A professional songwriter writes songs for other people to perform. The artist on the record gets the attention, but the songwriter owns a separate copyright and is paid through publishing income, often for decades after the song is released.
The songwriter behind the singer
Most people take it for granted that the voice on a recording also wrote the song. For much of popular music’s history, that has not been the case. The professional songwriter, sometimes called a staff writer, a tunesmith or a writer for hire, composes music, lyrics or both, and passes the finished song to a performer. The performer interprets it, the record label releases it, and the writer gets a credit that listeners often never read.
A recent interview gives a clear example. The Guardian reports that the American songwriter Jimmy Webb, who wrote Wichita Lineman and MacArthur Park, has been talking about writing for major performers, among them Dolly Parton, Glen Campbell and Frank Sinatra, as he brings back songs of his that had been lost. Whether he wrote a given song alone or with someone else, the role is the same: the song exists first, and the performance comes later.
In law and in business, a musical work is usually treated as two separate things. One is the composition, meaning the melody and lyrics. The other is the sound recording, meaning one particular performance captured on tape or in a digital file. A professional songwriter owns, or shares, the first. A singer or a label usually controls the second. That split is the basis of the whole profession.
Origins in the song trade
Selling songs as products is older than recorded music. Publishers once made their money from sheet music, which households bought to play at home on the piano. The New York publishing district known as Tin Pan Alley became shorthand for an industry that turned out popular songs in bulk for performers, theatres and anyone who owned a piano.
When records and radio took over from sheet music, the model adapted rather than disappeared. Publishers kept writers on staff, and those writers produced material for whichever artists needed it. The Brill Building in New York later became a byword for the same system: small rooms, upright pianos and writing teams aiming to place songs with singers and groups. Similar arrangements developed in Nashville for country music and in Los Angeles for pop and film work.
The rise of the singer-songwriter changed how the public saw music, because it became normal to expect artists to write their own material. But the professional writer never went away. Many performers who wrote songs also recorded other people’s, and many writers who mainly wrote for others went on to release records of their own.
How the role works today
Today a songwriter’s income comes mainly from publishing, which is managed separately from an artist’s recording deal. Broadly, there are two kinds of royalty. Mechanical royalties are paid when a composition is reproduced, whether as a physical copy, a download or a stream. Performance royalties are paid when the song is broadcast, played in public or streamed. Collecting societies gather and distribute this money: PRS for Music in the United Kingdom, and organisations such as ASCAP and BMI in the United States.
The way songs get written has also changed. In mainstream pop, songs are often written in sessions with several people at once, each contributing a hook, a lyric, a chord progression or a production idea. The credits on a single hit can run to many names. In other genres, the classic model of one writer sitting at a piano or with a guitar still exists alongside this.
Streaming has made the economics more complicated. Songwriters and their representatives often argue that the composition receives a small share of streaming revenue compared with the recording. The precise split varies by country, by contract and by platform. A general article cannot give a reliable single figure.
Catalogues of older songs have also become valuable assets in their own right. A song that keeps getting played, covered or used in films and adverts keeps earning money. That helps explain why writers and publishers take an interest in rediscovering and reissuing unreleased or forgotten material. The Guardian’s account of Webb returning to his lost songs fits into this wider pattern, although the details of that project are not covered here.
Common misconceptions
The most common mistake is assuming that the singer wrote the song. Many of the best-known recordings in popular music were written by someone who never appears on the cover.
A second misconception is that writing for others is less creative, or a lesser art, than writing for yourself. Writing a song another person can make their own takes particular skills: an ear for someone else’s vocal range and persona, and an eye for images that many listeners can recognise themselves in. The Guardian’s report describes Wichita Lineman as starting from something Webb saw on a flat, empty stretch of Oklahoma: a man working at the top of a telephone pole, seen for a moment from a passing vehicle. Turning a fleeting scene like that into a song that suits someone else’s voice is a craft in itself.
A third misconception is that the writer is paid once and the deal is finished. Some arrangements do work that way, but in the usual publishing model, royalties keep being paid for as long as the song keeps earning.
Finally, a songwriting credit does not always show exactly who did what. Credits can reflect negotiation, publishing agreements or industry custom as well as the actual creative work, which is one reason disputes over authorship come up from time to time.
Where to look next
Readers who want to understand the trade can begin with the collecting societies. PRS for Music, ASCAP and BMI publish explanations of how royalties are calculated and paid. Histories of Tin Pan Alley, the Brill Building and Nashville’s publishing industry show how the profession developed.
Original album sleeves and digital credit listings show who wrote a song, and comparing several versions of the same composition shows how much interpretation a performer adds. Interviews with working songwriters, such as the Guardian piece behind this article, give a first-hand account of the craft. As with any memoir, they reflect personal recollection rather than a verified record.
Frequently asked questions
What is a professional songwriter?
A professional songwriter writes songs, either music, lyrics or both, for other artists to record and perform. They usually work with a music publisher, who promotes the songs to performers and collects the royalties they earn. The writer owns a share of the copyright in the composition, which is legally separate from the copyright in any particular recording of it, so they can keep earning when several artists record the same song.
How do songwriters get paid?
Songwriters mainly earn publishing royalties. Mechanical royalties come from reproducing the song, for example on records, downloads or streams. Performance royalties come from radio play, public performance and streaming. Collecting societies such as PRS for Music in the UK and ASCAP or BMI in the US gather this money and pay it out. Income from licensing songs for film, television and advertising can also be significant.
What is the difference between a composition and a recording?
The composition is the song itself: its melody and lyrics, as you might write them down. The recording is one specific performance of that song, captured as audio. They are separate copyrights, often owned by different people or companies. A songwriter usually holds rights in the composition, while a record label or artist usually controls the recording. One composition can have many different recordings.
Who wrote Wichita Lineman?
Wichita Lineman was written by the American songwriter Jimmy Webb, who also wrote MacArthur Park. According to a Guardian interview, the song was inspired by a moment on a flat, empty stretch of Oklahoma, where Webb glimpsed a telephone worker up a pole while travelling past and never forgot him. The song is widely regarded as a classic example of a writer creating material for other performers.
What was Tin Pan Alley?
Tin Pan Alley was the name given to a cluster of music publishers in New York that produced popular songs on a commercial scale, originally for sale as sheet music. Staff writers wrote songs to order for performers and for the public to play at home. The name came to stand for the whole business of professional popular songwriting, which later carried on in places such as the Brill Building.
Sources and further reading
- The Guardian: interview with Jimmy Webb about his songwriting career and his lost songs
- PRS for Music: guidance on how songwriter and publisher royalties are collected in the UK
- ASCAP and BMI: explanations of how performance rights work in the United States
- Music industry histories covering Tin Pan Alley, the Brill Building and Nashville publishing
Surfaced from the rss:guardian_music signal “veteran songwriter interview”. AI-assisted draft, editorially reviewed.
