PUBLIC DOMAIN
I will have more to say about songwriting in a post sometime in the future, but generally speaking, the music industry has become much more fastidious about songwriting credits now than was the case through the 1960’s. Regarding “You’re Going to Need Somebody on Your Bond”, which is a song that is evidently in the Public Domain, it was fairly common for musicians to list themselves as the songwriters. The more proper credit would be: “Traditional – arranged by Buffy Sainte-Marie”.
(August 2013)
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As a further wrinkle, the tune for “Love Me Tender” is an adaptation of a popular Civil War-era song “Aura Lea” (published in 1861), which had music by George R. Poulton and words by W. W. Fosdick. As with most old songs, “Aura Lea” is now in the “Public Domain”, meaning that the intellectual property rights for the writing of this song have expired; thus, Poulton and Fosdick did not have to be credited at all, nor did their heirs receive any compensation when “Love Me Tender” became a big hit.
(April 2015/1)
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