The Richest Songs in the World Page #7

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But it's not all doom and gloom out there.

The 21st century is throwing up new challenges,

but it's creating possibilities and openings for songwriters, as well.

I'm very bullish on the future of the music industry in general.

Song writers, artists, record companies, everybody in the future

is going to be probably making a lot more money

than they made in the past.

There's film, television licensing, mobile apps, streaming music,

streaming services,

greeting cards and all kinds of music-producing devices.

Even as you're listening to this broadcast,

over 250,000 music producing devices are being manufactured.

MUSIC:
"Mosh" by Eminem

Not so long ago, Eminem joined Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber

in racking up over a billion views on his YouTube Channel.

And a video he made with Rihanna, for Love The Way You Lie,

set a record for the most hits in one day.

Rolling Stone Magazine estimates that a writer earns around

Eminem's songs have had a billion. You do the maths.

Our next song is a classic of British songwriting

from the greatest band of all time.

It was written by Paul McCartney, who you've probably heard of.

You may also be vaguely aware of the band he was in, The Beatles.

And this was recorded in 1965.

Our number four richest song is Yesterday.

# Yesterday

# All my troubles seemed so far away

# Now it looks as though they're here to stay

# Oh, I believe in yesterday... #

Have you really thought where the song came from?

Have you been able to work it out?

I don't know, you know, as you say, I dreamed it,

and woke up one morning with the tune in my head.

Didn't believe it was mine, really. I just thought...well, it can't be

cos I've got the whole tune, you know, it never happens like that.

It is strange that it's sort of the most successful, that I didn't

even write it really, in a way, but my subconscious wrote it.

McCartney has said this melody came to him

on a tour of France with The Beatles in 1964.

So he could remember it, before he came up with the words

to Yesterday, Paul McCartney remembered this by singing,

"Scrambled eggs, oh, my baby, how I love your legs."

The baby being Jane Asher with whom he was living at the time.

Not bad for a song that had its beginnings humbly in scrambled eggs.

# Scrambled eggs

# Oh, my baby, how I love your legs

# Not as much as I love scrambled eggs

# Oh, we should eat some scrambled eggs... #

From what I gather, that song was knocking around for ages.

They were doing different things, they were working

on a film and they had a piano to the side and McCartney

kept going across and tinkling away and that song came up again and it

became the joke of the band, here goes scrambled eggs again.

The eggy lyrics were finally replaced in May 1965.

With some pretty downbeat, if not depressing, new words.

Looking back on it now, people have suggested that it might have been

to do with the death of my mum.

Cos it has got, "Why she had to go, I don't know, she wouldn't say,

"I believe in yesterday" and stuff.

So it may have been subconsciously something to do with that.

I'm trying to remember it, now.

# Yesterday

# All my troubles seemed so far away

# Now it looks as though they're here to stay

# Oh, I believe in yesterday... #

It's hard to believe now, but in 1965 many found the Fab Four's music

dangerously modern. McCartney's aching ballad was more acceptable.

You could say it was a Beatles song for people

who didn't like The Beatles.

# Yesterday... #

Yesterday went on to be a chart hit across the globe,

the US, Australia, Germany, Norway, on and on and on.

But a huge hit can be a curse as well as a blessing.

Especially when it's written by one band member.

Yesterday was the first Beatles song McCartney wrote alone,

and John, George and Ringo didn't perform on it.

You could say that Yesterday was the song that,

in the end, broke up The Beatles.

There was always immense creative tension between Paul McCartney

and John Lennon.

And so Paul McCartney is throwing off these tunes, you know,

and John Lennon might not admit it but he must have resented it.

There must have been part of him that thought "I could do that."

And after The Beatles split up, Lennon did.

One of the songs included a bitter reference to Yesterday.

Later on in that horrible song How Do You Sleep?

that he wrote about Paul McCartney, he'd say, one of the lines is...

# The only thing you done was Yesterday... #

That rankled with him for a long, long time.

Yesterday was credited to Lennon/ McCartney, as most of The Beatles'

songs were, which might seem odd, as McCartney wrote it alone.

But then Lennon shared his royalties

on Beatles' songs he wrote solo, too.

When Yesterday appeared on the 1995 anthology, McCartney unsuccessfully

attempted to have the credit changed to McCartney/Lennon.

What you have to realise with The Beatles, is that the

afterlife of the Beatles was longer, more complex, more tortured,

more painful than the quite brief period that they were together.

A lot of those arguments were people and their lawyers,

their representatives sitting around boardroom tables in London and New York or whatever,

trying to divvy up this massively lucrative legacy that these guys had

knocked out when they were 23, 24, years old, at a time when there

was no precedent, nobody had been there, you know.

They were out there with no compass at all.

And there was plenty of money to argue about.

Yesterday is reported to be the most popular British song in the US.

And it's also the most covered pop song in history.

The Guinness Book of World Records estimates

there are at least 3,000 existing versions.

In fact, so many people have done it, it's easier to list some of the people that haven't done it.

They include Kraftwerk, The MC5 and Throbbing Gristle.

Some of the celebrated cover versions of this include

Tom Jones, Tammy Wynette, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes,

Elvis Presley, Andy Williams. I mean, the list just goes on and on.

They know it's going to be enjoyed by the public in a sense

if they enjoy their artistry at all, because it's so recognisable.

It's a great way to fill albums with things you know the people

are ready to accept, and, as I said, it helps the copyright immensely.

HE HUMS YESTERDAY

The troubles do indeed seem so far away

when we tot up the song's earnings.

We estimate it's made 19.5 million English pounds.

- There might be all these versions, but that's THE version.

- Oh...

CROWD CHEER AND APPLAUD

So let's have a look at our top ten, what do we notice?

Two distinct groups of songs,

that's what I noticed when I first saw this list.

You've got the Christmas songs - understandable,

we all love Christmas.

But the other group of songs are on altogether darker themes -

obsession, regret, paranoia, affairs, loneliness, longing.

Even Stand By Me, which is our happiest song,

has an element of "you and me against the world" to it.

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