Thirty Seven Cents!

There’s a song from the Musical “The Pajama Game” in which John Raitt’s character sang:

“I figured it out
With a pencil and a pad I figured it out!
Seven and a half cents doesn't buy a hell of a lot,
Seven and a half cents doesn't mean a thing!
But give it to me every hour,
Forty hours every week,
And that's enough for me to be living like a king!
I figured it out.”

(Song written by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross)

(The workers at the pajama were asking for a raise, and this song carried their message.)

So what difference could 37 cents make to me? Well…I’m glad you asked.

About 3 months ago I received a Royalty statement from OCP (Oregon Catholic Press). A royalty (for those who don’t know, is a payment for use of a writer’s work; in this case a song. My friend Bobby Fisher made a recording of one of my songs on one of his CDs a while back, and because he re-wrote some of the lyrics, I receive about 75% of the available royalties for that song. That means every time OCP sells one of these CDs (“If We Dare to Hope”), I get 11 cents, and 6 cents for each copy of the song book for the album.

That royalty statement I received 3 months ago told me that I had accumulated a royalty balance of $24.95, but OCP doesn’t make any payment to artists until it’s over $25. So when a new statement arrived today showing that they had sold 3 CDs and 1 book (!!!!) I had 37 cents added to my balance, and a check for the total ($25.32) was included.

I sometimes am dazzled by the big bucks that some composers of my acquaintance must be getting. The fact is that 37 cents doesn’t mean a hell of a lot; but if I was to make 37 cents every day for the next year, the total would be over $135. Again, not a lot, but not bad for one song.


By the way, Bobby’s CD is still available If We Dare to Hope

Wrong or write

Someone* said that the art of writing is actually the art of re-writing. As a composer, I can vouch for this. Once I have an idea for a song, I try to get a sense of where the lyrics (if any) want to go. Then I write on instinct. When I get a piece to the point where I can see it is a complete song, I usually set it aside for a short time: 24 – 48 hours, generally. Then I go back and start the re-write process.

Even in my recordings, I will put in all sorts of instruments, some of which will not make it through the editing. Each part must have its own place in the mix, and no one part can get in the way of another part. This requires some intense listening. The best way I know to accomplish this is to listen as though it was someone else’s song.

In the end, I hope that I create music that musicians will want to perform more than once, and that people will want to listen to more than once. If you haven’t sampled any of my music, you can do so on iTunes or Rhapsody, or any number of music download sites.

*Might have been Kathy Mattea. She said "You have to write badly to write at all. If it`s crappy, I will rewrite it later. But it will be mine. You can hear the resonance of an artist who goes into herself."