Rawlins Republican

SOME POPULAR SONGS
THAT HAVE BROUGHT SUBSTANTIAL
RICHES TO THEIR AUTHORS.
There Are Songs That Have Yielded a
Profit of $50,000 Not
to Speak
of
the Market Value of the Copyright--
Reckoned in the Thousands.

An American was talking with a
music publisher in London recently of
the immense sums a few of our song
writers have received for their wares,
believing that they were exceptional
cases. The Englishman speedily undeceived him. "Why," said he, "I could
name offhand a dozen songs that have
yielded a profit of £10,000 ($50,000)
each and over and the value of the
copyright of which is to-day reckoned
in the thousands. Take, for instance,
Mascheroni's exquisite ballad, 'For All
Eternity.' I should not like to say
what weight of gold that song has
yielded, but not very long ago the
copyright in it was considered to be
worth £240, a sum for which it was
sold by Messrs. Puttick & Simpson, the
auctioneers. And yet I believe that
very song was offered to a London publisher for a £10 note and refused by
him. Think of refusing a thousand
sovereigns for every one laid down!
But then, of course, one must remember the risk we publishers run. It is a
fact that of every hundred
songs
offered to me, barely one is worth the
cost of printing and publishing; and
a song that will yield a few hundreds
of profits is literally one in a thousand.

Among songs that have produced more
than £10,000 in profit I should place
first Sullivan's world famous
'Lost
Chord.' This song
was substantially
composed in less than an hour, and for
that hour's work the composer received
in royalties quite £10,000 - probably
the largest sum any
man
has
ever
earned in an hour by his brain. Then,
again, that ever green song, 'In Old
Madrid,' must have brought its pub-
lisher a profit of nearly £20,000 by this
time, for its popularity was at the flood
for many
years.
Among other gold
mines I should place 'The Better Land, '
'The River of Years,' 'Forever and For-
ever,' 'Goodby,' The Devout Lover.
'Nancy Lee' - to mention only half a
dozen, the aggregate profits from which
cannot have been a penny less than
£60,000. Among more recent favorites,
which, however, are far from supplant-
ing the older ones, such songs as 'The
River of Life,' 'The Flight of Ages' and
'Beauty's Eyes' promise to be quite as
rich harvest bringers to composers and
publishers. Of course, if a song has
anything in it, it is a fatal thing to sell
it outright to a publisher, as so many
composers have done, to their lasting
regret. It is old history that 'Kathleen
Mavourneen,' which never seems
to
lose its charm for the public, was sold
for £5. I scarcely dare speculate how
much the unhappy composer must have
lost by this bargain. Some of Mr. Mil-
ton Welling's best
songs
changed
hands for absurd prices, the composer
scarcely receiving a pound for every
thousand
made
by
his publishers.
Fancy being the possessor of such a
song as 'Some Day' for a £10 note, and
making as many thousands
by
it!
Alas!
Such chances never come my
way.

'Nancy Lee' was at one time on
offer for £10, and refused; although
for some years Mr. Maybrick's profits
from this one song averaged over £1,-
500 a year. That beautiful and ever-
popular song, 'To Anthea,' was, I be-
lieve, sold for a couple of guineas; and
some of Mr. Henry Russell's songs,
which at one time were in everybody's
mouth, only brought him a pound or
thirty shillings apiece." -- New York
Press.