My boss is a music snob. He enjoys mostly '70s funk, and everything else is crap. The other day at lunch, he launched off on a tirade about how Britney Spears and Madonna don’t write their own music.
Somehow, from Britney and Madonna, we got onto the topic of whether Elvis wrote his own songs. Being an Elvis fan, I claimed with absolutely no authority to back it up that Elvis did write some of his own music. My boss laughed at me. I then went on to claim that not only did Elvis write most of his own music, but that he also wrote all of Beethoven’s music and most of Gershwin’s as well. And thus, I lost the argument.
But I’m pretty sure he did write some songs that he performed. An internet search revealed mainly CD’s for sale. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time right now to go through each site to find which songs he wrote.
Elvis co-wrote “Love Me Tender” and “All Shook Up” for starters. A better argument, though, is that judging people’s artistic worth solely on the basis of whether they composed their own music is shallow and juvenile.
No, he didn’t. Elvis never wrote a single song. Where he is credited as doing so, it’s because Colonel Tom Parker made it a condition of contract that Elvis would not record the song unless he was credited as co-writer (and thus could claim a cut of the songwriter’s royalties).
That’s a bit uncalled for. I certainly don’t judge a person’s artistic worth based solely on whether they wrote their own music. I would like Elvis even if he didn’t write any of his own songs. And my boss was a musician for twenty years before going to law school. He wrote most of his own music. He still takes music very seriously. In his opinion, the likes of Britney Spears do not create “art,” but merely are pre-packaged performances produced to make scads of cash.
Evil Death, he wrote none of his own music? Even the early stuff?
Correct. All Elvis’s early records were covers, and every Elvis song that he recorded first was written for him. He would tell people this if they asked.
You have to remember that when Elvis was starting out, the concept of singer/sonwriter was still in its early stages. No one considered it odd if a singer didn’t write his own music, and most successful singers didn’t write their own songs (nor did successful songwriters perform them).
Some people were beginning to make it as singer songwriters (but even Little Richard and Chuck Berry came later), but it was still the usual thing for a singer to do what we now call “covers.”
It wasn’t until the 60s that singers were expected to write their own songs. Whether Elvis wrote his own stuff or not is not an issue when discussing his career.
I didn’t say you thought that, so there’s no need to take it personally. I would agree with his appraisal of Britney Spears, but really, don’t we all pretty much know that Britney is shit? Who’s going to go to the mat to defend Britney Spears? Supposedly insightful music critics who waste their time attacking the likes of Spears need to realize that we get it—it’s time to move on.
I was responding to the part of your first post wherein your boss disses Britney and Madonna for not writing their own music. I think Madonna has done some very worthy work in her time, and regardless of whether she happened to write the dots herself, she’s made music that very much expresses who she is and what she wants to say; I have no hesitation in attacking as shallow a critique that would attempt to dismiss someone like Madonna simply because she (they) didn’t compose their own music.
Hate to be nitpicky, but Madonna does write the vast majority of her own songs. Yes there is a few big ones she didn’t write, but she does write the vast majority all the same.
Gotcha. I think we agree that one shouldn’t dismiss an artist based solely on the fact that they didn’t write their own music. And I don’t think that my boss would entirely disagree, either. There are some people with amazing voices who sing songs that other people wrote for them.
But I think it’s sort of the icing on the cake for my boss. He dislikes Madonna and Britney Spears and their music. As a musician himself, the fact that they didn’t even write the crappy songs (in his opinion) that they sing just rankles him.
Sort of like the old joke about the couple at the restaurant complaining about the horrible food, and the small portions.
But back to Elvis. You guys are really bringing me down. I shouldn’t have told my boss that Elvis wrote “Happy Birthday” and the dial tone, either. I guess I expected too much from the man.
Excuse me? Parker is notorious as one of the most wretched, deceitful, money-grabbing incompetents in the history of music management. This is the cretin who “negotiated” a contract whereby Elvis had no right to see his royalty statements and who, in 1973, sold all the rights to Presley’s entire record catalogue to RCA for less than a tenth of what they were really worth. And all for a percentage two and a half times greater than what any reputable manager would have asked.
With all due respect to your boss, not only is he a music snob, he is clueless. A quick perusal of Madonna’s entry at All Music Guide shows that she is credited as the writer or co-writer on most of the tracks on her albums:
Madonna (1983) - 7 of 8 tracks Like a Virgin (1984) - 6 of 10 tracks True Blue (19860 - 9 of 9 tracks Like a Prayer (1989) - 11 of 11 tracks Erotica (1992) - 13 of 14 tracks Bedtime Stories (1994) - 10 of 11 tracks Ray of Light (1998) - 13 of 13 tracks Music (2000) - 10 of 10 tracks American Life (2003) - 11 of 11 tracks
That works out to be 90 out of 97 tracks. In other words, Madonna is credited as a writer on 97% of the songs on her album. This doesn’t include her songs that appeared only as singles or on soundtracks.
Here’s a list of Madonna’s songs that she wrote or co-wrote:
[ul]
[li]Lucky Star[/li][li]Borderline[/li][li]Angel[/li][li]Into the Groove[/li][li]Papa Don’t Preach[/li][li]Open Your Heart[/li][li]Live to Tell[/li][li]True Blue[/li][li]La Isla Bonita[/li][li]Like a Prayer[/li][li]Express Yourself[/li][li]Cherish[/li][li]Take a Bow[/li][li]Secret[/li][li]Ray of Light[/li][li]Frozen[/li][li]Music[/li][li]Don’t Tell Me[/li][li]American Life[/li][li]Who’s That Girl[/li][li]Vogue[/li][li]Justify My Love[/li][li]This Used to be my Playground[/li][/ul] Here’s a list of her hit songs that she didn’t write:
[ul]
[li]Holiday[/li][li]Material Girl[/li][li]Like a Virgin[/li][li]Dress You Up[/li][/ul] You might want to mention to your boss that there are lots of artists in opera or on Broadway that don’t sing their own songs. That doesn’t mean they aren’t still artists.
I reckon that 1963-199? will be remembered as that quaint but aberrant era when writing one’s own songs and not selling out were vital to one’s “hip credentials”.
Having said that, while I respect artists that write their own material more (for the extra effort, if anything), I would hesitate to make it a litmus test for a performer’s validity. Elvis didn’t write his songs, but he was Elvis and his idiosyncrasies at least made those songs his in some way.
Joke, son. I know enough about the Colonel to know he ultimately did Elvis no favors. I didn’t know he’d insisted on the songwriting credit clause, though (which would’ve been a good thing for Elvis had the Colonel not ultimately bilked him out of those royalties).
To confirm what others have said, Elvis Presley was not a songwriter, and freely admitted as much. When people asked about songs he was given credit for co-writing, he just chuckled and said, “Shoot, ah never wrote a song in mah life.” In the 1950’s, it was not uncommon for a songwriter to share composing credits with people in a position to do him some good. Good example: disc jockey Alan Freed is listed as co-writer of Chuck Berry’s “Maybelline.” Freed had nothing to do with writing it, of course- but he demanded songwriting credit and royalties as the price for playing Berry’s records on the radio. In the same way, when an unknown songwriter like Otis Blackwell came along, Colonel Tom Parker could tell him, “If Elvis records your song, it’ll be a huge hit. If he doesn’t, hardly anyone will hear it. Now, would you rather have 50% of the royalties to a smash hit, or 100% of the royalties to a song that nobody ever hears?” Blackwell decided to share credit with Elvis for a few of his hits, and a few other songwriters did the same.
Still, that doesn’t make Elvis any less great. Remember, Elvis’ greatest skill was taking an existing song and doing things with it that nobody had ever heard before. Elvis didn’t write “Blue Moon Over Kentucky,” but he changed it into something Bill Monroe never dreamed of. ANd he turned Lieber & Stoller’s “Hound Dog” inmto an entirely different song from what they’d written. To take a song and make it your own is a talent in itself.
Something to ask your boss- did Frank Sinatra write his own songs? Does Itzakh Perlman compose his own violin concertos? Does Placido Domingo write his own arias? Did Benny Goodman write his own music? In each case, the answer is no.
Until Dylan and the Beatles came along, singers weren’t really expected to write their own material, any more than actors were expected to write their own screenplays.
The Everly Brothers didn’t write their own songs (Boudleaux Bryant wrote most of their hits). Neither did Sam Cooke. Fats Domino and Buddy Holly wrote or co-wrote some of their songs, but they both did a LOT of covers, too. There’s no disgrace in that.
