Mapping Beyoncé's 'Hold Up'

When I first heard Beyoncé’s Lemonade I thought we were entering a new age of sophistication when it comes to sampling. Not only are the sampled tracks musically appropriate, they are thematically appropriate too. On this album of infidelity and heartbreak we hear excerpts of ‘Can’t Get Used to Losing You’ by Andy Williams, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' pleading ‘Maps’, and Isaac Hayes’ version of ‘Walk on By’, in which we find another protagonist who ‘can’t get over losing you’. There’s a whole lot of signifying going on.

            It would seem that the use of samples is more contingent, however. Take ‘Hold Up’, which incorporates the sample from Williams and the interpolation from ‘Maps’. This song has a complicated genesis and was not originally intended for Beyoncé. In fact, it began as nothing more than a Tweet, which was sent in 2011 by Ezra Koenig, the singer of Vampire Weekend. He paraphrased ‘Maps’, writing to his followers, ‘hold up . . . they don’t love u like i love u’.

            Three years later, Koenig was invited by the producer Diplo to contribute hooks to some loops. One of these loops featured the introduction to ‘Can’t Get Used to Losing You’. The recording was of interest to Diplo for its kitsch ska rhythm, rather than for its lyrical content. Koenig thought back to his Tweet. He introduced a new melody to his reworking of ‘Maps’. He also added a supplementary, Biblical refrain: ‘can’t you see there’s no other god above you, what a wicked way to treat the man who loves you’. Beyoncé heard this version. Koenig’s lyrics were changed to ‘no other man above you, what a wicked way to treat the girl I love you’. He has stated that ‘from there a lot of other people got involved in writing the verses, things changed, but essentially the hook stayed the same’. Even so, he was still not sure if it would make Beyoncé’s album or if he would use it instead as a Vampire Weekend song.

            It did appear on Lemonade. In the process ‘Hold Up’ was transformed. Koenig has stated, ‘The idea that those words now are contextualised by this album, by the video, by her as a performer and curator, I like it  . . . 99% of the world will always hear those words and associate it with Beyoncé now. And that makes sense . . . I wrote this hook - of course I feel some sense of ownership over what I did - but it doesn’t feel like my song, she really did bring a deeper resonance and meaning to it’. She brings new significance to the Williams sample as well. So maybe the use of those sources is not so contingent after all.

            Although Koenig now views ‘Hold Up’ as Beyoncé’s song, this is not the story told by the songwriting credits. She has had to split the royalties with 11 other writers, including Koenig and Diplo. Moreover, it has been claimed that the contemporary songwriters get minor shares in the work, while the authors of the sample and the interpolation get the majority income. From this perspective, Beyoncé is not creating a new work; she is instead giving us her version of two old ones.

            The generous shares for Mort Shuman and Doc Pomus, the writers of ‘Can’t Get Used to Losing You’, are understandable. Diplo’s loop of this recording is used for the duration of ‘Hold Up’; it is the musical bedrock of the entire track. Their credits also follow standard sampling practice: if a recording is used prominently, its songwriters will be rewarded handsomely.

            The use of ‘Maps’ is different, however. Although Beyoncé credits it as an interpolation, it is arguable that this really is the case. There is no use of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ melody or of the feel of the track. The only thing taken is the paraphrased lyrics. These were written by the band’s singer, Karen O, but due to American joint authorship rules each member of the group receives royalties for their re-use in ‘Hold Up’. But why do they receive anything at all? ‘Hold Up’ takes eight fairly commonplace words.

One reason is that their origin can be traced. Koenig’s Tweet and his openness about the genesis of ‘Hold Up’ have made it clear that the words were taken from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' song. A second is that American writers are becoming increasing litigious in this area, as the various accusations against the lyrics of Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off’ attest. Ultimately, in crediting ‘Maps’, Beyoncé and her team have taken heed of the old adage that where there’s a hit there’s a writ.

There is one final quirk of copyright law. If ‘Maps’ has been called ‘They Don’t Love You Like I Love You’, the re-use of these words would probably have escaped without charge. It is not possible to copyright titles. Hence, Calvin Harris and the Disciples’ ‘How Deep is Your Love?’ does not credit the Bee Gees, and Justin Timberlake’s ‘Cry Me a River’ does not credit the Julie London song. It is also the case that ‘Hold Up’ does not credit previous songs that have used the same title. In addition, future songs called ‘Hold Up’ will not have to credit Beyoncé’s either. That’s as long as their usage is restricted to these words. If they sample Beyoncé’s recording, however, they will have to credit ‘Hold Up’ and all the other works it includes. We will end up with a recording with vast songwriting credits. Post-structuralists will be happy too. There will be multiple resonances. Listeners will variously recall Beyoncé, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Andy Williams, Mort Shuman, Doc Pomus, Ezra Koenig, Diplo and more. Bring on the endless play of signifiers!

Copyright is Odd

For a long time I’ve had an interest in the value accorded to lyrics and to lyricists. As part of my investigations, I have done some work on joint- and co-authorship rules. Different countries have different policies regarding the coming together of words and music in the form of a song. Some regard lyrics and composition as forming an act of joint authorship, while others consider them to be separate. The UK has changed from the latter to the former. In 2013 an amendment was made to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, recognising works of co-authorship.

            These decisions can matter. Co-authorship has meant that the term of copyright for lyrics or music has been lengthened for some songs. Joint authorship can safeguard a lyricist’s share of copyright when an instrumental or foreign language version is made of their song.

            On Wednesday I gave a talk about this subject at Birkbeck, contributing to a workshop on Copyright and Business Models in Music Publishing. It was a good event, attended by people from the industry alongside academics. One of my conclusions was that the UK’s new co-authorship rules have had little effect on the practices of contemporary songwriters, but that this is interesting in itself, as it is evidence of the fact that artists can find ways to circumvent copyright law. In summary, I stated that ‘music copyright is odd’. Stephanie Dales, who was representing the Intellectual Property Office at the event, picked up on this in her own talk. She said that she would alter one word, though. Her conclusion from working in the field of IP law is that all copyright is odd.

            You can access my paper here. 

Words and Music: That's the Joint

In the last blog entry I wrote about the declining status of status of lyricists and the declining share of songwriting income they might happen to receive. Here, I’m going to look at another reason for the death of the 'author', one that might be occasioned by the nuances of copyright law, or it might be occasioned by the fact that musicians aren’t very good at filling in forms.

British copyright law has viewed music and lyrics in two ways. It increasingly took a Bono-ite line, regarding music and lyrics as being one, but not the same. In its origins, however, the law was Spice Girls-eque. It viewed the lyrical and musical elements of a song as being two that become one. Within the past 12 months, that Spice Girls point of view has come back into focus. Music and lyrics can now dream of being together (almost) forever. 

The first British legislation to fundamentally address recorded music was the Copyright Act of 1911. It advises that ‘a musical work shall be deemed to include any words so closely associated therewith as to form part of the same work’. The 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act reversed this policy. Here, ‘“musical work” was described as being a work consisting of music, exclusive of any words or action intended to be sung, spoken or performed with the music’. Under this legislation, lyrics had to lead a separate life. They were deemed to be ‘literary works’ rather than ‘musical works’. This had an effect when songwriters filed their songs with PRS for Music and declared whether they were authors (the writers of the lyrics) or composers (the writers of the music). In the UK if you were identified solely as a lyricist you could not be awarded joint authorship of a song with the musical composer(s). This is because joint authorship was defined on the basis that ‘the contribution of each author is not distinct from that of the other author or authors’. Literary and musical works were deemed to be distinct. PRS for Music regarded the two practices in this way. In the advice that they handed out about copyright law, they stated that ‘where two or more persons do collaborate but it is possible to determine the separate parts attributable to each author it will not be a work of joint authorship’.

It has nevertheless been the case that most PRS members have failed to classify themselves as either a composer or author. They have instead presented themselves as a hybrid kind: the composer-author. There are a number of reasons why the members have chosen this designation. One is because there are few songwriters who only write lyrics. It is often the case that the lyricist is the singer. In the process of working on their songs with musicians, many singers are involved in composing the top-line melody along with the words. Conversely, the musicians will sometimes chip in with lyrical ideas. A second reason is because some songwriters and/or their publishers fail to understand the distinction between composer and author and thus claim to be both. Alternatively some songwriters and publishers fail to complete this section of the PRS works form, in which case they will be listed as composer-authors by default. A final reason why songwriters and their publishers have chosen the composer-author designation is because joint authorship has real effects. It means that the ownership of the work cannot be divided in any way. Therefore, if an act does an instrumental cover version of a song that has lyrics, the lyricist will still get paid. Similarly, if there is a foreign language version of a song, the original lyricist maintains a share. Copyright lasts until 70 years after the death of the last ‘joint’ author. Consequently, it has been financially advisable for all contributors to a song identify themselves as composer-authors, at least if they’re thinking with their dependents in mind.

American songwriters receive similar benefits, but in their own country there has been a different legal framework. US copyright law has not deemed lyrics and music to be distinct. The 1976 Copyright Act groups them together under the category of ‘works of the performing arts’. Joint authorship has also been classified in a different manner. In America a ‘joint work’ is a 'work prepared by two or more authors with the intention that their contributions be merged into inseparable or interdependent parts of a unitary whole'. The vast majority of songs are automatically classified as joint works. It is believed that it is the plan of most lyricists and composers to weld their contributions together in a unified work of art. This law even applies when lyricists and composers are divorced by time and space. If they intend their work to come together as part of a whole, it doesn’t matter where they were when they composed their own part. It is only when there is a lack of consent in the merger that lyrics and music are treated as separate within American copyright law.

There are countries within the European Union who have a similar outlook. They see that, conceptually, a song with words is created as a joint enterprise. This is also the view taken by the EU's legislators. In the same 2011 directive that extended the duration of sound recording copyright from 50 to 70 years, it was deemed that the majority of songs are the result of joint musical and lyrical enterprises. The document states that Article 1 of EU Directive 2006/116/EC should be amended to read: 'The term of protection of a musical composition with words shall expire 70 years after the death of the last of the following persons to survive, whether or not those persons are designated as co-authors: the author of the lyrics and the composer of the musical composition, provided that both contributions were specifically created for the respective musical composition with words'. The UK implemented this directive on 1 November 2013.

Despite these changes and the differences between British, European and American law, the registration of songs looks much the same: most modern songs are classified as being written by composer-authors. As such, we know that there is a lyrical input in there somewhere, but the precise origin of this input is hard to locate. Everybody, it seems, is a lyricist now. They are all composers too.