| Author | Message | ||
     Elizabeth Robinson Member Username: Liz_the_new_listener Post Number: 104 Registered: 10-2006 |
I am disappointed that the Sam Taylor book, The Amnesiac, seems not to come up on www.amazon.com. But I myself have come up with this elsewhere. The narrator's name is Elizabeth Ballantine. Absentmindedly I sit with a cup of coffee, on a morning I decided to 'call in sick'. An unusual thing to do, since I own the place - Elizabeth's Bridal and Formal Wear - and it's my baby as much as Clay and Alex are. But I'm hitting 'the change' and every once in a while, though I pretty much 'call the shots', I still get tetchy and don't want to inflict my mood swings upon Carolyn and Brenda. And yes, not even Roger. Pictures of my parents, my brothers and I, Clay and Alex, nieces and nephews, hang scattered on the wall like some people I know hang heirloom plates. I sigh. On a day like this I wish I could run to Mum, or to Dad, the way I used to when I was a child, the only girl, 'the reason your parents stayed so young'. My mother - whom the world knew as Dame Bella Ballantine - was so beautiful she even looked like the ingenues in those 1940's black and white films. But she was the practical one, and passed down to me a sense of style and grace. It was after Dad died that she called upon an even deeper reserve of inner strength than even she knew she had; I learned volumes' worth from that as well. I sip my coffee as my mind wanders. See that picture of my father and mother with us at Hastings, the one where Dad has me in his arms while Frankie is blowing a soap bubble? I had to be no more than six then. 'Little nuthatch,' Dad would croon to me in his burbling soft Russian voice. 'You precious little nuthatch.' It was Dad - Sir Alexis Ballantine, the professor, playwright and very occasional performer - who was the sentimental one, with 'warm Russian blood' in him. He taught me how to dance while he was still recovering from a near-fatal heart attack in the 1960's, when other men might have stayed in bed and read The Sporting News. Seems the doctors said he bounced back much more quickly than they expected him to... FM 92.8, 'the Sound of Rochester', always plays around here; it's background noise unless I really like the song or even a streak of songs. Hey, I like this one, even if it's strongly connected to my father's last days. It was the one he himself wanted turned up when he heard it, being the romantic that he was. I can still see Mama sitting close to him, holding his hand with its long thin fingers as he lay in bed listening to the music - as mild as 'bedsit post-punk' could possibly be. 'Leeza... ' he said to me then, his voice so faint. 'It's so suave... some things never change. Especially not love.' I haven't really heard 'Bachelor Kisses' in years, not since the days I wore the LP out. But there's that earnest voice, there's something of Dad in that earnestness. 'Hey, wait... oh, please wait, Don't rush off, you won't be late...' Funny the song doesn't make me cry; other things that remind me of Dad - the smells of basil and thyme, the textures of certain kinds of paper, the echo of footsteps on a wooden floor - can do that. He helped Mum in the garden, read to me, made the rounds to make sure we were all tucked in safely before he and Mum turned in themselves for the night. All those little things, the routines, the tasks and the give and take that kept things at home closely knit together. That's what can hit me, while it's that that gets me through. 'Don't believe what you've heard, Faithful's not a bad word.' Is that what hit Dad most of all about that song? That simple line? I can see him gently snuggled up to Mum, frail and thin, big eyes closed, breathing even; if he had known the tune, he would have hummed it. How my mother had loved to hear him sing to her when they were young. He never quite lost all of his Russian accent, and though I recall his voice as 'middling to good', it had to have made a romantic impression upon her to hear her own sweetheart sing along with the songs that were popular in their day, whoever their answers to my favorite artists were. As to their own 'go-betweens'.... who knows? They always seemed so close to me. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 1502 Registered: 05-2005 |
I wonder if he had to pay to quote those lines. I know Irish author John Connolly had to pay a fortune to quote some obscure punk song in a book a few years ago. I told him he should have just used it and waited to see if anyone noticed (we did a couple of RTE radio programs together). It's not that simple of course! | ||
| Hugh Nimmo Member Username: Hugh_nimmo Post Number: 36 Registered: 03-2007 |
Padraig, I believe the band he is most closely associated with is the Pinetop Seven. You may have already read it but, if not, this article gives a nice musical insight into the author and his main character ( Charlie Parker.) http://www.johnconnollybooks.com/voicesf romthedark.html | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 1505 Registered: 05-2005 |
Thanks Hugh, I had seen that article before alright. John's a huge music fan. The first radio program I did with him was about a Hannibal Lecter book (called Hannibal I think!), but the second one was a music quiz show. | ||
| Bernie Dowling Member Username: Bernie Post Number: 2 Registered: 06-2007 |
Hi Padriag, The Go-Betweens music owners did not charge me anything to quote from The Steets of Your Town and Twin Layers of Lightning for for my novel Iraqi Icicle. But I know what you mean. I wanted to quote from a few other popular songs but I asked an author-support law group and they told me I couldn't even quote half a line without permission. I was grateful for the Go-Betweens permission and I decided to write about other groups without quoting their lyrics | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 1508 Registered: 05-2005 |
Thanks for the info Bernie. Good to hear you got permission and weren't charged. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 1236 Registered: 03-2005 |
Isn't that classic Robert & Grant? Would either of those two ever consider charging a novelist money to use quotes from their songs? Of course not. I'll bet they were thrilled. | ||
| Elizabeth Robinson Member Username: Liz_the_new_listener Post Number: 106 Registered: 10-2006 |
Wonderful people, Mr. McLennan and Mr. Forster. It tells you something, too, that their music rubs off on or influences other art. By the way: how would someone go about contacting Complete (or is it Incomplete) Music for permission to quote from the Go-Betweens' song lyrics? It's worth publicizing the group any way another artist could. | ||
| Bernie Dowling Member Username: Bernie Post Number: 3 Registered: 06-2007 |
Siteadmin of this site have the contact details and that's how I got in touch with them. Of course it is a good way for artists with similar outlook to cross-promote. All a lot of the big music publisher companies seem to think is an author is trying to make money from their songs by publishing the lyrics in a novel. | ||
| Hugo Member Username: Hugo Post Number: 20 Registered: 06-2005 |
I am disappointed that the Sam Taylor book, The Amnesiac, seems not to come up on www.amazon.com. I guess it hasn't been published in the U.S. yet, but it's on the amazon.co.uk site: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Amnesiac-Sam-Tay lor/dp/0571233538 To be honest, I wouldn't quibble overly with the reader comments on that page. The novel was eminently readable, but not great. The Go Betweens did indeed have a part to play in the plot, though! | ||
| Hugo Member Username: Hugo Post Number: 21 Registered: 06-2005 |
As for the issue of quoting lyrics, I think "fair use" laws largely apply, ie you can quote up to ten percent of a song without asking permission. Thereafter, there's a fee, but it's usually not that much, perhaps $200 or something. Usually it's not the artists themselves who deal with this but whoever holds publishing rights. I once wrote a short book about David Bowie, complete with song quotes - I'm fairly sure the publisher didn't seek permission, and nothing happened (although my agent did make the publisher write into the contract that I wasn't liable should there be any legal problems over the issue). | ||
| Kurt Stephan Member Username: Slothbert Post Number: 1423 Registered: 04-2005 |
Hmm...I work at a book publisher, and the author of one of our upcoming books wanted to use a verse by the group Lush as a chapter-opening quote. We require authors to do the legwork on permissions issues, so we asked her to contact the song's publishing company. She reported back that the publishing company wanted $100 for permission to quote the verse (which I assume was more than 10% of the song). We collectively decided it wasn't worth it, and she changed the quote. I suspect if we'd gone ahead and used the quote without asking permission, there would have been no problem, given what a comparatively "small fish" Lush is. But better safe than sorry. | ||
| Bernie Dowling Member Username: Bernie Post Number: 4 Registered: 06-2007 |
Hi Hugo/ Kurt, I don't know the fair use laws apply or if they do in Australia, at least. I remember the lawyer from the Arts-Law centre gave me the impression, you could not really quote anything without permission. I wonder if anybody can tell me whether the fair use and 10% do apply because it would be handy to know for the future. My point is the author is not really ripping off the lyricist as the novel has potential to benefit the songwriter by increased exposure. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 1525 Registered: 05-2005 |
The quote I mentioned above that John Connolly used was ceertainly not 10% of the song but he still had to pay thousands of pounds for it. More royalties than the band would have got in a very long time. Oh, his new book also has a CD with it. Borders in Sydney has it for $25. I have most of the songs on the CD already so I didn't get it. It's a good primer if someone wanted to explore Americana / gothic folk. | ||
| Hugo Member Username: Hugo Post Number: 22 Registered: 06-2005 |
I think I was a bit hasty in saying "fair use" applies to all lyric quoting. Rather there is a convention known as "fair dealing for the purposes of criticism and review", in which you can quote some but not all lyrics without permission if you are actually writing about the artist or the work. Otherwise, for use in a novel for example, it seems this is a bit of a murky subject, and although the legal precedents aren't clear, professionals tend to say you should get permission for any quote. That said, I very much doubt anything would happen to you, as long as you acknowledged the source of the quote. After all, there are hundreds of lyric sites on the Internet and I've never heard of one being prosecuted. |