Who Is A Song 'by' ?

[Lazz]

I never knew that Clive James was a lyricist (for those who never heard of him – he’s an Aussie writer and cultural commentator with a career built mainly in the UK) but apparently it’s his favourite activity and he wrote about it recently in the Guardian.

For the sake of the article (these little pieces of filler fluff regularly involve lists) he chose five favourite song lyrics to mumble on about for a bit.

“Every Time We Say Goodbye” – Cole Porter

“You Don’t Know What Love Is” – music by Gene de Paul, words by Don Raye

“I Wonder What Became Of Me” – music by Harold Arlen, words by Johnny Mercer

“Folsom Prison Blues” – Johnny Cash

“Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick” – Ian Dury

I thought the picks were kind of interesting and especially as Johnny Mercer is one of my own favourites who appears currently overlooked and unappreciated. Problem was the Mercer song was one I had never heard of before. So, quick as a flash, I googled the title and found the words. Not one of his best bits of work in my opinion. But no matter. The thing that amazed me was that none of the sites to which I was led on my brief search credited Johnny Mercer as the writer. The impression offered up by them is that it’s the work of Rufus Wainright.

I then checked on a couple of my favourite songs by Tommy Wolf and Fran Landesman and found similarly that "Ballad Of The Sad Young Men" is given as a lyric from either Rickie Lee Jones or Shirley Bassey, while "Spring Can Hang You Up The Most" is offered as being from Bette Midler or Ella Fitzgerald.

Charitably, I guess what we have here might be just another example of 'common usage'.

But, quite apart from the mere legal obligation to credit an author properly, I think it's common courtesy to do so.

[Steve]

I have noticed this trend when looking up lyrics. They tend to be associated more with the artist that performed the song than the writer! Bad form I'd say!

[john]

Hey

I totally agree, but then that is among the reasons why publishers have been making moves to close these sites or at least bring them into the legal fold.

Cheers

John

[McnaughtonPark]

Could it be just plain laziness? There is a naive tendency to believe the person performing the song also wrote it.

[Nigel]

Hey Lazz,

I read that article in the Guardian too and I never knew he was involved in writing lyrics either. It was a very interesting point he made regarding the music business and the internet now though.

I must admit so many people seem to think that the internet has ruined the music business but as Clive says it may well have opened it up for many more people as they can publish and sell their own songs themselves now.

Very interesting point in what turned out to be a very interesting article. Well obviously the Guardian makes it way over here to Spain but I never knew it turned up in your neck of the woods though Lazz.

[Rudi]

That Guardian's got long shanks has'n'ee?

[thelevellers]

Sadly I don't think (though I could be wrong, I haven't finished this week's edition yet) that this article has featured in the Guardian weekly, which is my favoured 'long shank' of the paper (I found it in Norway when the local rags didn't really do anything for me)...

However, a quick read makes me wish it had

I couldn't agree more about the perspective of the internet/record industry thing... I reckon that there are many bands out there that would have (and still could) benefit from NOT having signed a record deal that kept them sheltered in one country, or advertised them to the wrong audiences when trying to break through elsewhere (I'm slightly thinking of The Levellers attempt to 'break' America in the early 90's here). It's funny, every time I think about the effects of the Internet on music I find another angle that is changed (admittedly not always for the better), it's a fun game

Rohan

[Lazz]

The Grauniad Weekly is available over here - never seen the daily though. There are some distribution challenges apparently - but the right-wing UK press is noticeably more widely on sale whereas the Garundia is handled by a different company and is much harder to find. Difficult to find out why this should be - but I suspect a dastardly plot of some kind. I can still pick up the FT, though - especially the weekend edition with their terrific arts coverage - best newspaper on the planet according to me and Norm Chomsky.

Luckily, the internet is able to feed my jones for journalism - the Griadaun on-line (gaurdian.co.uk) is where Clive popped-up for me.

MacP's suggestion that failure to credit is the result of laziness may be true to some extent. I noticed that many of the lyrics I chose to look up were mistaken in small but unnecessary ways. Attempts at transcriptions of Joe Allen McCarthy's stupendously clever and witty lyric to Cy Coleman's music in "The Riviera" had the word 'indecipherable' inserted a couple of times, so I have no idea who does these things but they are obviously completely unfamiliar with the words 'maharajah' and 'decolletage'. That's evidence of shameful laziness. And a seriously restricted vocabulary. So basically I see the problem as one of ignorance abetted by an absence of caring.

In fact, bless my soul, I was so incensed by these shortcomings that a sent a small polite missive to one of the offending sites, suggesting that they remedy this authorship issue on the basis common courtesy quite apart from their legal obligation to do so.

Predictably - I have received no reply.