By The Landlord
“Society is indeed a contract ... it becomes a participant not only between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.” – Edmund Burke
“All treaties between great states cease to be binding when they come in conflict with the struggle for existence.” – Otto von Bismarck
“Do you have a record contract? I have a recording agreement. What's the difference? One is an agreement and one is a contract! I am a man who deals by ear.” – Bob Marley
“I made a deal with the devil for a whole lot of money.” – Jimmy Buffett
“It’s a shit business.” – Les McQueen of Creme Brulee, The League of Gentlemen
"We were being profoundly political by not owning our groups: ‘The company owns nothing, the musicians own their music and everything they do, and all artists have the freedom to fuck off.’ “– Tony Wilson, Factory Records
Strange, in a breath, a second’s blink,
Some scratched cross, dipped quill and ink,
Or biro mark, a squiggled sign
Rules our lives from a dotted line.
That scrawl, first practised in a child’s hand,
Uniquely then stamps out life’s brand.
Even in a world of swipes and thumbs,
Ink still controls our daily outcomes.
Serfs’ rented plots to kings’ vast lands
All held tight by the twitch of a hand,
Hedge and field, wall and brook,
Marking the future in the Domesday Book.
For jobs to marriage, pre-nups, divorce,
Payments, purchase, all set a course.
Treaties made by powerful men,
All ratified by a stroke of pen.
History shaping lives, lands, fears –
The Treaty of Tordesillas,
Paris, Maastricht, and Vienna,
Versailles ‘19, and Westphalia.
The US Constituion: Signed and sealed, but is it is delivered?
America’s signed up Constitution
“We the people” seemed a solution.
While here in straitened, grating Britain,
Democracy oddly, dubiously unwritten.
Bonds and covenants, deals, guarantees,
Pledges, compacts, pacts and trustees,
Fair or foul, healthy, maltreatment,
This theme is any formal agreement.
Compacts signed at every level,
Vows to be good, pacts with the devil,
And of course with a song theme stacked,
Lyrics that mention a record contract.
Famously those so label-ly diddled.
Berry, Richard, percentages crippled,
Prince’s Warners ‘Slave’ face-off,
Billy Joel’s losses to Artie Ripp-off,
Prince’s protest against the constraints of his Warner Bros record contract
The list is endless, so many bands,
Lose out royally in contractual hands.
Dreaming of fame and a fancy car?
No smoke without ire when offered a cigar.
But others work it with an artful zeal,
Kate Bush earns with full-owned deal.
And not all contracts come on paper
There’s that famous KLF caper
Of Drummond and Cauty’s car-crash closure
On a Nissan Bluebird’s body exposure.
Their time in music’s dramatic path,
Pushed over the cliff up in Cape Wrath.
Bill Drummond signing the famous KLF Cape Wrath Moratorium on a Nissan Bluebird, 1995
And we mustn’t forget the true anti-contract
Of Tony Wilson and the Factory pact,
Scribed in blood, with a cigarette cough,
“No one owns”, bands “free to fuck off’.
Life-spanning bonds to zero-hours contracts,
Let’s get with the lyrics and sift out the song facts.
It’s time to pick out, press play and pause.
Signed, sealed, delivered? The choice is yours.
No obligations, nothing’s signed here.
This Bar runs on music, that’s patently clear.
The usual deadline, the only agreement,
Convivial chat, and dulcet enjoyment.
Songs on topic, shared acclamations,
Quoted lyric helps, justifications.
And picking those playlists, leading the banter,
Is this guest guru – Tatanka Yotanka!
Pud-down: A hopeful Les McQueen of the fictional glam band Creme Brulee, played by Mark Gatiss in The League of Gentlemen
So then please suggest your songs on the topic of formal agreements of all kinds in comments below. Deadline? 11pm UK time on Monday evening, for playlists also published next week.
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