Song writers are being robbed

Songwriters are suffering because of streaming. The two weathermen sang a chorus.

Weatherman  2 : The Music Publishers Association says song writers don’t get the rewards they deserve because the new music distribution networks hang on to royalties.

Weatherman  1 :  Music does seem cheap these days.

WM2 : Someone called YouTube parsimonious.

WM1 : Is that a compliment?  What do parsnips have to do with it?

WM2 : It means they behave like Scrooge. They don’t give advertising revenue fast enough and when they do, the amounts are microscopic. One writer earned less than $6000 from 178 million streams. My calculator can’t do sums that small.

WM1 : The trouble is we can give music away. There was a time when if I gave you my CD, I didn’t have it any more – or at least I had to go to some trouble to make a copy. Now in one click we can send it to loads of chums. The single item can breed faster than rabbits.

WM2 : Which might be fair enough if the writer was paid reasonably in the first place. At least when I grow my tomatoes from seed, I spent £1 on the pack of seeds.

WM1 : The garden centre doesn’t ask for a penny for every  tomato you grow.

WM2 : It’s impossible to police tomato growing or file sharing. Pay per view can only work if I can’t actually make a digital copy.

WM1 : If you could digitally make a tomato then why would you even buy the seeds?

WM2 : Exactly. The digital nature of the medium has been its undoing. Although actually watching the shoots emerge from the compost is satisfying. It’s not just about the eating.

WM1 : It’s a pity you can’t buy a pack of lyrics and sprinkle those in the soil. Grow your own song. I wonder what greenfly on a chorus sounds like.

WM2: Bands on tour can flog T shirts to make extra dosh on top of ticket sales. You can’t digitally go to a concert. If you want the experience, you have to be there.  A songwriter who does not perform is denied that income opportunity. There again, I don’t see many beef tomato sweatshirts either; maybe the nurseries are missing a merchandising trick.

 WM1 :So unless we give credit to songwriters, the trade is threatened.

WM2 : Most people don’t care who wrote the song, only who sang it. It’s odd isn’t it?

WM1 : Yes, we don’t listen to a short story and think about the story teller. Our attention is grabbed by the material. We only notice the delivery if it’s bad. If the storyteller sneezes or stutters then he breaks our concentration. If he doesn’t, we ignore him. If the story teller wants to get noticed, he better start singing the story. In song, the singer is king.

WM2 : So how can we stop songwriters being ignored?

WM1 : Maybe they need a bit of product placement and self advertising in the middle of the song. But more, much more than this, Paul Anka did it his way.

WM2 : Let the sky fall and Paul Epworth and me will face it all together.

WM1 : That should be both together.

WM2 : Well if Adele had known he wanted a slice of the glory, she might have changed the lyric.

WM1 : Is this going to save them, the songwriters?

WM2 : It’s art. For every songwriter who quits and gets a regular job, there’s another ten seeking song writing glory.

WM1: It may not be the oldest profession, but it certainly seems as immortal.

WM2 : Song writers will tell you that, when it’s going well, the buzz is on a par with sex. I’ve never felt that good about my tomatoes. Hmm, hang on....Merry Moscow men, pick cherry tomatoes when, they are hungry.

WM1: Stick to weather forecasting.