How Do You Get A Songwriting Credit
Songwriting credit is a subject that has had a lot of controversy throughout the history of rock music. There are many cases of bands fighting over who wrote what in a song.
The issue has resurfaced again. A couple members of the band Spirit are suing Led Zeppelin for songwriting credits to the all time classic "Stairway To Heaven". The claim is the music was stolen from their song "Taurus".
We'll come back to this later but first let's answer the question in the title...How do you get a songwriting credit?
The answer is simple. If you write the lyrics, you get credit. If you write the melody, you get credit. THAT"S IT!!
Now it's not quite as simple as that sounds. Let's say you're in a band and we'll call them The Beatles. Paul and John have written a song and they need a guitar solo part. George comes in and writes the solo. Does he get a song writing credit? No, because it's not part of the melody.
See where we're going? Can you see how disputes can occur?
Remember the band Cream? Of course you do. Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker.
In the movie "Beware of Mr. Baker", Ginger complained about songwriting credits. His biggest complaint was that Jack Bruce's writing partner, Peter Brown, made more money from Cream than he did.
Baker wrote all those famous drum patterns that are stuck in your head but didn't profit from it. Why? Drums are not lyrics or melodies so there's no songwriting credits.
Ginger did touch on the one thing that makes the credit so important....Money. It all comes down to the cash.
That brings us back to the Spirit/Zeppelin story. There's a ton of cash involved. "Stairway" has an estimated worth of more than $550 million. Let me repeat that. Five Hundred Fifty Million Dollars.
Is greed involved? Absolutely! Randy California has been dead since 1997 and it's his estate that suing LZ.
However, this isn't Led Zeppelin's first time at this rodeo. Some of their early songs have had writing credits amended to include the names of other artists who the courts ruled to be the true songwriters.
By the way....here's credit to my blogging colleague Jenn-Anne Gledhill for having the story on her Facebook page. See how easy that is? Credit! Sorry J.A....no money for you.
How will this turn out? I have no idea, but in the gallery portion of this piece, I have both songs so you can listen and decide. For one of these bands, as it was said in the movie Wayne's World..."Stairway Denied".
This is such a big issue in the music world that we'll look at other controversies and sharing successes over the weekend.
No matter what the decision is, I bet guys like Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf are smiling down tonight.