New Monday #37

Good morning, all.

This came up at some cafe last week:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQShbReNt2o

My first thought was, “That’s a Bowie lick. That’s Rebel Rebel. What kind of fresh hell is this?”

This song has been out for a year and I’ve been blissfully unaware of it. It’s like I’m late to a party that I didn’t want to go to.

I Used to Make Up My Own Lyrics to Songs When I Didn’t Understand Them, Too.

So, Bowie’s estate sold his entire catalog to Warner Chappell in 2022 for $250,000,000. Zeros for emphasis. This is 26 albums worth of music, from “meh," like Be My Wife, to moments of absolute brilliance like Fantastic Voyage. And, of course, all of the hits.

Rebel Rebel, which is a song about a trans kid whose parents can’t figure them out, potentially finding love and acceptance:

You've got your mother in a whirl
She's not sure if you're a boy or a girl
Hey babe, your hair's alright
Hey babe, let's go out tonight

Gets commoditized into this:

Here's to old trucks, young love and Saturday nights

It’s covered legally under something called “Interpolation,” and David Bowie gets a co-write, along with Ashley Glenn Gorley, Jesse Vernon Frasure and Josh Thompson. Bowie did the heavy lifting back in 1973, playing the iconic riff himself. Here he is lip-synching it on TV dressed as a pirate. He’s really just wearing an eye patch (no parrot, no pirate) because he had pink eye.

Rebel Rebel: The Phantom Menace got to number 5 on the country charts. I don’t know how many streams that equals but split those pennies four ways.

We Need More Writers

Perhaps four writers, counting the dead one, isn’t enough. Perhaps we need, I dunno, another eleven. Because this Coldplay song has only five chords - Em, B, C, D, Bm - so that’s 3 songwriters per chord. I looked up the chords online and there’s actually a sixth chord I didn’t hear, an Am, which is forgivable because that’s really just the depressed cousin of the C.

Call it 2.5 songwriters per chord. So split those streams fifteen ways, although I suppose some are getting more than others.

I have to confess: I am “interpolating" this from Rick Beato. He spoke about it here a few days ago. It’s a good listen: he breaks down how the money flows. I’m not going to explain it any further because I’m not getting anything from the streaming. I’ll let Rick do the heavy lifting and get the pennies.

By the way, the song also had five producers.

What is there To Like?

Halsey’s latest record dropped three days ago. There’s a wonderful song called Dog Years. Great recording, lots of fun noises on the outro, interesting lyrics:

Well, they say all dogs go to Heaven
Well, what about a bitch?
What about an evil girl
Left lying in a ditch?

I'm not old, but I am tired
I'm one hundred ninety-six in dog years
I have seen enough
I've seen it all

Halsey wrote the song when she was 28... x7 (dog years) = 196. A cool autobiographical fact stuck in the lyrics!

Actually, calculating human years to their dog equivalent is more complex than that. Perhaps that is why the song required four writers and four producers.

Two Writers, One Producer

I was sitting with a friend (together we are 861 years young) and an old song came on. And we stopped talking and sat there and listened. It was this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_RQv7OMJFI

John Lennon wrote most of it, Paul McCartney contributed to the middle eight and the part about burning the apartment down. Produced by George Martin, who seems to have basically gotten out of the way, and engineered by Geoff Emerick. Just four tracks. Guitar and kick drum on one track, bass and a 12-string on another. Live to tape in three takes. Then vocals on a track, sitar on another, and a tambourine and some claps thrown in there somehow. I hear another acoustic guitar in there, but I don’t have my Beatles recording sessions book handy, so I can’t tell you for sure. Maybe they bounced things.

Norwegian Wood has been haunting me since I first heard it as a puppy. Every note on it is exactly the note needed. Every moment of it is interesting. Every part is unusual, right down to Ringo’s kick pattern. The lead and harmony were cut all at once in a few takes. George didn’t even know how to play the sitar! It was recorded in October, released in December, the second album The Beatles released that year, 1965.

Chris Young puts out a record every two years roughly. Coldplay releases at about the same rate, Halsey is about the same.

It must be difficult to schedule all those different writers and producers!

I hope you all manage to schedule in some STUDIO TIME this week.

Warm regards,

Luke

Ps. I couldn’t pick a Halsey quote, so here are two.

You got your mother in a whirl

She’s not sure if you’re a singer or a WW2 admiral.