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Elaine Wells · 06-12-2012 12:28:20

Okay I have a couple of novels that the song that is listed is key to the scene. So i guess my question is: Do you need permission to post some of the lyrics? If posting only the title of song and artist: some may not have heard the song so there for would not really grasp the meaning/feeling of the scene? Thanks for any help.

mishmont · 06-12-2012 12:54:08

Elaine, I ran into this issue as well as I use a lot of music in Alzheimer Diary. Apparently it is okay to use some lyrics, perhaps a line or two, not sure.

It forced me to be a bit creative in order to get the whole sense of how the song applied conveyed to the reader.

Here are a couple of examples:
Sad eyed lady of the lowlands, where the prophets say that no man comes. This is what Dylan sings now. Should I put them by your gate? Never mind the prophets, please put back the man I married.

I am listening, over and over to a song, The Ladder, Alejandro Escovedo. It is about connection to a lost one. Extraordinary in melody and lyrics for evoking its theme. This ladder climbs from me to you.

Hope this helps.

TirzahLaughs · 06-12-2012 14:19:20

The rules---Song Titles are usually okay. More than a certain number of WORDS of the lyrics will have you paying royalties. Words, not lines. The rules for songs are very, very tight.

A regular publisher will have you pull them out. Too expensive to get the rights for.

Titles yes.

Lyrics--almost always NO.

Last edited by TirzahLaughs (06-12-2012 14:19:46)

JElizabeth · 06-12-2012 16:00:21

Yeah, what Tirzah said. Songs are copywritten. Sometimes you can get away with using a portion of a line (in my current novel I have the characters singing "Octopus's Garden" by the Beatles, but only the line "I'd like to be under the sea," and I felt iffy even including that. I made it so that if I need to cut it, the scene still works) and cite it as "fair use," but other than that you're screwed. So I always tell people to never, ever use song lyrics unless you can help it. Or unless you wanna buy the rights, which are expensive and difficult to get.

And then I broke my own rule. LOL

GPyrenees · 06-22-2012 21:41:19

No lyrics. Yes titles.

John Hamler · 06-22-2012 22:33:48

ASCAP agents are worse than the IRS. I used to play drums in a rock and roll cover band and we'd play tiny nite clubs and the moose lodge or whatever the fuck, and the establishment was made to pay a blanket fee. To make, not only the acts legit, but the jukebox too. I understand and support that, because it ensures the original artists are compensated, but I got a bone to pick when it crosses mediums. From stage performance into, in this case, literature. I mean, I use lyrics in my book like crazy and I would seriously love to make a federal case out of my right to do so. Because, not only is it integral to my pop-culture savvy narrative, pop music itself weaves and influences and becomes a large part of any culture's fabric. The cultural fabric we wanna-be writers wanna write about.

How 'bout it, GP? You're a lawyer... Defend me!

Last edited by John Hamler (06-22-2012 22:41:05)

GPyrenees · 06-23-2012 02:52:11

Well Mistah Hamlah,

Ain't gonna defend the practice, sorry, buddy.

In your case, I always dump on you when you allude to lyrics for two reasons: (1) I think it's a lazy way to craft sentences by a writer who's ridiculously clever and shouldn't rely on bullshit ways to avoid flexing his organistic powers (yeah, go crazy on me now, big guy!); and (2) they're wayyyy too obviously bad-punny, again, utilized by someone who has no need for ANY mental crutches.

In other writers' cases, it's using someone else's creative skills, i.e., the lyricists, to substitute for or enhance their own writing, which should be enough to stand on their own. Again, lazy. No reason not to refer to a musician or songwriter, but then be skilled enough to write the sounds and colors of the songs with words.

So do it, John. Take, say, a rapper like TI and without copying or citing the words, create the sounds and attitudes of his pieces. Do it cuz you can.

[Rap is part of our pop culture now. You don't need quote TI to create his sound and style. Even yucky horrible so-called "music" like, say, METAL , can be recreated in your own words.]

It's when I want to describe a particular artist, whose music I've played myself with far more familiarity and intimacy than a simple cover, that I bump into trouble. The little overdubbing piece I did on The Who was way easier for me to write than the more stolid, clumsier one I wrote on Laura Nyro. Cuz then I can't divorce myself from the music and lyrics enough to craft my own words adeptly.

So John, is Ruben gonna rap or what? I challenge him to rap about, oh, maybe farting, and mortify a couple of members of TNBW who haven't figured him out yet...

Last edited by GPyrenees (06-23-2012 02:54:25)

John Hamler · 06-23-2012 22:52:56

Wait a second now, GP. Don't I pay you a retainer? As my brilliant, bosomy, leggy legal counsel, aren't you obligated to defend my position no matter what the rap? And yet here you are, dumping all over my case!

Cheers

#1 06-12-2012 12:28:20

Songs? Do you need permission?

#2 06-12-2012 12:54:08

Re: Songs? Do you need permission?

#3 06-12-2012 14:19:20

Re: Songs? Do you need permission?

#4 06-12-2012 16:00:21

Re: Songs? Do you need permission?

#5 06-22-2012 21:41:19

Re: Songs? Do you need permission?

#6 06-22-2012 22:33:48

Re: Songs? Do you need permission?

#7 06-23-2012 02:52:11

Re: Songs? Do you need permission?

#8 06-23-2012 22:52:56

Re: Songs? Do you need permission?

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