the alternate title not main title in their catalog. Notice that one of the alternate titles in the listing for "three-cornered hat" is "I got the horse right here". The listed artists are male and female. Since BMI has no entry, I went with it. In general we have gone with the ASCAP/BMI "legal" titles when they exist, such as with "Song for Kermit". The copyright for "Fugue for Tinhorns" must have either expired, been superceded by the subsequent "three-cornered hat" copyright, or never made it into the online databases.
Incidentally, while I'll accept frankloesser.com as an authority on having an older copyright for the song, I've generally found that sheet music, playbills, liner-notes, etc. are not always a good way to hunt down the legal title of a song -- all sorts of stuff gets into those from what I've seen. It's why I generally go with ASCAP/BMI. -- Wendy (talk) 02:09, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, but if "Three Cornered Tune" is both a variant *and* created a year after the original, unless that *was* the version performed, I'd say move it. --- Andrew Leal (talk) 02:12, 7 September 2006 (UTC)