Stephen,

There were pockets of them, but Even Cole Porter and Hank Williams often worked with other people on songs for plays, and motion pictures. Much of Hank's stuff was helped along considerbly by his publisher Fred Rose. Cole Porter worked with many of the Broadway lyric writers as well as Hollywood. And Stephen Foster died broke with 37 cents in his pocket. That is why ASCAP was formed.

What I am talking about is the social and business format that was availible up until the 60's, and how the majority of music we know today got there. There are always a few exceptions to the rules.

Many people like the subject of this thread are people that do one or the other. But in this day and age, most people do both and have been doing that since the 60's. And with the economic realities now with fewer people making money, etc. you end up with multiple people on every song doing everything together that is the rule.

The original question was "What is the truth behind 'selling' Lyrics? The truth from my point of view is that there are so many full songs out there and so many writers, there would be no demand for "lyric" only's, outside of some shady deals or some very strange situations. "We set your poems to music" scams that are trying to get writers to pay for poor quality demos and praying upon their dreams.

Lyrics today are much more realistic and coversational, and written mostly with artists to even be considered for comercial release. That means that the artist's lives are the things that are written about. So picking out a random lyric and thinking "That is about me.." for a modern artist, Is so rare as to really not even be a realistic option.

So, yes I do know that the one's you mentioned wrote music and lyrics. They were very rare in their eras. I'm always talking about the general rules and how they developed. Another question that Sam has was "How did all this get this way?"
He apparently has gotten some bad information from people and is trying to find the truth. He lives in Nashville as do I,and I am attempting to share some of what goes on here with him.

Jimmie Rodgers was my Grandmother's second cousin. So this kind of stuff has been going through my family for a long time.

MAB