Last month (October, 2001) we featured "tear jerkers", songs that are sad or that tell a sorrowful tale. That idea was submitted to us by one of our loyal ParlorSongs fans, David Chase. This month though we focus on the overal music of Charles K. Harris, this issue is in many respects a continuation of the tear jerker theme, many of the songs we feature this month were suggested by David as a part of the tear jerker theme.

Not only did Charles K. Harris start the fad for "story" songs with After The Ball, but he developed, perhaps more so than any other songwriter, the sorrowful song to its peak of sadness and even horror. Many of his songs dealt with death and misery. A prolific songwriter, surprisingly according to several accounts, he never could read or write music and many of his songs though credited to him were actually written by other composers including Theodore Morse and his "arranger" Joseph Clauder. To learn more about this composer and see and hear more of his songs, see our biography of Harris in the "In Search Of" series about him.

For this month though, we will continue to plumb the depths of musical misery with his music, but will also show some other songs including an excellent patriotic song from 1898.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Sibelius have created an Active-X Scorch player that works with MSIE. In March we implemented the Active-X version and MSIE users who click on a scorch link or cover are automatically directed to a download and registration. Once done, you will not have to go through the download again and all MSIE users will have Scorch functionality. It will only take a minute and you'll be glad you did it! We hope you don't find it to be annoying.

Netscape and Opera users may continue to use the Scorch 2 plug-in player available from Sibelius at the Sibelius download site The Scorch player allows you to fully experience the music at our site. Scorch is a plug in for your browser (or an Active-x player) that will allow you to not only listen to our songs but to view the playing, real time on sheet music WITH LYRICS! Though we often find plug-ins to be annoying, this is one that we guarantee will be well worth the time to download and install. If you are not automatically directed to the Active-x version, download the Scorch player from Sibelius right now, then enjoy an astounding musical experience! The player is available for Mac and PC. Just click on the button below to go to the Sibelius site and get your free plug-in.

WEB-TV USERS! We know that the Scorch player will not work with WEB-TV and will continue to provide midi versions of our songs for you. For your added enjoyment we have now added viewable lyrics to our feature. Simply click the "Lyrics" link to see the full lyrics for the song you are listening to.

As with most of our features, this month's is covered on two separate pages to speed your downloads and to avoid a mile-long page. Be sure to see them BOTH to fully enjoy all of this month's music!