The Richest Songs in the World Page #4

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the riff, the little hooky bit...not necessarily...they don't want

the sense of the song, they want the taste and the texture of the thing.

One of my little kids said, "Ooh, Dad there's a guy, on the radio

"who sounds like you." It was playing on his little radio

in the bedroom, and I went, "All right, let me hear...hang on."

# When it's real Feelings hard to conceal

# Can't imagine all the pain I feel

# Give anything to hear Half your breath... #

Puff Daddy's track was a global hit,

estimated to have sold around seven million copies.

At the time it didn't seem such a big deal, you know, of course,

he went and sold 50,000, then 100,000, then 200,000, 500,000, then

a million, and then 2 million, and it just went on and on and on.

And I certainly felt responsible for part of that

but I don't think I ever got due recognition for that.

The sampling of just one element of a song,

in this case, Summers' guitar riff,

raises interesting questions about ownership.

That becomes part of the record but not part of the copyright.

The song is the copyright.

It's hard to say how that should really be arranged

but I think we can leave that to the people in the studio

and the people in the band, so to speak.

Sting didn't write the guitar line, I wrote that.

But, you know, it gets complicated, you see.

This is the part where it gets involved with money, royalties,

intellectual property, who gets the credit for songwriting.

We had our own specific arrangement in The Police.

But, in this case, Sting came in with that song

so he's credited as the writer.

As the arranger, if you like, with me pulling the guitar part,

and I didn't get a credit.

So...

Anyway, we have internal arrangements, which we won't go into

right now, about the filthy lucre.

Overall, we estimate that this song has earned a breath-taking

13.5 million in filthy lucre.

Can I have mine now?

At least The Police reached some kind of arrangement.

Songwriting royalties can cause all kinds of tensions within bands.

Always happens, every band.

They become enormously successful, they go on the road for five years,

they go crazy, they take a few years off and then they look round

and notice that one of them's got a bigger house than the other ones.

And they think, "Why has that happened?

"A-ha! You wrote the songs."

Because that is where the money is.

You will probably find that behind most splits of bands

there is a songwriting issue somewhere.

It may not be the total reason for the split but it will be

there somewhere, it will be itching away at them at some level.

Sometimes these disagreements end up in a court of law.

# So true... #

Spandau Ballet and The Smiths went through complex

and expensive court cases over royalties.

# It's cold outside... #

This is precisely why some bands, among them, U2 and Coldplay,

are reported to have band agreements, which split the

songwriting royalties between all members,

regardless of their contribution to individual songs.

They might be at each other's throats sometimes,

that's rock and roll, isn't it?

But at least it's not about royalties.

Thank you, everybody.

Being smart, you probably guessed from where I am

that the next song on our list of the world's richest songs

is another Christmas number.

If you are budding songwriter, it might be worth

knuckling down to write one of these, because if you get it right,

it's like the gift that keeps on giving. This next one was

written by a New York songwriting duo of

Haven Gillespie and J Fred Coots, and as clearly, we're in New York,

let's have one of its celebrated versions by Bruce Springsteen,

who's over the river in New Joisey.

# You better watch out You better not cry

# You better not pout I'm telling you why

# Santa Claus is coming to town... #

The Boss's live concert version was released in 1981,

and still features on Christmas compilations today.

But the story of this song begins half a century earlier

on a New York train.

Haven Gillespie, a professional lyricist,

had been ordered by his publisher to write a Christmas song.

"What's the point?" he grumbled.

"Who's going to listen to it the other 11 months of the year?"

Gillespie sought inspiration from seasonal adverts

on a Manhattan subway train.

Then he remembered a warning from his mother,

"If you don't wash behind your ears, Haven, Santa won't come.

"You'd better be good."

He began to scribble lyrics on an envelope.

And during a short Manhattan subway ride he finished them.

As with, I think, a lot of songs that have endurance,

one of the elements they have is some kind of organic beginnings,

you know, from coming from a real life situation.

And when that happens, it's sort of otherworldly.

It's an amazing gift for a song writer.

And if a song, a new recording of Santa Claus Is Coming To Town,

is recorded by someone like Bruce Springsteen,

you know that you're going to have a really good Christmas.

Back in the 1930s, audiences appreciated a rather

different sound. In November 1934, radio host Eddie Cantor had

a live banjo version of this song on his show. It was a huge success.

Back then, sales of sheet music were the main source

of royalties income. The day after Cantor's show,

Santa Claus had sold 100,000 copies.

By Christmas, sales passed 400,000,

making it number one in the sheet music hit parade.

You didn't have the option then of buying a record

so you buy the sheet music, and then once we did have records

that were at a price the general public could afford,

then sheet music becomes less.

And so it goes, really. Each time the technology moves on a little,

then you find what was the main source of revenue tends to die away.

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town has been recorded

over 200 different times.

Each one of those is a bit of a present for the writers,

cos for every cover version, all the songwriting royalties

go to the people who wrote the song.

So 200 versions, let's listen to all of them.

No, I'll tell you what, let's just listen to a few.

First off,the unmistakable voice of Dolly Parton.

# You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not... #

And the Jackson 5.

# Santa Claus is coming to town... #

Brace yourselves now. It's Justin Bieber.

# He sees you when you're sleeping He knows when you're awake... #

And finally, Alice Cooper with Santa Claws Is Coming To Town.

As in claws. Do you see what he did there? Brilliant.

# Santa Claws is coming to town... #

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, like many seasonal songs

from the mid-'20th century, avoids any religious references.

When these songs became popular hits, they helped create our

modern idea of a secular Christmas. Perhaps this isn't such a surprise.

Many of them were written by songwriters who,

for obvious reasons, left Christianity out of it.

Jews always excelled at writing American songs.

The real irony is that Christmas songs became

the special property of Jewish songwriters.

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