How Howard L. Kaplan sees himself: as a guitar-playing frog
Howard L. Kaplan
Songwriter and Occasional Performer
 Obligatory photo of the artist
I have been writing songs since the late 1970s. I have now written about 100, depending on how you count them. My first few significant songs were all about frogs, before I learned I could also write about other subjects. The left-hand image above was one I commissioned for the cover of a very limited-edition, not very good cassette in 1982; I added colour to the outline when I created the web site.

These are some of the recurring themes in my songs:

I have posted lead sheets, MIDI files, and .mp3 files for many of these songs on the general songsheets page.

I often like to write songs that are heavily researched.  I cite the references on the songsheets and sometimes even in the song itself, as in this example from "The ex-arboureal porcupine blues":
I've a major reference to cite for you before I close:
The North American Porcupine, by Uldis Roze.

I don't perform in public very often. My most regular appearances are at 1001 Friday Nights of Storytelling in Toronto, a weekly event where I contribute something perhaps 20 times each year.

I recorded two cassettes in 1998. I'm not seriously trying to sell the few remaining copies of the first one, but I will sell them if asked. There are no copies of the second one left. As I post the lead sheets for these songs on the web site, I also post the .mp3 files from those cassettes, to save us both the trouble of moving physical product around unnecessarily. You can find the links to those .mp3 files on either the lyrics page or the product order page, following the links below.

ELEVEN SONGS that I'm not planning to release on CD during the remainder of the second millennium (ITCFS001)
[Note: as of January 2000, I do not yet have any plans to release them on CD during this millennium, either!]
View the lyrics    Order the cassette

-- three-and-a-fraction scientifically respectable frog songs (ITCFS002)
View the lyrics

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