The Richest Songs in the World Page #6

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was used as the soundtrack to a cult British TV ad for Levi's Jeans.

Fees to use a hit song in a commercial are negotiable

and can range from 50,000 to 750,000

So if a creative really wants to use your song,

don't sell yourself short.

Dependability, Stand By Me.

It's a great friend, it's someone you want to be with, it's..

They're the right values and that's very important

when a brand are doing advertising because they want you,

when you go away, to associate with that

so when you see their product, it makes you feel those things.

In 1987 Stand By Me went to number one here in the UK.

The '60s were cool again, and the combination of nostalgia

and new technology proved to be a money-spinner.

So those records, I wouldn't mind betting, sold a lot more on

being revived in the '80s, than they would have sold in the '60s, because

the record market in the '60s was quite small. You know, it was quite

a specialist thing, buying records - not everybody had a record player.

OK, fast forward to the '80s, everybody's got a CD player,

everybody's got a tape player, you know, and so the revenues

for a thing like that would be absolutely massive as a consequence.

It all helps. We reckon that Stand By Me

has brought in royalties worth just under 17.5 million.

That's nearly 28 million.

If it wasn't for Stand By Me, I'd probably be driving a cab.

If it wasn't for Stand By Me...

I wouldn't be as happy as I am

with my family and my grandkids and my kids.

Um, well, let's see, that means the publishers got 14...

If the writers were treated properly,

they would have divided up seven.

Um...that's a lot of money.

Where's it all gone?

And here's another happy aspect of the Stand By Me story.

Ben E King has put a lot of the money raised by this song

into the Stand By Me Foundation, which gives kids who might

not otherwise have got the chance to get scholarships to music college.

So that's a lot of money, a lot of kids, and a lot of scholarships.

OK, so now we get to number five.

This song was written in 1955 by Alex North and Hy Zaret.

Its most celebrated version is by the Righteous Brothers,

but it's a ballad which both seasoned professionals

and rank amateurs can't resist belting out again and again.

It'll be very familiar to you, feel free to sing along.

I know I will.

# Oh

# My love

# My darling

# I've hungered for your touch

# A long, lonely time... #

Bit of auto-tune wouldn't go amiss, there. Bit low.

North and Zaret wrote Unchained Melody for a 1955 movie

called, as you might be able to guess, Unchained.

A prisoner dreams of his girl who is far away

and hungers for her touch. Ah.

# I need your love... #

Unchained Melody comes out of a period of song-writing

in the '50s when you couldn't have a Hollywood movie

that didn't have a song in it, it was regarded... You couldn't do it.

They'd have this ridiculous war film or cowboy film and there'd always

be a set piece where somebody would sing a song, very often a ballad.

The bloke who wrote the music, Alex North, didn't think

much of it at the time and threw it in the office wastepaper basket.

He had to hurriedly retrieve it when he heard the cleaning lady

humming along to the tune they'd been working on.

Thought he might have been a bit hasty. Good job he did retrieve it -

massive, massive song.

# Time goes by... #

Put together with Zaret's dramatic lyrics, the song took off.

In 1955, four other versions of it reached the top ten

in the USA and the UK.

# Still mine... #

But the classic recording is the 1965 one by Bill Medley

and Bobby Hatfield, better known as the Righteous Brothers.

# Whoa, my love

# My darling... #

Some songs don't sound as if they were written,

they sound as if they were found, like the Dead Sea Scrolls

they were uncovered somewhere.

And Unchained Melody's got that feeling about it.

It sounds like, you know,

every ballad you've ever heard melded in to one.

No criticism at all.

# I need your love, I need your love Godspeed your love to me. #

You know, time goes by so slowly but time can do so much,

if you're still...

There's something about a song like Unchained Melody that is just this

extreme plaintive need for you to be in my life because without you

I'm nothing. As they say, really unhealthy thoughts, but beautiful.

And there's something about that specific melody that gives itself

to almost a biblical proportion of need.

# I need your love... #

As all of you who watch Mad Men will know,

the '50s in the USA were a period of prosperity but stifling conformity.

So maybe it's not surprising that all those pent-up feelings

found their expression in this uber-ballad.

Since 1955, there have been over 650 cover versions.

One of the four that's become a UK number one was by Gareth Gates,

which sold over 1.3 million copies.

# I need your love... #

It's one of those songs that any singer presented with the lead sheet

would think, "I can do that,

"I can belt may way through that no problem at all", you know.

It's got that kind of X Factor, kind of, "Me, me, me!

"Feel my pain!" thing about it.

So over the years, it's had all manner of rough treatment,

but, you know, it can take it.

# Lonely rivers flow to the sea To the sea... #

# To the open arms of the sea... #

Are you watching, Simon Cowell?

Pretty much note-perfect. Unchained Melody is a great karaoke favourite.

And artists are very keen for their songs to be included

in karaoke sets these days.

Adele at a recent awards ceremony dedicated her success to

everyone who sings karaoke.

Companies like this have to pay a license which covers all

the copyright on the songs they're using, and so when a song

like Unchained Melody is played and sung and murdered by people like me,

every time, then someone, somewhere is getting a royalty on it.

Which is nice.

Because karaoke has been hugely popular since the early '90s.

If you're very lucky and if you have a very successful song, they have

so many ways of making money and any one, karaoke may not be

a major player in buying a brand-new car, but it all goes together.

Our research shows that since Unchained Melody was let loose,

it has made just over 18 million.

Of course, not all songwriters make millions.

Most struggle to make a living wage. On top of that,

regular income streams like sheet music,

and record and CD sales, are in long-term decline.

And the internet is still in large parts unregulated,

with piracy and downloading rife.

It's happened so quickly, it's on such a grand scale, that it's enough

to almost take your breath away and your livelihood at the same time.

Bill Withers sat with a congressman and he said,

"You know, congressman. I want you to appreciate something.

"We need to be able to make a living with our songwriting,

"and if we can't make a living writing songs,

"then we're going to have to do something else for a living,

"and, congressman, you do not want Ozzy Osbourne as your plumber."

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