We Should Have Sold This One

Back in the 80’s I formed a band with the intentions of becoming rich and famous. I figured, “Nobody cares about artistic merit anyway, so why not forget about that and embrace the business?” I convinced my brother to forgo his penchant for writing quirky pop-tunes with odd time signatures and abrupt tempo changes and instead deliberately "sell out" and aim for the commercial market. I remember during one recording session, the engineer commented, “I don’t understand you guys. You dig the music of XTC, Peter Gabriel and Thomas Dolby but you play this?” [Another day I'll post the tune he was referencing.]

In any event, it was the end of 1983, and my brother penned a song he called “Big Brother.” We recorded it with high-hopes of cashing in on the 1984 hype. Our manager schmoozed his way into a meeting with a major publisher and played her 3 or 4 of our numbers including the freshly recorded “Big Brother.” She loved it but wanted to buy the rights and pitch it too one of those 80’s hard-schlock hair- bands. She offered to buy it outright and take my brother’s name off of the writing credit. Money wasn’t discussed – we just said “no” because we thought we were going to get signed by virtue of that song.

In retrospect, I think we should have bargained to let her shop the song but keep my bro’s name on the credits. We were inexperienced. This was perhaps the second biggest mistake we ever made, right behind the one where we actually believed that we could somehow make a career in the pop-music industry.

Click here to listen to "Big Brother."