The Business of Music
"The euphoria faded as I began to learn, slowly and often quite accidentally, how the business of music worked. It's embarrassing remembering how ignorant I was about business back then. It's even worse to admit that I'm not much better today. I've been forced to learn some basic rules during forty years on the job, but I've resisted fiercely and effectively; only the most unavoidable home truths have gotten through. I've always resented the time and energy, business takes away from music - lawyers desperately needing decisions when the song in my head desperately needs to come out; accountants telling me I need to go there and sing that when I really want to stay here and sing this. The concepts don't match up. A businessman looks at a song and sees a pile of money surrounded by questions about its ownership; I see one of my babies. I remember how strange it felt sitting in a meeting in the 80s, looking down a long list of my own songs whose copyright was finally available for me to acquire, and seeing the title 'Wide Open Road' among them. I was suddenly overwhelmed with a vivid memory of exactly how it felt thirty years before on the cold, rainy morning when I sat in the barracks in Germany with my five-dollar guitar and conjured that song up out of the air. How could anyone but me own that?
I don't know. I've cancelled the vast majority of my meetings with lawyers and accountants, and whenever I've found myself forced into one, my strongest urge has always been to get out of it as quickly as possible, muttering something like, 'I just want to sing and play my guitar.' ... I feel bad about not being fluent in music and money, and I look to people who are." - Cash, Johnny with patrick carr, Cash: The Autobiography, p. 81, 82 (1997); Harper Collins First Edition.
I don't know. I've cancelled the vast majority of my meetings with lawyers and accountants, and whenever I've found myself forced into one, my strongest urge has always been to get out of it as quickly as possible, muttering something like, 'I just want to sing and play my guitar.' ... I feel bad about not being fluent in music and money, and I look to people who are." - Cash, Johnny with patrick carr, Cash: The Autobiography, p. 81, 82 (1997); Harper Collins First Edition.