Well, I like the idea that writing ought to be left to writers. I always wanted to write for other people--hey, Bob Dylan did, and Steve Goodman, and Joni Mitchell, and even Mick Jagger. And country music used to be a field where the people who wrote the songs were not usually the people who recorded them--relatively rare in other genres, I think, since the '60s.

I think the current fixation with having artists write their own material is a product of the depradations of the Music Industry. If I understand the situation right, the money the artist gets out of a song from the record company is an *advance against earnings*, and the company is capable of juggling the books so there neverare enough real "earnings," and the artist is in permanent thrall to the company. (Hey, I know enough bookkeeping to be able to do that. And if I can do it, anybody can do it.)

The *writer*, on the other hand, has an income stream that may be small, but it's one the company can't touch, because it's guaranteed by Federal law. I think that's one reason a lot of artists get fixated on having a co-writing "piece"--it's money that's *theirs*.

Might be where the "artist must write" mindset comes from, too. If the artist writes the whole thing, the writer-artist gets *all* of the copyright royalty. Bigger piece--and less complaining about the thralldom, possibly. I think if I were the record company, I'd encourage that. With a highly developed sense of self-importance, I would claim that my massive promotional machine could sell *anything*. So what if the material isn't any good? When was the last time the industry worried about *that*?

Thanks for the opportunity to vent. I'll go back to writing songs now.

Joe

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