I want to write stories featuring modern Western square dance.
Square dance singing calls have song lyrics in them.
Commercial stories with song lyrics in them need permission from the songs' copyright holders.
Modern Western square dance postdates "Steamboat Willie".
Country music, the genre most closely associated with square dance, postdates "Steamboat Willie". (
The first commercial recordings of what was considered country music were "Arkansaw Traveler" and "Turkey in the Straw" by fiddlers Henry Gilliland & A.C. (Eck) Robertson on June 30, 1922 for Victor Records and released in April 1923. Not sure of those records' copyright status, since the magic date before which things are US public domain is Jan 1 1923.)
Fuckity.
ETA:
I am surprised by how many of these I know. I didn't realize most of them were that old.