{"id":234877,"date":"2025-06-25T19:39:31","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T18:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=234877"},"modified":"2025-10-02T08:06:54","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T07:06:54","slug":"songwriters-are-at-the-bottom-of-the-earning-scale-and-that-is-unfathomable-inexcusable-and-disgusting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/songwriters-are-at-the-bottom-of-the-earning-scale-and-that-is-unfathomable-inexcusable-and-disgusting\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Songwriters are at the bottom of the earning scale \u2013 and that is unfathomable, inexcusable and disgusting\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

MBW\u2019s World\u2019s Greatest Songwriters series celebrates the composers behind the globe\u2019s biggest hits. In this edition we meet Shelly Peiken, a writer with credits on nineties mega hits such as Bitch<\/em> by Meredith Brooks and Come On Over Baby<\/em> and What A Girl Wants<\/em> by Christina Aguilera. She is also the co-founder of campaigning group Songwriters Of North America (SONA). World\u2019s Greatest Songwriters is supported by AMRA<\/a> \u2013 the global digital music collection society which strives to maximize value for songwriters and publishers in the digital age.<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/i><\/a><\/figure>Shelly Peiken<\/strong> was having a bad day. She was stuck in traffic on her way home from another fruitless session, coping with PMS, smoking her last cigarette, jealous of her peers who were having hits, and contemplating giving up her pursuit of a songwriting career and going back to waitressing.<\/p>\n

As she sat fuming at another red light, all those things crystalized into one thought: \u201cI hate the world today\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought, \u2018Wow, that would be a good first line\u2019,\u201d she grins. \u201cAs I went deeper into the detail, I was thinking, \u2018I\u2019m in a really foul mood and I\u2019m going home to this guy who loves me, no matter what, even when I can be a bitch\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rest, as they say, is hit-making history. When Peiken finally made it home, she called up singer-songwriter Meredith Brooks<\/strong> and together they turned those intrusive thoughts into the mould-breaking Bitch<\/em>, one of the biggest hits of 1997. That first line, \u201cI hate the world today\u201d, resonated around the world.<\/p>\n

Almost 30 years later, Peiken is self-deprecating about what that moment meant for her career, which had, until then, consisted of writing album tracks rather than hits (\u201cWas I suddenly the hottest songwriter on the block? Well, actually Anne Preven<\/strong> lived there too and she co-wrote [Natalie Imbruglia<\/strong>\u2019s hit] Torn<\/em>, so she was pretty hot that year as well!\u201d). Indeed, by the time Bitch<\/em> actually came out, Peiken was pregnant with her daughter and found herself with other priorities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe universe said, \u2018Shelly, you just had a hit, but I\u2019m not going to allow you to revel in it too much,\u201d she laughs. \u201cBitch<\/em> went to No.2, but the universe was saying, \u2018This is your No.1\u2019. It was a year when my phone was ringing off the hook, but I had to say no to a lot of things, because I wanted to be home.\u201d<\/p>\n

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She still said yes to the right things, however. Two more enormous co-writes soon followed: Christina Aguilera<\/strong>\u2019s US No.1s What A Girl Wants<\/em> (Peiken was later paid a huge fee by the film of the same name, even though the song did not actually appear on the soundtrack) and Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You)<\/em>; and she went on to co-write female empowerment anthems with or for the likes of Brandy<\/strong> (Almost Doesn\u2019t Count<\/em>), Mandy Moore<\/strong> (I Wanna Be With You<\/em>) and Jessie J<\/strong> (Who You Are<\/em>), amongst countless others, powering millions of radio plays and record sales.<\/p>\n

As the physical era turned into the digital era, however, Peiken and her peers noticed their royalty cheques for said classics were steadily diminishing in value. Rather than just moan about it, she joined the likes of Kay Hanley, Michelle Lewis<\/strong> and Pam Sheyne<\/strong> and, assisted by top music lawyer Dina LaPolt<\/strong>, formed Songwriters Of North America (SONA)<\/strong> in 2015. She\u2019s been fighting for songwriters\u2019 rights ever since.<\/p>\n

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Performing at The Other Songs concert in London, 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Nowadays, she lives a lovely life in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, swimming every day and \u201ctrying to forget all the craziness in the world\u201d. She has stepped back from frontline pop songwriting, except when young artists or writers actively seek out her skills (which they often do, such is the power of those songs, even decades after they were written), but teaches songwriting classes and is working on two musicals, one \u201cabout a Jewish mother who is being pressured to circumcise her male child against her wishes\u201d and one \u201cabout a young female runner in the seventies who was pushed out of the running culture in Canada, but broke all kinds of records as a teenager\u201d. Not your typical jukebox musicals, in other words.<\/p>\n

She wrote an excellent memoir, Confessions Of A Serial Songwriter<\/em>, and, when the audiobook was nominated for a Best Spoken Word Album Grammy, she was spurred on to rediscover her love of performing herself.<\/p>\n

Indeed, she had started off in New York as an aspiring artist, but says she concentrated on songwriting when she realized, \u201cI was an OK singer, not a great singer. I was an OK player, not a great player. I was OK on stage, not a spectacle\u201d.<\/p>\n

Anyone who saw her wow The Other Songs Live in London last year will know that\u2019s a long way from the truth, while her 2020 album of originals and reinterpretations of some of her most famous songs, 2.0 Etc<\/em>, showed she\u2019s also a star front of house, not just in the writer\u2019s room.<\/p>\n

Today, she\u2019s up bright and early to enjoy the hot California sunshine and to talk MBW<\/em> about AI, artists\u2019 songwriting credits and why songwriters should never be afraid to suck\u2026<\/p>\n

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WERE YOU WORRIED THAT THE RADIO WOULDN\u2019T PLAY BITCH WHEN IT CAME OUT?<\/h6>\n

We had that thought, but we didn\u2019t care. Like my friend Billy Steinberg said when he wrote Like A Virgin<\/em>, \u2018Better go bold than beige\u2019.<\/p>\n

A couple of radio stations asked us to change the word and we said, \u2018What are we going to do?\u2019 The point of that song was that word; without it, you wouldn\u2019t have a song. It wasn\u2019t about the F-word being a modifier in some verse that we could just change to \u2018fricking\u2019, it was about the audacity of that word.<\/p>\n

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