Hey, it’s me – I’m made in America! Granted, I contain a lot of foreign parts, but they were imported decades ago, back when foreigners were allowed in. I’m American! It’s Made in America Week!
This week, don’t listen to foreign music – Listen American! Every song I write, every single note, was composed here in America. Sure, some of those notes and words were used before, somewhere else in the world, but I put them together, proudly, right here in the good old USA.
If everyone would just listen to American music this week, American Songwriters like me wouldn’t have to sell so many t-shirts and mugs to make up for lost revenue in the recent shift to music streaming. I used to get $2.25 every time one of my CDs (made in the USA) sold, and I used to get $0.66 every time someone downloaded a song from Apple (American!) or Amazon (American!). I made a decent hard-earned dollar and paid my bills!
Did you know that YouTube (American…) pays me $0.000026 every time someone listens to one of my songs? It’s hard to count that many zeros. Try this: Last month, 71,154 people enjoyed one of my songs, and I got $1.85. That ain’t a gallon of gas or a cup of coffee. If every red-blooded American listened to my songs once this week (300 million or so) I would make $7,800! American Songwriters could make money from Americans listening to American songwriting, if only we all listened til our ears bled!
Until America is made great again, and our elected officials change the laws so that American songwriters can make a decent wage again, here’s a little something we can all do:
If you’ve been really enjoying someone’s music on Spotify, Pandora or YouTube (the artists don’t have to be American), pay them something. You could pay for a download, or buy their CD. Just buying one song for $0.99 gives that artist the monetary equivalent of 38,461 listens on YouTube! It would be downright patriotic to put one of your hard-earned American dollars towards the music (and musicians) you love.
And remember, if you live in the USA – every deed you do, every thought you think, is Made in America!
