The Richest Songs in the World Page #2

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their music was even being used in that territory.

In the '90s, my band, The Shirehorses, was played on Japanese

radio, and then out of the blue I just received a cheque, for 15.32.

Might not sound a lot now, but...

Well, it wasn't a lot then, to be honest, but, every little helps, eh?

Reliable royalty figures in Britain are very hard to access.

But as a rough estimate, songwriting royalties

account for 7-8p for every track on a CD sold and half that

on an averagely priced iTunes download.

Radio play royalties vary widely,

but at the moment BBC Radio 1 pays around 16 a minute per song.

If you have a hit much bigger than mine was, it's all going to add up.

There are more profitable areas too,

where the fee rates are negotiable.

I would say a growth area has been use in synchronisation

with visual images. Sync rights, as we call them.

These would be the obvious ones of use in a feature film,

or a TV advert, and more recently on websites.

So we have, if you like, a new mini growth area.

They pay a license fee for the right to use that.

OK, here we go with song number nine, and a bloke who did as much

as anyone to integrate rock 'n' roll enter the mainstream in the '60s.

In 1964, he was the only American

to have two number ones in the UK charts.

And this is one of them.

In 1964, I was only six, a mere stripling,

and yet I can remember hearing this riff punching out of the radio.

An indelible riff, once hear never forgotten.

SONG:
"Pretty Woman" by Roy Orbison

# Pretty woman walking down the street

# Pretty woman The kind I like to meet

# Pretty woman... #

I don't know exactly where the genius in the song is.

Is it in the guitar lick?

Is it in the growl that Roy does?

Is it his unique way of saying mercy?

# Mercy! #

So here's the story. One afternoon at Roy Orbison's,

he's with his writing partner, Bill Dees, they're trying

to come up with stuff, not particularly getting anywhere.

At that point, Roy's wife, Claudette, comes in.

"Roy!" she says, "Want to go out shopping."

He says, "I suppose you want some money?"

And Bill Dees says, "Pretty woman don't need no money."

And they think, "Hmm."

Start riffing on it. Words come. The music comes.

A piece of history is born from that chance encounter.

A wonderful moment. The only downside is that Claudette went out

without any money and then later that day was done for shoplifting.

I made that up.

But Bill Dees did say that whenever he hears this riff,

he's reminded of a woman in high heels walking down the street.

# Pretty woman Don't walk on by... #

A pretty woman may not need no money,

but the song certainly made lots. As late as 1993, Bill Dees said

it made up most of his yearly income, over 100,000.

Acuff-Rose Music,

and the other half was divided between Dees and the Big O.

I have a swimming pool in the living room, my drawing room,

and six baths. And that's just for convenience,

if you're on a certain level. There are three levels.

And...

I have a couple of waterfalls beside the staircase

that go under the swimming pool. And this is for a pretty sound.

Rather than for show. Like I say, I don't have that many guests.

So, it's sort of...my cave, you know?

This is James Burton, the master of the telecaster.

James played Pretty Woman with the Big O at a concert in 1987.

Orbison died in 1988 but the performance won him

a posthumous Grammy.

That's the same thing with Pretty Woman. You get a great simple riff

- and you're half way there aren't you?

- Absolutely.

I mean, it is one of the great riffs, isn't it?

I think it is, and the song is fun to play, and it's a great song.

Good feel and everything.

And when we kicked it off, we just did...

PLAYS PRETTY WOMAN RIFF

Three, four.

So it works really good. It's really nice.

Yeah. I mean, it's one of those riffs that you just hear it

and you're in the zone straightaway, aren't you?

And the drum kicks it off, and you know, it's cool.

But, you know, when we did the Black And White Night

and we did Pretty Woman...

That was...you and Springsteen trading licks.

Yeah, man, it was great.

Roy's looking around and he's, like, admiring everybody

out there in the audience. He's diggin' it.

I asked Elvis, I said, "If you had to pick one of your favourite

"singers, who would it be?"

And he thought for a second and he said, "Roy."

# Whoa, whoa, pretty woman. #

Thank you.

But the Pretty Woman story has a tragic twist in the tale.

It happened in 1966, and concerns Orbison's wife, Claudette,

the muse behind his biggest hit.

That song, Pretty Woman, that was... Claudette, that was his first wife.

Yeah, you know, it's so sad that...

You know, cos Roy and his wife, they loved to ride motorcycles.

So they went out for a ride one day, a very nice day and so they

were sitting at this stop light, this intersection, stop light, and

so the light turned green and she takes off and Roy's still sitting

at the light and, unfortunately, a car ran the red light and hit her

and killed her on the motorcycle and that broke his heart.

It was a pretty sad thing, you know?

Roy Orbison, a majestic singer and a career that spanned the decades,

and yet it was on the slides,

Traveling Wilburys notwithstanding, towards the end of his career.

But Pretty Woman, the Roy Orbison song,

got a real kind of shot in the arm and went all around the world again

when it was used in the film...what was the name of that film?

It was Pretty Woman, wasn't it?

The song was used in the 1990 global hit movie

starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts.

but a song over a movie's end titles is said to bring in anything

between 50,000 and half a million pounds. Mercy!

The fact that someone thought enough of the song and felt it was

so important that they sort of married it together,

I think insures a little more life for that song.

In 1989, a Florida hip-hop posse used Pretty Woman

in a more controversial way.

Do you think you're nastier than the average rap band?

Well, we do sexual, we do explicit lyrics,

our lyrics are explicit, we talk about sex.

when they do derivative works which is to make it more street.

Pretty Woman was a nice, poppy, catchy, you know,

family-oriented, you know, song,

and they turned it into a song talking about women's bottoms.

For several reasons, we can't bring you

the 2-Live Crew version of this song.

But here's a taste of the inspired lyrics.

"Big, hairy woman, you gotta shave that stuff. Big, hairy woman,

"you know, I bet it's tough. Big hairy woman, all that hair,

"it ain't legit because you look like Cousin It."

Well, move over, Noel Coward.

Bill Dees despised this version.

Around this time, rap groups were plundering back catalogues

for samples from other songs.

They did it anyway. So lawyers got involved.

And 2-Live Crew's case went all the way to

the Supreme Court in Washington, DC.

They ended up winning the case because the Supreme Court

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