Could you "retire" off of royalties from one hit song?

Hence the joke over here about a tremor felt in the Black Country every January. It's not an earthquake, it's the sound of Noddy Holder's royalty cheque hitting the doormat.

 

"Dimming Of The Day" has become a bit of a standard too.

 

Jo El Sonier had a hit on country radio with "Tear Stained Letter".

 

Don't worry, everybody reading this thread understand what you posted...

 

and i've noticed people talking about Mariah Carey writing her Christmas hit - I could be wrong but I very much doubt she had any real input into its composition or about as much as the Spice Girls had into theirs. I should imagine the important part of the song's writing credit is obviously Walter Afanasieff.

The habit during the last 20 or so years of the most musically clueless chart acts suddenly being given credit for "writing" their hits has got to one of the most annoying developments in recent pop music history. It's basically the musical version of people like Katie Price being listed as authors of the books published under their names.

And especially annoying when you think of all the jazz singers etc over the years who with their interpretations of standards genuinely did add something to the songs they sung but never received the merest hint of a songwriting credit.

 

Streaming pays nothing. Stephen Stills got his first check and choked.

 

It's been around for decades and is known in the industry as 'change a word, take a third'.

 

Hopefully on his own vomit. Or someone else's.

 

It may if you are Paul Simon ripping off Martin Carey’s arrangement of the traditional Scarborough Fair.

 

Randy Bachman’s got no worries. He might be splitting the royalties with Fred Turner, but still.....

 

Somebody get a recent CD containing "Spirit In The Sky" and see if a major publisher ate it up. See if Bachman's tunes don't say a major publisher now. Steve Bray ran from Madonna on her one line stuff for 50% decades ago.

 

Goes back a lot further than that. Elvis got credited in lieu of royalties I think. I agree though that it's irritating when they get all annoyed in interviews "I am a songwriter you know", err, no you're not.

 

You can't really dust for vomit....

 

If that were always the way things go, then Ringo Starr should have been given 1/3 credit on "A Hard Day's Night" because he came up with the title. (One of his "Ringoisms" or whatever they referred to them as.)

 

Ya gotta wonder about the cash cow generated for somebody with multiple hits.

 

A local band, 54/40, had one of their songs (I Go Blind) covered by Hootie and the Blowfish on the Friends Soundtrack.
It also appeared on a couple of Hootie comps and the Anniversary Edition of Cracked Rear
View.
And the Hootie version was used in one episode of the TV show
I imagine they made a nice haul

 

Barry Gibb for example, including all the #1 US hits he wrote for others during the 80's

 

No, because I haven't written one or swindled an artist out of their royalties and publishing rights.

 

I would argue though, that Ringo should get a piece (if not quite a third) for his irreplaceable musical input on Tomorrow Never Knows.

 

Actually, although Corey certainly made great money from SAG, he made even bigger money landing 2 album cuts on Celine Dion's "Let's Talk About Love," the one with the Titanic theme on it, which alone sold more worldwide than his entire solo discography combined. Fellow Canadian Aldo Nova did even better off his tunes than landed on several of Dion's albums.

 

Artists should have cared more about after hours pressings. Capitol had the machines running for years after midnight.

 

RIP

 

I'd agree with that actually...

And back to "A Hard Day's Night", in a way I do think Ringo should have legitimately been given a percentage (how much I'm not sure) since he *did* come up with the title... But, I suppose the way the contracts were written wouldn't have allowed it and maybe even the Lennon/McCartney songwriting team contracts wouldn't have permitted it either, who knows... But, no matter what the case, Ringo'll always know his words inspired a pretty good song.

I do know Joe B. Mauldin from The Crickets was given a credit on "Well All Right" written by Buddy Holly because he and Jerry Allison were always going around imitating Little Richard saying "Well All Right!" and Buddy always heard those guys doing that and that line inspired the song...

And I know Fred Foster was given a co-writing credit on Kristofferson's "Me and Bobby McGee" because he came up with the title, though Kris wrote all the rest of it...

 

Yes and also on their wiki entries when it ays "So-and-so is a singer, actress and songwriter" when you know that in reality she's no more a songwriter than she's a lion tamer.