The Richest Songs in the World Page #9

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# Goodbye, Norma Jean... #

What about Elton John's Candle In The Wind,

which shifted an amazing 33 million units?

If you remember at the time, it was

so many millions of copies of that single were just rushing out

of the stores, they couldn't print them fast enough.

I was slightly surprised not to see that in the list.

But, I guess the reason for that is because a song to get into

your top ten would have had to have had not just record sales,

but have been used in all sorts of other ways, as well.

And perhaps that is one of those songs that is so closely

associated with one event that it hasn't been used to that extent.

I mean, the obvious absence would be any Beatles records

other than Yesterday.

That would, I think, surprise most people.

# There's a fire starting in my heart... #

I guess, I mean, Adele would be the other one, of course.

But that is so new that only time will tell.

I expect those songs to have longevity.

By February 2012, Rolling In The Deep

had sold over 7 million copies in the USA alone.

The highest-ever selling digital single by a female artist.

Our countdown has revealed the magic ingredients

that make a song truly rich.

Huge sales and downloads, numerous cover versions,

constant radio airplay in countless countries.

# The scars of your love remind me... #

And to introduce it to a whole new audience,

an appearance in major movie or a TV ad campaign helps things along.

Adele's Rolling In The Deep has already had several cover versions.

And who knows?

If we continue to pay for the music we consume,

in ten or 20 years' time,

that song, too, may become one of the world's richest.

# Played it, you played it You played it to the beat. #

And so we come to our number two richest song.

And it is one of the classics of popular music.

No question about that.

It was written in 1940 by one of the 20th century's greatest

and most prolific songwriters.

Any idea what it is yet?

Well, this lavish special effect sequence might give you a clue.

# I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

# Just like the ones I used to know... #

Irving Berlin is one of a handful of great 20th-century songwriters

who wrote his own words and music.

Somebody was asked, "Where's Irving Berlin's place in American music?"

And the answer was, "He IS American music."

And White Christmas is the daddy, the big boss, of festive tunes.

For decades it was the top-selling record of all time,

Bing Crosby's version of it was the

top-selling single recorded song of all time.

A Merry Christmas, everybody. And good night.

When you think of accumulative sales of sheet music,

all its various, you know, untold hundreds and thousands of recordings

in God knows how many languages, you know, it was a monster.

Bing Crosby's version of that song has sold 50 million copies.

It was number one in the USA in 1942.

And '45. And '46.

#..Listen, and children... #

But eventually, he had to re-record it

because the master tape had been used so many times it

eventually fell apart. And so many people have recorded this immortal

song, that its total sales have now

amassed a staggering 100 million units.

I know that, was it last Christmas that Lady Gaga recorded it?

# I'm dreaming of a white snowman... #

I thought it was great.

# With a carrot nose and charcoal eyes... #

There are new recordings of White Christmas and it stays fresh

and I suppose so long as it does, it's going to be played.

# Oh! Quand j'entends chanter Noel... #

White Christmas has been translated into numerous languages

including Hungarian and Japanese.

Incredibly, there's a version in Swahili.

And in a nod to the writer's Jewish roots, there's one in Yiddish.

Irving Berlin's irresistible rise

isn't just most song-writers' fantasy.

It's the American Dream writ large.

# There may be trouble ahead... #

He was that penniless, poor immigrant who arrived at Ellis Island

from a Shtetl, in far-off Russia, and was a great, possibly apocryphal

story that when he was a newspaper boy some bullies,

some thugs threw him in to the East River where he nearly drowned and

somebody had to jump in to save him and clutched in his hands were the

three pennies that he had earned that day.

So he really was that rags to riches.

He definitely lived the rags part and then, of course,

he became a great songwriter and lived the riches.

During his career, Irving Berlin wrote over 1,000 songs.

As well as White Christmas, he wrote such greats as Top Hat,

Putting On The Ritz, and There's No Business Like Show Business.

And when the money began to roll in through his gift and his graft,

he was as keen to hang on to it as he had been when he was a kid.

He helped form ASCAP, the American royalties collection agency,

which laid the foundations of the royalties system we know today.

Berlin was a very smart business man

and very smart about protecting the writers' rights.

And also, of course, collecting royalty, collecting revenue.

He held on to his copyrights with an iron fist,

he wanted squeeze every last dime out of them.

Because Berlin had his own publishing company,

he had much more control over what his work earned.

But he was also very generous with some of the royalties.

During World War II he also wrote God Bless America.

All the royalties go to the Girl Scouts of America -

around 6 million so far.

But that's dwarfed by the money brought in by White Christmas.

Our research reveals that Berlin's masterpiece has earned

a staggering 24 million.

I think he would be very happy but I don't know whether

he would be very happy about losing out to number one place.

Like our number ten, The Christmas Song,

a huge part of White Christmas' success can be traced to

the USA's involvement in World War II.

I ask that the congress declare

a state of war between the United States and the Japanese Empire.

# I'm dreaming of a white Christmas... #

With American fighting forces overseas,

those American military thousands of miles from home, heard that song

with the context of wishing they were home with their own families.

And from the beginning, in a way that no-one possibly could have

anticipated, but which in hindsight was completely expected,

White Christmas became a nurturing anthem for soldiers

throughout the Allied Forces all over the world.

White Christmas became the most

requested song on Armed Forces Radio, listened to over and over

by homesick soldiers.

It's not just a "isn't Christmas so nice and wonderful?" song.

Nor is it a piece of wartime propaganda like the deservedly

forgotten You're A Sap, Mr Jap.

There's a longing to Berlin's song which comes from his own

mixed feelings about the time of year.

I think that Irvin Berlin brought to the creation of that song

his own emotion, which was bitter sweet,

life is joy and sadness mixed together,

and there is a yearning in White Christmas,

there is a combination of melancholy and sweet.

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