A-Lyric.com

According to a report in Headliner Watch, actor Mel Gibson is in a legal dispute with his ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva. But this time it’s not about a crooked tooth or alimony, it’s about lyrics that he wrote with her. The Russian beauty Grigorieva recorded an album produced by Gibson and with lyrics by him. To release the material, she needs his signature. But as they are in a very public dispute, he seems to be holding back. The issue will most likely go to court and could take ages, by which time the album could well be dead in the water.

This illustrates the importance of choosing your co-writers well. It is appallingly easy to get material locked in disputes. I once met a lawyer that specialised in finding ex-partners of the writers of hits to see if any old demos resembled the hit. When a claim is filed, payments can be put on hold until they are resolved. And courts can be notoriously random in their rulings. You do not want to go that path. So always choose to work with talented gentlemen (or ladies), and if you find any, do me a favour and let me know.

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If you’ve been around here before, you’re probably aware that I hate most national anthems. I’ll make an exception for South Africa’s “Nkosi Sikeleli Africa”. For one thing, it features four different languages, and most importantly of all, it’s not a call to arms.
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It must be said: Germany’s entry, “Satellite” by Lena, was a very so-so song, and it wasn’t exactly an electric vocal performance. Strange that they received so many votes, although this sort of thing is said every year.

But what about the lyrics? A research and semantics laboratory had the fun idea of pasting all the Eurovision song lyrics together and running them through a semantics analyser, Intellexer. These sort of things are usually used to quickly analyse and summarise long texts, for the purpose of creating executive summaries. In the case of the Eurovision, the result is almost a corny version of haiku:

Let the sun shine, glide away my moon
Let the light of my love shine bright
I don’t believe any more your shallow heart.
Feeling the love ’till the day when I die.
For the cruel-cruel time when I’m first time in love

As many lyricists seem to write a compendium of worn-out clichés, it’s not surprising that an executive summary of Eurovision lyrics is itself a compendium of worn-our clichés.

If there are any lyrics that actually touched, please let us know by dropping a message. Read more about Intellexer.

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John Lennon’s handwritten lyrics to “A Day in the Life” are going up for auction in May, with estimates of $500,000 being floated. Not all lyrics do as well as expected at auction, but as investors currently look to place their bets in places outside currency and property, I’d think this one should do well. The lyrics cover both sides of a sheet of paper, with edits and corrections, making it a fascinating object for people interested in the epic “Sgt Peppers” album.

But as someone noted on my Twitter account, maybe writers should not give up handwriting lyrics. Buying an iPhone or Asus netbook that once belonged to a writer does not have quite the same mystique as actual written lyrics. In fact, it wouldn’t even get that far, as we tend to either forget to back up or drop electronic hardware down the stairs.

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I’ve seen audiences get riled up about song contests, but rarely seen an orchestra almost run riot. Italy’s San Remo song contest is a prestigious event that celebrates the classic tradition of Italian canzone. What is surprising is that contestants have to face two juries: the orchestra playing behind the singers and the general public. The 2010 edition, which just closed, witnessed some incredible scenes, when the orchestra started throwing music sheets and booing when one of the contestants got through to the final three. TV presenter (and grandson of Italy’s last king) Emanuele Filiberto had given a comparatively poor vocal performance and should have been eliminated. But the popular vote got him through.

At the end of the day, however, the festival’s honour was saved when Valerio Scanu won the 2010 award, singing the ballad “Per tutte le volte che” (for all the times) written by Pierdavide Carone. The best man won this time at least.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t embed the scene of the musicians letting rip. But you can find a report on Euronews.

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I took some time at Midem 2010 to put a question to David Stark, publisher of SongLink. His tipsheet provides some of the best tips in the business, hooking up major artists with songs. The “names” have included Tina Tuner, James Blunt, Kim Wilde and many others. Publishers and songwriters use SongLink obviously to get their songs on the shortlist. So the obvious question was: what does it take to write for a name artist?

You’ll find the answer here.

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One of popular music’s most remarkable songs, “Dans le port d’Amsterdam” made famous by Jacques Brel, has now been linked to an old Irish song called “Since Greybeards Inform Us That Youth Will Decay” by T. Toms.

In 1814-16, Beethoven (no less) was asked to transcribe 20 Irish songs (lieders) for the Scottish publisher George Thomson. They include this melody (WoO 153 n°4), which was later recorded by the Music Group of London amongst others. Journalist Serge Llado has created a mash-up of the two recordings, which is quite simply stunning. Listen to it here. Source: Si ça vous chante.

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The unpredictable nature of plagiarism cases was proved again when it was ruled that Men at Work would have to pay out between 40-60% of earnings from their anthemic comedy song, “Down Under”. The case was brought by the music company Larrikin, which bought the rights to the Australian scout song “Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree”, composed in the thirties. They claim the flute solo in “Down Under” plagiarised their copyright. Given that a song is a combination of the melody and the words, I was surprised they were claiming part of the copyright for what is in fact part of the arrangement – although I’m not a legal expert and it looks as though the court felt otherwise. The ruling notes that the riff “feels different”, which is quite an understatement. Apparently, the song was originally composed without the riff. But the ruling stands.

For those with a legal mind, you can read the ruling here.

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The perception of traditional Irish music is that it was all written in the Middle Ages. But that’s forgetting that many musicians write in traditional mode, creating new songs in a recognisable trad style. This is true of Cesaria Evora and indeed of the Stray Cats (jumping genres). This fact was underlined at the recent concert of Shantalla in Brussels on January 30. Continue Reading »

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On 25th February Cancer Research UK’s Sound & Vision event will take place at the iconic Abbey Road Studios, celebrating rock, pop, the people who make it and the images it inspires. A range of memorabilia is up for grabs, including lyrics by Biffy Clyro, Tori Amos and a neat drum skin from Kaiser Chiefs with the lyrics of “I Predict a Riot”.

Find out more on the e-Bay page.

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