{"id":366,"date":"2010-03-21T08:56:26","date_gmt":"2010-03-21T16:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/?p=366"},"modified":"2012-11-09T15:09:56","modified_gmt":"2012-11-09T23:09:56","slug":"million-dollar-baby-or-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/million-dollar-baby-or-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Million Dollar Baby, or Not?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><\/p>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\ngoogle_ad_client = \"ca-pub-9055632105156461\";\n\/* Half Banner for Blogs *\/\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"8550216682\";\ngoogle_ad_width = 234;\ngoogle_ad_height = 60;\n\/\/-->\n<\/script><br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p><\/center><br \/>\nThe video below will play automatically, so hit the pause button on the video if you&#8217;d like to read the article before hearing the song!<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Never Is Forever&#8221; is Floyd Murray&#8217;s lottery ticket to a happy retirement, if he has his way.\u00a0 He is offering the <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Copyright\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Copyright\" rel=\"wikipedia\">copyright<\/a> to this song for auction on <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"eBay\" href=\"http:\/\/ebay.com\" rel=\"homepage\">eBay<\/a> for a million bucks.<\/p>\n<p>When I read the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ireport.com\/docs\/DOC-416105\">CNN iReport<\/a> it said that a search of &#8220;hit song copyright&#8221;, including quotes, would bring up the auction, which was reportedly to begin on March 26, 2010.\u00a0 However, when I went to eBay and did the search, it did not come up.\u00a0 Did he perhaps have second thoughts?\u00a0 Here is an excerpt of his response when asked why he is selling the rights to the song:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My age and my life situation (and the current industry and economy) dictates that I won\u2019t be going on tour any time soon to promote and perform my music, and I haven\u2019t actively pursued any publishing or licensing deals. I\u2019ve been sitting on this song, and every time someone hears it, they tell me how great it is and ask why it\u2019s not on the radio. So I\u2019m just offering it up to someone who sees it on its merits and can take it and run with it. I guess I\u2019m selling my pension plan. I&#8217;m creating my own economic stimulus package.&#8221;<br \/>\n<center><\/p>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\ngoogle_ad_client = \"ca-pub-9055632105156461\";\n\/* Half Banner for Blogs *\/\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"8550216682\";\ngoogle_ad_width = 234;\ngoogle_ad_height = 60;\n\/\/-->\n<\/script><br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p><\/center><br \/>\nI listened to the song and you can too on the video posted below.\u00a0 While I appreciate that Mr. Murray may really only be hoping to create a little nest egg for his retirement, the fact that he has been sitting on it and not pitching it to publishers himself first, was a mistake.\u00a0 What most songwriters with any experience will tell you is that you need decent and honest feedback from people who are objective and know what they&#8217;re talking about.\u00a0 Your friends, family and acquaintances don&#8217;t count!\u00a0 Some smaller publishers will respond within a few weeks as to whether or not they are interested in the song, and sometimes they will give some feedback in their response.<\/p>\n<p>Why am I saying all of this?\u00a0 Because as far as I can hear, the song has some glaring flaws.\u00a0 First of all, it has the same chord progression throughout, the same three chords, so there is no contrast between verses and chorus (if, indeed, there was a chorus).\u00a0 That alone wouldn&#8217;t necessarily spell disaster, except for the fact that it&#8217;s a county song and most country publishers or labels won&#8217;t even let you in the door without a big, splashy chorus.<\/p>\n<p>Secondly, the word &#8220;never&#8221; is used ad nauseum.\u00a0 Now I know that the song has &#8220;never&#8221; in the title and this is obviously the theme, but using it in almost every line is enough to put anyone to sleep.<\/p>\n<p>Which is why I only made it through the first half of the song.\u00a0 So he may have actually switched the chords up at the end of it, or used the word &#8220;never&#8221; less as it went along, but I wouldn&#8217;t have heard it.\u00a0 And neither would most industry-types if they threw it on in its present state.\u00a0 Which is the sad reality:\u00a0 most songs sent to publishers or industry people aren&#8217;t listened to past the first verse and chorus (if there is one).\u00a0 It doesn&#8217;t take long for them to decide that &#8220;this ain&#8217;t it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It could very well be that Floyd Murray is just trying to get a little attention for himself, but actually I think he is probably sincere and really thinks he has a hit on his hands.\u00a0 Which kind of reminds me of that guy I wrote about a couple of months back who wants to sell a million CDs.\u00a0 I wonder how he&#8217;s doing? [Update Nov\/12&#8230;his video and website disappeared and now he has only a website with himself doing mostly cover songs.  So much for the million sales!]<\/p>\n<p>I wish them both luck.\u00a0 This is the day and age when it takes a lot of creative thinking to come up with ways to draw attention to yourself and your songs.\u00a0 But first, the songs have to be good.<\/p>\n<p><em>IJ<\/em><br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nyWiGTlcc0I\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The video below will play automatically, so hit the pause button on the video if you&#8217;d like to read the article before hearing the song! &#8220;Never Is Forever&#8221; is Floyd Murray&#8217;s lottery ticket to a happy retirement, if he has his way.\u00a0 He is offering the copyright to this song for auction on eBay for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,6],"tags":[63,203,201,202],"class_list":["post-366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-opinion","tag-chord-progression","tag-copyright","tag-ebay","tag-ireport"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prwoq-5U","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}