The Economics of Everyday Things - 3. My Sharona

Episode Date: February 6, 2023

Can a hit single from four decades ago still pay the bills? Zachary Crockett f-f-f-finds out.

I recently talked to a woman whose name I have heard hundreds of times at the grocery store karaoke bars in my car. But before the world knew her name, she was just a typical teenager in the late 1970s, living it up in Los Angeles. It was a pretty careful free life in those days. We would just go to someone's house and rock out the cars, the pretenders, Pondy. Oh yeah. All those songs that you would just air guitar in your bedroom. I was a 16, 17 year old person. I was working in a clothing store and the sky said,

hey, I'm playing at SIR Studios. Do you want to come check me out? And so I went and brought some friends. They were honestly really good. And then he asked to take me to lunch and he told me, I'm absolutely madly in love with you. We're going to be together one day. And I was like, what are you kidding me? You're many, many years older than me.

And I'm just not available. He ended up really pursuing me. I didn't go with him for that first year while he was kind of being my groupie. That's when he's writing these songs. Every club, the star with the troubid or the whiskey, three shows a night, sold out, cut to, I'm driving back to my work, and I'm just like, did I just tear a song with my name in it on the radio? Like, what just happened? [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ From the Freakonomics Radio Network,

this is the economics of everyday things. I'm Zachary Trachet. Today, my Shirona. It's the story of how one hit single can pay off for decades. On August 25, 1979, my Shirona seized the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100. It stayed there for a full six weeks, becoming the biggest hit of the year. In an era of disco dominance, my Shirona stood out. The song was written by singer guitarist Doug Figer, who died in 2010, and this guy. My name is Burton Averre.

I was the lead guitarist and co-writer in a group The NAC. The NAC was a rock quartet that formed in LA in 1978. When our band first started I was living in my parents' house in the valley. We weren't making any money at that point. But the band soon gained a cult following for their high energy shows at clubs in West Hollywood. And it wasn't long before Figer planted the seed for a song that would change their lives. My first song was one of the first songs that Doug and I wrote together when we started

playing the troubadour. Doug was always saying, we should have a song that's like the end of the set that makes them want us to play an encore. I was a huge fan of Elvis Costello's. And the drum breakdown and pump it up was like so just feral and exciting. I picked up a guitar and I started playing the riff that we know as the My Shirona riff. And I thought this is pretty good. I like this. So we went back to Doug's apartment.

And Shirona was this young woman and took a shine to her. He just, just off the top of his head came up with the kind of stuttering the mama, mama, and my Shirona, he was channeling Roger Daltry and my generation. I'm trying to call some big sense. I'm trying to call my deep, he's talking about my,

and we cranked it out, you know, I'd say maybe an hour, best hour, ever. In economic terms, that one hour of songwriting was one of the two most productive hours of Burton of Air's life. We'll hear about the other in a minute. The band at this point was only earning a few hundred dollars per gig, but they were building buzz. There was 100% word of mouth. We were kind of a local sensation in that sense.

We had a string of really big names getting up and jamming with us because we played really well for a band. We're talking Steven Stills, Eddie Money, Tom Petty, and then... Springsteen got up and jammed with us, and the record companies that were there. The next morning, our manager is fielding calls from all of them, talking potential record deals. They signed with capital records for an advance of around $100,000, which was pretty sizeable at the time.

But a record advance isn't pure profit. There are strings attached. The label gives you advance money so that you could record the album and then your first sales, all the money goes back to them until you've paid back the advance, right? So in an era where people were spending like $400,000 to make their albums, we spent, and this isn't

an exaggeration, $17.5,000. That thrifty approach led to the other, most productive hour of Burton of Air's life. Most of what we did in the studio were one takes. One takes and then we record the singing. You hear a lot of big name bands, you know, spending hours and hours and hours in the studio, just carefully crafting one song. That was not the case here. No. So, after recording my Shirona and the 11 other songs that went on to their 1979 debut

album Get the Nack, the band was left with more than $82,000 from the advance. The trade-off with an advance is that once you take the record company's money, the recordings become their property, not yours. I mean mid to late 70s, the traditional deal would be that the record company would own the master and they would provide a percentage of the sales to the artist. They would call them points. That's Michael Closter, head of the music to the artist. It would call them points. That's Michael Closter, head of the music publisher, reach music. He represents both a ver and the estate of Doug Figer.

You know, if you had 10 points, 12 points, 14 points, the record company would be making the majority, a 90%, 85%. Our band got, because we were in demand, 13 points, which was for a new band it was unheard of. That's 13% of every physical copy sold. And the album get the NAC sold 2 million copies in the first year alone. At first, the NAC didn't get to collect their artist royalties. Those went straight to capital to pay back that $100,000 advance.

Once that debt was paid, though, the band started receiving checks, and that was very nice for all four members of the NAC. Burton Averre and Doug Figer, along with bassist Prescott Niles and drummer Bruce Gary. Meanwhile, my Shirona was all over the radio. And that meant performance royalties. That's a huge revenue stream, especially back in the day, if you had a big radio hit, you would generate significant performance income. Performance royalties get paid when recording is played in public. Say over the radio at a roller rink or in a store.

But that money didn't go to the knack. It went to Doug Figer and Burton O'Vare, the two band members who had written the song back in Figer's apartment. They owned the copyright to my Sharona as a composition, the tune, the lyrics, the rhythm, the chords. Being the songwriter is really key to your financial success and your longevity. It kicks off numerous amounts of other royalty streams. That really have nothing to do with the record company and that the record company would not be recouping against. As the songwriters, a ver and aager also got an extra share of the record sales

recorded to copyright holders. That's called mechanical royalties. I remember the first check I got from the mechanicals and it was about 90,000. Remember, performance royalties and mechanical royalties are attached to the song as a composition, not the recording. This was Fager and Averre getting paid for that first golden hour writing the song in Fager's apartment. Not the second golden hour when they were cranking out the record in the studio with Prescott Niles and Bruce Gary.

All of this was just the beginning. Later that year, a college student in San Luis Obispo, California, had the idea to record a parody of my Sharona. He sent it into the disc jockey Dr. Demento, who played novelty songs on his nationally syndicated radio show. That is how the world first met weird Al Yankovic. My Balona was released as a single and on Yankovic's first album. And because my Balona was adapted from a ver and Fieger song, they collected royalties whenever the parody version was played or sold. That wasn't always the case when other musicians made use of my

Shirona. In 1987, Run DMC used a sample from the Nax own recording of the song. At that point, the law around using samples was a bit unclear. Rundi MC never got permission from the NAC to use the recording, so the rock band didn't get paid when it's tricky, made the charts. 19 years later, the NAC filed suit for copyright infringement, and the parties came to an undisclosed settlement. Now, samples usually are not a big money maker. For my Sharona, the serious bucks were yet to come.

That's after this break. By the early 90s, the revenue streams for my Sharona had seriously decreased for Burton of Air. I mean, Doug and I were getting by. We weren't like on the street or anything, but we weren't making significant money. The NAC had put out follow-up albums in 1980 and 1981, and these sold a few hundred thousand copies a piece. Decent, but nowhere near the success of Get the NAC. Shortly after that,

the members started to squabble and the bands split up. They later reunited for a fourth album, which was a critical and commercial flap. It seemed that the knack had run its course. And yet, as Michael Closter points out, you know, anything that hit number one from a certain time period will be used and rediscovered. For my Shironaa that happened in 1994 Reality bites that was a really big use of my Shirona.

Reality bites was a comedy directed by Ben Stiller about the romantic and creative struggles of 20-something Gen Xers. It grossed more than 20 million dollars. And some of that went back to a ver and Figer in the form of something called synchronization royalties. Synchronization income, which is the licensing of music in a film or TV show or an advertisement or a video game, that's a huge revenue stream for the songwriter. There's no barriers except for the free market to tell you what you can charge for your

song. We made a good chunk off of the sync rights. It was probably about 60,000. Reality bites put the original recording of my Shrona back on billboards hot 100 chart again, 15 years after its release. What happens is that the people who were into it originally are at a different stage of life. They re-experience the song. And then what also happens is new fans.

New fans, new sales, and even more synchronization deals. Do you have a rough estimate on how many films and commercials and advertisements my sure I was used in over the years? It could be 50. We're constantly throughout the year licensing the song and all different types of situations in all over the world. So you never know when you're going to get a great email in your inbox how they want to use your song in a very large substantial way, which equals a very large substantial payday. The 21st century has introduced one more income source from my Sharona, streaming royalties,

paid by platforms like Spotify and Apple Music when users play the song. The record label negotiates a rate for the recording and then gives the band a cut. And the publisher collects mechanical royalty and a performance royalty, both of which go to the songwriters. Those rates are a lot lower than what a band makes on physical record sales. When you look at your statements and you actually see the per-song micro penny rate, you're like, oh my lord, on an individual line basis, it's very minuscule, but we're talking about such volume that it really adds up. Before he died from cancer in 2010, Doug Figer called my Shirona the Golden Albatross. Burton ofire for his part is still composing new tunes, mostly in physical theater.

But if he'd never lifted a finger beyond that hit song, he'd still be getting paid. I know you don't wanna say the exact amount of the checks, but are we talking like mortgage payment money, car payment money? Well, let me put it this way. It's easily over a hundred thousand year and less than, I say, three hundred thousand. I still make a very good living off of that one song.

I do not have the wolf at the door, probably never will. So, a man who co-wrote one hit song 43 years ago still makes six figures off of it to this day. None of that money is flowing to Shirona Alperin. Today, she's a real estate agent in Los Angeles. She has some ambivalent feelings about the hit record that was written about her. A record, I should say, that presents a 17-year-old girl as the object of an older man's lust. I mean, come on, my. Let's think about it. Is there a more obsessive or possessive word in the English language? My? It's like, dude, no, I'm not yours. It was time for me to be my Shurona.

And where should people go if they want to find your business online? Oh, thank you for asking. They can go to myshurona.com. For the economics of everyday things, I'm Zachary Crocke. This episode was produced by Sarah Lilly and mixed by Jeremy Johnston with help from Greg Ripon, Jasmine Klinger, and Emma Torell. Our executive team is Neil Karuth, Gabriel Roth, and Steven Dubner. If we wanted to play my show on this podcast, how much would that set us back? We would enter into a free market negotiation, and I would try to extract as much as I can from you. No, no. We're all good.

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