About Us
Imagine the golden days of Café Society, supper clubs, cocktail hours, and black and white movies, when people dressed up to go out on the town and used words like “swell” and “peepers” and “square.”
Think Nick & Nora, Josephine Baker, Peter Arno, Nat Cole, Audrey Hepburn, and Cole Porter—all elevating the art of living. And alongside them, chronicling the highs and lows of life, were swinging tunes from the American Songbook. And that is where our story begins…
What We Do
We create gifts, accessories, and generally fun merchandise that combines our love of mid-century design and the American Songbook. Each item is our play on the design and lyrics and includes a link to the song that sparked it all. It's recorded exclusively by us and yours to download and keep forever.
Why We Do It
We believe everyday things can be functional and imaginative at the same time.
We want people to have art and music in their lives.
We like the idea of our creations making you smile, hum or whistle.
How We Do It
We enlist the help of our favorite musicians, artists, and song lyrics and mix them all together to create products that decorate our lives. And we know you're asking yourself: where do we start to do that? Well, to circle back to how we began our story, we look to the marvelous Cole Porter, who famously said he "starts with the title first."
We work with an incredible group of professional musicians to record our songs. If you like what you hear here, be sure to check them out! They all perform, tour, travel, and have careers outside of Songbook Ink.
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As for why we picked the American Songbook, it’s because no other music is as timeless, with lyrics so universal, yet personal—about a favorite city, holiday, drink of choice, and even love, in all its varying states of bliss to misery. And they spoke to all of that and even made it rhyme!
