James Lee Stanley

Here’s an interesting conundrum.    A friend of mine, a few years ago, wrote a song that he thought was pretty good.   He demo’d it.   Then a few days later, ran into another one of his friends who had been a recording artist and songwriter but was not just working for a messenger service, and not doing any writing at all.

Feeling bad for his friends change of fortune, he encouraged him to get back to writing and playing and even invited him up to try to come up with a song.

The pal showed up at the house later that day and for several hours nothing came.    Finally, my friend pulled out the song he had just written and he and his friend then wrote a new intro for the completed song.   In a burst of generosity he gave his pal half credit for the entire song.   They made a rough demo.

The intro was never used again anywhere, but the song was picked up by another artist and recorded.   It was a minor hit and still creates a little income for my pal, who also recorded it on two of his albums.

Now his friend shows up and is demanding his half writer share and my pal doesn’t want to pay him.    So that’s the dilemma he brought to me.

My take on it is pretty simple.  Whether the other guy wrote a note or not, my pal made a deal; gave his word; and pretended that his friend wrote half.

When you do that, you are being enormously generous and noble.   You can’t maintain that status and also take back your gift.  

While I applaud what my pal did for his pal, it’s not something that I recommend that anyone do.   When you give undo credit to anyone for anything, it only serves to set up an imbalance that can not be maintained or cheerfully honored.

It just makes for resentment from all parties concerned.   If you want to help a pal that needs some nurturing, then do it.  Help them, nurture them, but don’t give them credit for something that they did not do.   It will only come back and bite you in the ass.

I hate when that happens.