The Richest Songs in the World Page #3

---

decided that 2-Live Crew's version of Pretty Woman, which they called

Oh, Pretty Woman, was a parody.

That means it was a version of the song that made fun of the

original version of the song and because we value the First Amendment

in the United States, we feel that when you make fun of something,

you shouldn't be restricted in your ability to do that,

You shouldn't have to pay for the right to do that.

A similar law has been considered over here in Britain.

It's not popular among songwriters, as you can imagine.

But despite the US Supreme Court ruling,

Pretty Woman has still made lots of money for Orbison and Dees.

If you're specifically talking about the writer's share,

I'm sure that it's millions of dollars.

But as to what amount, I'm not prepared to jump on.

But a lot of people have made a lot of money off a song

such as Pretty Woman.

Our research shows that over the years, Pretty Woman

has raked in nearly 13 million in royalties.

# Whoa, whoa, pretty woman. #

As far as we know,

this is the first time a survey like this has been attempted.

Notoriously difficult to pinpoint with precision

what certain songs have earned, not least because it's changing

all the time - records are being sold,

things are being played on the radio.

There are people in the industry who'd rather you didn't know what they've earned.

There may be songwriters who are not entirely sure themselves.

So, in many ways, it's one of the industry's best kept secrets,

but our analysts have compiled all the publicly available data

over the last 60 years, and so it might not be precise,

but it's as precise as anyone's going to get.

We are in the right ballpark, certainly.

The eighth song on our list is our first British entry.

It's also our youngest song, dating from 1983.

It was recorded by The Police, and is credited to one of our

most successful songwriters and artists, Sting.

And at an award ceremony in London in 2007,

it was marked for nine million radio plays.

Don't worry, we're only going to play it once.

MUSIC:
"Every Breath You Take" by The Police

# Every breath you take

# Every move you make... #

Every Breath You Take stormed charts all over the world.

Number one in the USA, UK, South Africa, Ireland, Italy...

Everywhere, really.

That's many millions of records sold.

Certain songs come at a time in an artist's life

when the world is ready.

I mean, that song was seared into everybody.

I think Police was at a special spot in their career.

This, of course, was in a time of video, and the video,

the black and white of Sting doing that,

everything had a tremendous impact.

# Since you're gone I've been lost without a trace

# I dream at night I can only see... #

This was celebrated by the first MTV Awards in 1984.

MTV made music global, and boosted song sales massively.

# I keep crying, baby, baby

# Please... #

Every Breath You Take is damn near perfect. It is.

It's an absolute masterpiece.

And people talk about, you know, '80s studio sounds,

"Oh, the terrible tinny drums" and all that. No!

Go and listen to Every Breath You Take.

I think it's my most successful song

and probably better known than any others.

And yet, it's not in the least bit original.

It has a standard chord sequence...

# Every breath you take

# Every move you make. #

If that's your opening line and that's the title of the song,

you've locked in where you're going.

And Every Breath You Take, I mean that, really,

I want to know about what he's going to tell me now.

Sting's basic melody was developed into the famous

guitar riff by Andy Summers.

We went into the studio and Sting said to me,

"Go on, make it your own. Just... OK, the drums and bass are there,

"do whatever you want to it, I don't care anymore."

That's really throwing down the gauntlet.

But, you know, I was able to rise to the occasion,

and put in that lick, you know, that riff all the way through the song,

that just made it sound immediately like The Police.

I remember the moment clearly. I was out in the studio,

this large studio, completely alone.

I finished the guitar part and everybody stood up

and cheered and clapped. That was it.

# Every smile you fake, every claim You stake, I'll be watching you... #

Massively successful song and played at lots of weddings

and things and deemed to be a kind of big romantic classic.

Oh, every breath you take, I'll be watching you.

And in fact, it has more to do with divorce than weddings because Sting

wrote this around the time he was splitting up with his first wife.

And he has said this song is not about adoration,

it's about kind of watching, borderline stalking,

it's about control.

I always thought that rather than it being a, you know,

toasting someone with a glass of champagne, it was

glaring at them menacingly through the bottom of a drained pint glass.

And weirdly, maybe this is the song's appeal.

After all, in the '80s, the divorce rate in Britain

went through the roof.

Every Breath You Take caught the tone of the times.

It's a very modern love song.

It's estimated by his publisher that the

revenues from Every Breath You Take, were a quarter to a third

of the entire song publishing catalogue of The Police.

Just one song.

And that happens with so many people,

hugely popular artists, actually, if you drill down,

it's three or four songs, if you drill down a bit further,

it's one song.

But, you know, that's hell of a day's work, that is.

Recording Every Breath You Take,

a painful process.

In particular, relations between Sting

and drummer Stewart Copeland were reaching breaking point.

So do you think there's going to be Police around

- for quite a long time yet?

- We'll probably break up again next week.

In 2003, two decades after he wrote the song,

Sting was raking in 2,000 a day from Every Breath You Take,

a song, which like most of the big Police hits,

he took sole credit for.

By then, a big slice of these royalties weren't

coming from the original recording.

MUSIC:
"I'll Be Missing You" by Puff Daddy and Faith Evans

P Diddy, or Puff Daddy as he was known then, sampled the song

on a 1997 tribute to his late friend Notorious B.I.G.

One thing I think that was very, very bright,

it certainly increased the value to the writer and the publisher,

when they came for the licence, and they said, "We're changing lyrics,

"we're doing this, we're doing that, we would like to have permission

"to do it and we would like certain portion of the writer's credit

"and the publishing because we're adding so much new work."

The publisher said,

"We'll let you do that, but you're not getting any credit.

"This song is still going to be 100% Gordon Sumner, Sting."

I'll Be Missing You takes its vocal melody

and some lyrics from Every Breath You Take.

And the distinctive sample?

Well, that was Andy Summers' guitar lick.

Sampling arrived in a big way with hip-hop.

Very often the bit that they're taking is the bit of sound,

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes