|
|
Post by AGD on Oct 28, 2021 6:15:58 GMT -5
Back in 2015, as part of my 60th birthday celebrations, I got to see The Faces reunion (Rod, Ronnie & Kenney, and splendid they were), and also on the bill was Steve Harley, who was also rather good. He did maybe four songs, and for the last one simply said "The pension song" - and played "Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)".
And he was right, of course, because of all his catalog, that's the one that gets the most airplay on a regular basis and provides a good chunk of his income these days. Got me thinking... what are other artists "pension songs" ? I add the most obvious: Wizzard's and Slade's Christmas songs. I recall reading that Noddy Holder makes something like £500,000 a year from that bloody thing (hate it with a vengence). So, what would be your submissions for a 2CD set called The Pension Song ? Obviously, a good few artists - Beatles, Who, Stones, Beach Boys, Stevie Wonder to name but five - have no such thing and indeed, no need. But, say, Kiki Dee ? Obviously the duet with Elt. Zombies ? "Time Of The Season". Over to you.
|
|
|
|
Post by Rick Bartlett on Oct 28, 2021 8:32:51 GMT -5
There's another obvious famous one, Amercian Pie - Don McClean.
from wiki:
When asked what "American Pie" meant, McLean jokingly replied, "It means I don't ever have to work again if I don't want to."
|
|
|
|
Post by jk on Oct 28, 2021 8:52:23 GMT -5
I was waiting for someone else to post first. Thanks, Rick.  The song that immediately came to my mind was "A Whiter Shade Of Pale". Nothing else by Procol Harum has come remotely close to equalling its enduring success. Messrs Brooker, Reid and Fisher must be contented pensioners. They could have been even more contented in their retirement if they'd made the B-side the instrumental track instead of that silly piece of fluff. It would have been played day and night as background music. (The Jaynetts tried this tactic with "Sally Go 'Round The Roses" in ’63.) I never did understand that. I bought it at the time but soon tired of it and now I can't stand it. Give me the likes of "A Salty Dog", "Shine On Brightly" and "Homburg" any day.  |
|
|
|
Post by boogieboarder on Oct 28, 2021 11:31:50 GMT -5
Paul McCartney - Let it Be
Ringo Starr - With a Little Help From My Friends.
The Beach Boys - Kokomo (oddly)
The Association - Never My Love
|
|
Departed
Former Member
Posts: 0
Likes:
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 28, 2021 11:49:01 GMT -5
Paul McCartney had a number of pension songs already. Ringo has zero. Kokomo's credits are shared by a number of non-Beach Boys people. Mike already had a pension song or two in the bag. The Association still had to work. The Addrissi brothers were who scored with Never My Love.
Eubie Blake had I'm Just Wild About Harry & Memories Of You. Those kept him afloat for many years.
Leon Russell purposely set out to write standards. He achieved his goal with A Song For You & This Masquerade.
Oh, almost forgot, in my LA days I met an interesting retired man named George Bassman. Our very short conversation was mostly me listening to him tell me how well his composition, I'm Getting Sentimental Over You, had treated him over the years. He had on very nice velvet loafers. I believed him.
|
|
|
|
Post by AGD on Oct 28, 2021 12:17:04 GMT -5
Paul McCartney - Let it Be
Ringo Starr - With a Little Help From My Friends.
The Beach Boys - Kokomo (oddly) The Association - Never My Love You're missing the point: the pension song is the ONE SONG that the vast majority of folk know from that artist, and gets played the most on radio. Neither Macca nor Ringo needs a pension song any more than the BB do (as I pointed out in the OP). The Association... maybe "Cherish" more than "Never My Love" |
|
|
|
Post by jk on Oct 28, 2021 12:55:05 GMT -5
I'm thinking John Fogerty might make the grade with "Proud Mary". Are there other compositions of his anywhere as popular as "PM" that might disqualify him?  |
|
Departed
Former Member
Posts: 0
Likes:
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 28, 2021 15:23:18 GMT -5
Can I mention another one? Oh, OK, I will.
In the early 80's I collaborated with an English songwriter living in LA. We ended up not being compatible, creatively, but we did finish and demo one tune.
The writer was Terry Shaddick. He had been the leader of a UK band called Tranquility. I met him through a mutual Curt Boettcher connection. At the time I knew him, he was writing dance/RnB tunes. In 1981, he had had some success with a song called Party People by Champaign. Late in '81 another song of his, a tune he co-wrote, became one of the biggest #1 songs ever, Olivia Newton John's PHYSICAL.
His contribution to the song was the music. He had an Oberheim DSX setup at the time; that's what we worked on. One night he loaded up the Oberheim with his original sequences for Physical. It was all there. All the parts. It was very cool to hear how the original arrangement of that song sounded. It was the mix he gave to Steve Kipner to write lyrics to.
During one of our writing sessions he told me stories about the unbelievably huge royalty checks that would show up in his mailbox. I know that song set him up for life; he was a very frugal guy.
|
|
|
|
Post by AGD on Oct 28, 2021 17:11:13 GMT -5
I recall reading that when a collaborator of Michael Jackson on Thriller - on just one song, I think... maybe two - got his first royalty cheque for something like £500,000, he called the publishing company because he seriously thought they'd made a mistake. They hadn't.
|
|
|
|
Post by jk on Oct 29, 2021 2:29:55 GMT -5
How about Ray Dorset of Mungo Jerry and his composition "In The Summertime"? "Alright, Alright, Alright" is probably the band's second best-known song but it's a long way behind in the familiarity stakes -- and it wasn't a Dorset composition. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Dorset |
|
philip
Grommet
Posts: 39
Likes: 34 
|
Post by philip on Oct 29, 2021 11:26:24 GMT -5
Elbow - One Day Like This
Plenty of better songs but this is the [only] one that seems to get played.
|
|
|
|
Post by AGD on Oct 29, 2021 12:22:00 GMT -5
Another obvious pension song: "Moody Blues, "Nights In White Satin".
|
|
philip
Grommet
Posts: 39
Likes: 34
|
Post by philip on Oct 30, 2021 3:38:21 GMT -5
Is a certain Mr Bruce Johnston allowed, I imagine "I Write The Songs" gives him a steady income?  |
|
|
|
Post by SMiLE-Holland on Oct 30, 2021 3:39:38 GMT -5
Robbie van Leeuwen - Venus
Although he used "The Banjo Song" (by The Big Three) as a basis, with new lyrics and a totally different sound with his group Shocking Blue he scored a worldwide hit with it. Although the group had several other hits, mostly in The Netherlands/Germany/France/Belgium those would never have the same international impact as "Venus".
(btw, The Banjo Song was a rework of an even older song, called "Oh Suzanna", by Stephen Foster - a lot of borrowing here)
It also didn't hurt that "Venus" was added (as the opening track) on of of several Stars On 45 singles, and became a #1 hit again when Bananarama covered it.
In the slipstream of that hit, their album At Home also did very well, especially after including the non-album track Venus with later issues. Which - as a spinoff - generated even more $$ when Nirvana covered the track "Love Buzz" from that same album (it is on the Bleach album). And The Prodigy sampled that same track on their song "Phoenix".
But in all it is "Venus" that keeps filling Robbie's wallet.
|
|
|
|
Post by jk on Oct 30, 2021 3:46:14 GMT -5
How about the song Cat Stevens is best known for? All the odds are against "Morning Has Broken" being his "pension song". It was first published in 1931 with words by Eleanor Farjeon set to a traditional Scottish Gaelic tune, "Bunessan". Rick Wakeman made the piano arrangement which he played himself. Still, it's thanks to Stevens that the hymn is so well known these days. And who knows, it may bring him in enough money to retire on...
|
|
|
|
Post by jk on Oct 30, 2021 3:52:54 GMT -5
Robbie van Leeuwen - Venus
Although he used "The Banjo Song" (by The Big Three) as a basis, with new lyrics and a totally different sound with his group Shocking Blue he scored a worldwide hit with it. Although the group had several other hits, mostly in The Netherlands/Germany/France/Belgium those would never have the same international impact as "Venus".
(btw, The Banjo Song was a rework of an even older song, called "Oh Suzanna", by Stephen Foster - a lot of borrowing here)
It also didn't hurt that "Venus" was added (as the opening track) on of of several Stars On 45 singles, and became a #1 hit again when Bananarama covered it.
In the slipstream of that hit, their album At Home also did very well, especially after including the non-album track Venus with later issues. Which - as a spinoff - generated even more $$ when Nirvana covered the track "Love Buzz" from that same album (it is on the Bleach album). And The Prodigy sampled that same track on their song "Phoenix".
But in all it is "Venus" that keeps filling Robbie's wallet.
Yes indeed. And then there's this version by the Italian outfit Don Pablo's Animals, which reached #4 in the UK in 1990: |
|
|
|
Post by SMiLE-Holland on Oct 30, 2021 3:54:17 GMT -5
... and another Dutch one ... whether you like this one or not 
Hans Bouwens - Una Paloma Blanca
Mostly known under his artist's name "George Baker", with his group George Baker Selection they had several hits in The Netherlands. But "Una Paloma Blanca", from 1975, was by far his biggest hit, and a worldwide one for that (sold over 7 million copies).
Actually the group had another decent worldwide hit, "Little Green Bag", early in their career. With renewed interest when Tarantino was so kind to include it on the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack. But it still cannot stand in the shadow of "Paloma".
|
|
|
|
Post by jk on Oct 30, 2021 6:47:41 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by Rick Bartlett on Oct 30, 2021 7:04:57 GMT -5
This thread should be a lot easier to name some for the 'pension song', we're just not trying hard enough. This is not my best idea, but Phil Spector's 'To Know Him Is To Love Him', was such a big hit, it turned him into a
millionaire before he was 21 years old, this is all pre his amazing 60's production work, 1958 we're talking here. Such an amazing composition and has wonderful chord changes.
Here's a 'pension song', 'Blue Suede Shoes' by Carl Perkins. He may have had minor hit songs afterwards, but his career was built on one song til' the day he died. He is remembered for it and it's the 'standard' for a Rock 'n' Roll record.
|
|
|
|
Post by Rick Bartlett on Oct 30, 2021 7:11:01 GMT -5
The Monster Mash - Bobby Boris Pickett. The guy wrote and recorded it, and spent many a time re-recording it with different lyrics to 'milk' it's success. The thing is, he never had to.
|
|
|
|
Post by jk on Oct 30, 2021 10:09:00 GMT -5
Chip Taylor has two very different songs to his name that may possibly rate as pension songs, "Wild Thing" and "Angel Of The Morning".
I saw Taylor perform in the mid (?) ‘70s in Amsterdam. I can't recall the details, except that the concert included those two. Shaggy incorporated "AOTM" in his 2001 hit "Angel".
|
|
|
|
Post by boogieboarder on Oct 30, 2021 11:28:05 GMT -5
There's a million "one hit wonders" who's one hit is automatically a pension song.
|
|
Departed
Former Member
Posts: 0
Likes:
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2021 11:40:56 GMT -5
But, there ain't a million and they do not necessarily automatically qualify. We don't know if the publishers of of these various giant hits ever properly collected and dispersed the monies owed to the composers. And, we mostly don't know if the song rights were ever in dispute and cost some creative folks grief and $. Lawyers always make out, btw.
There are folks who never so much as wrote a word or eighth note of hit song, yet got credit and received pension payouts (royalties, often paying themselves as publishers) for decades as co-composers. Hello, Morris Levy.
|
|
Departed
Former Member
Posts: 0
Likes:
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2021 12:08:17 GMT -5
I want to point something else out. I was going to mention Paul Leka and his co-written composition NA NA HEY HEY KISS HIM GOODBYE. Over the years that song never seemed to have lost all of its steam. It was a #1, it was used in commercials, there were covers, it became a Sports chant/anthem (who knows if that was ever monetized - maybe on CD compilations, years ago). First there are three writers listed for that song. If it was an even split, Paul Leka got one third of the songwriting. The songwriter(s) gets (or splits) half of the income of a song. The other half of a song's property value is publishing. The song was published by UNART, the publishing arm of United Artists. They had 100% of that. This means that Paul Leka owned 1/6 of the song. He may have made out, but he may not have received high enough royalty payments for the song to be considered a Pension Song. |
|
