The Richest Songs in the World Page #5

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The Christmas Song, Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire,

Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town,

Winter Wonderland - these are all written by Jewish songwriters.

So what do you know?

Well, what we know, with some degree of accuracy at least,

is that Santa Claus Is Coming To Town has,

in its various incarnations,

good, bad and indifferent, made just over 16.5 million.

So if we assume the publishing company have

taken 50% of the royalties,

then the other 50% has been split between Haven Gillespie

and J Fred Coots. Therefore, that inspired 1930s New York subway ride

has netted Haven and his heirs four million quid so far.

# He's coming to town... #

A 50/50 split is still common in the US,

but nowadays, a very successful British writer can get 75% or more.

And some songwriters, famous and not,

are controlling their own publishing to maximise their returns.

Before we move on to the sixth richest song in the world,

here's a cautionary tale for budding songwriters about a song

that just narrowly missed our chart.

When Van Morrison was a little boy he was a cheery soul.

He was good. He did go to sleep. He had marvellous Christmases.

And yet these days, he has something of a truculent

and grumpy reputation.

What could have happened to change cheery little Van

into the person we think we know today?

Perhaps this story of the relationship between

Van the songwriter and his record company holds the answer.

Maybe.

In 1967, 21-year-old Van the young man recorded in New York

with Bert Burns, pop impresario and owner of Bang Records.

One of the songs recorded was Brown Eyed Girl,

which would become Morrison's most successful ever song.

MUSIC:
"Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison

# Hey, where did we go

# Days when the rains came

# Down in the hollow... #

It has been played 10 million times on American radio.

I mean, even I was flabbergasted by that.

# You my, you my brown eyed girl... #

But this incredibly popular song is certainly not one of Van Morrison's

personal favourites. And with good reason.

One of Morrison's problems with Brown Eyed Girl is that he

has hardly ever received any royalties for it.

Partly because when he signed up with Burt Burns,

like any 21-year-old, you're keen to just get in there

and you'll sign whatever is put under your nose.

And his royalty rate was extremely low.

Well, it varied between extremely low to nonexistent on this material.

We reckon that Brown Eyed Girl has earned just over 12 million.

Thank you very much, thank you.

So there you go, bit of a cautionary tale. Of course, Van the man being

Van the man, he got his revenge in his customary way.

He wrote some deliberately bad songs for the Bang label,

and around that time he wrote a song called The Big Royalty Check,

the words to which go something like,

"I'm waiting for my royalty check to come in, it still hasn't come yet,

"It's about a year overdue, oh, oh, oh, oh."

I would say, if there is a moral, if there is a lesson in the story

of Brown Eyed Girl for the young songwriter, it's hold on to

the production, the publishing and the sound of it, if you can.

And make sure it's your song, make sure that it stays your song.

MUSIC:
"Stand By Me" by Ben E King

Brilliant bass-line. Classic intro to a classic song.

Unmistakeable and one of the greats of American songwriting.

Co-written by Ben E King

and the legendary songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.

Some of our tunes so far have had a sense of loss, of regret,

of guilt about them.

But this one, a resolutely upbeat message,

really lovely story behind it.

Ben E King wrote it for his childhood sweetheart, Betty.

I was sitting at home one day, I start strumming on my cheap guitar

and my wife, I was newly married,

and we were in a cheap one-room apartment and it came to life.

# When the night has come

# And the land is dark

# And the moon is the only light we'll see... #

Once completed, I knew that it was different to the other songs

that I had written. And that it did have something stronger

than what I thought it would end up being.

It just seemed to flow.

# Stand by me

# So darling, darling Stand by me... #

The year was 1960.

King travelled from his home in New York to the Brill Building,

a complex in Manhattan packed with writers churning out hit after hit.

One of the duos there were Jerry Leiber - who passed away in 2011-

and Mike Stoller.

Among their numbers were Hound Dog and Jailhouse Rock for Elvis.

Major talents, then.

I kind of sussed out the chords of the piano while he was singing

and I came up with a bass pattern.

And Jerry yelled, "That's it, that's a hit."

# Dum dum dum, dum Dum dum dum, dum

# Dum dum dum, dum, da dum dum

# Da dum dum. #

Once you hear that line, and no other line is like that,

other than My Girl by The Temptations.

Close, but no cigar, the line of Stand By Me is right there.

# I won't cry

# I won't cry, no I won't shed a tear

# Just as long

# As you stand, stand by me... #

Of course, we added the guiro and the triangle so it was...

Bum, thwk, ding, thwk, ding.

And... But we picked up with the bass pattern later in the strings,

and then kept going higher and higher and higher.

STRINGS PLAY MELODY

You know, who doesn't love this song?

I mean, a classic is a word that's bandied around too easily

but this has everything.

It's beautifully sung, it's impassioned, it's passionate,

it has great melody.

And it appeared at just the right moment.

The late '50s and early '60s witnessed the birth

of the civil rights movement in the USA. An African-American

and two Jewish hep cats had composed a gospel-influenced anthem

to tolerance and togetherness, that would become timeless.

Stand By Me has a universal resonance.

Just in its message, you know,

we all want somebody or something to stand by us, to protect us,

to support us, to be there for us, and this is a classic instance

of a kind of gospel sentiment being transposed to a love lyric.

The song's theme of togetherness was reflected in how Ben E King

dealt with the royalties issue.

It was a very amicable split between himself,

Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.

Jerry said, "Well, you should be a part of this," and I agreed,

and so I have 25% interest as a writer, and Jerry 25,

because, in truth, Ben E did come

with the initial idea both musically and lyrically,

and it's worked well.

Most of us that create music, we don't think money first,

that's why most of us get hurt.

But we do feel that if it happens with a great song or

with some good people, we'll be financially fit. Yeah.

Stand By Me was a hit in 1961 on both sides of the Atlantic.

Then in 1986, it was used in the movie of the same name,

a coming-of-age flick starring a young River Phoenix.

And boom! It became a bigger hit 25 years later,

the exact same recording, nothing was changed.

So I guess it held up.

A year after the movie, in 1987, Stand By Me

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