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Letters home: singing for my supper
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Editor’s note: Steve Alden Nelson is a Caledonia native, the son of
the late Margaret and Alden Nelson. He currently lives in Los Angeles,
and works in the entertainment industry. His column “Letters home”
appears periodically in the Argus.
Dude,
I was raised to believe that talking about how much money a person
makes is in bad taste. But I think there are exceptions to the rule.
For instance, everybody talks about those people who make billions of
dollars a year. They proudly post their names on lists with other
billionaires. The other time talking about income is when it’s your
own, and the amount is so small that somebody else might get a chuckle
out of it. I see it as the opposite of being boastful, so I guess that
just makes it mildly humiliating.
Anyway, about 20 years ago, I wrote a silly song called “Holly Should.”
I did a cheap, home recording, tossed it into a drawer, and forgot
about it. A few years later, I was contacted by a friend in the music
business. She’d remembered hearing the song, and suggested I submit it
to a film project she was working on.
Figuring I had nothing to lose, I dropped the tape at her house.
By sheer chance and luck, it was chosen to be on the soundtrack of a
movie called “Burn Hollywood, Burn.” I was paid a nice chunk of change
up front, and still collect royalties every time the movie is played
anywhere in the world.
That’s the good news. The not so good news is that I just got a check
in the mail for usage of my song in several different countries. It
turns out that each time it is played in Australia, Lithuania, or
Italy, I get paid a penny. Japan is much more generous with a nickel
per run, but the United Kingdom is where the real money is. They pay
forty-eight cents to hear me sing. This particular paycheck also
covered Germany, Netherlands, South Africa, and Estonia. In the first
three months of this year, the grand total for usage of my song around
the globe was a whopping $28.86.
Speaking of money, I was in the grocery store the other day, and I just
about fell over when I saw sweet corn priced at ninety-nine cents each!
Dude, seriously. Remember when I told you about when I was a kid? We
bought sweet corn for fifty cents a dozen from the Colleran family.
Now, in Los Angeles, that same fifty cents will get you half of
an ear of corn. And it’s not bigger or better, in fact it’s just the
opposite. A loaf of bread is four and a half bucks! I could go on, but
you get what I mean.
I guess what I’m saying is this: If you enjoy eating sweet corn, or
anything else for that matter, you may want to consider a career in
something/anything besides songwriting.
But if you just can’t resist giving the starving artist thing a shot,
at least have something to fall back on, like a law degree. After all,
I’ve never seen a songwriter on the Fortune 500 list of the world’s
wealthiest people. So, in case you’re one of those people trying to
scrape up enough cash for postage to send your songs to a Nashville
publisher, I’m going to leave you with a little money saving tip.
Go to my website: stevealdennelson.com. You can listen to “Holly
Should”, and a bunch of others songs from my other two albums. You can
even download them if you want, and it won’t cost you a penny.
More Later. Peace.
Steve.
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