I just heard a great cover of Gillian Welch‘s Everything is Free on KBCS-FM. The performer enunciated the lyrics more clearly than Gillian and I could hear them clearly for the first time. As I listened, I realized that the song is a perfect rejoinder to the music industry’s assault on music file sharing:
Everything is free now,
That’s what they say.
Everything I ever done,
Gotta give it away.
Someone hit the big score.
They figured it out,
That we’re gonna do it anyway,
Even if doesn’t pay
Well, sure the song’s actually about making music for the pure love of it, rather than for the ‘big score.’ But I think the music industry qualifies as the ‘big score,’ don’t you? In fact, Gillian makes clear that ‘the big score’ is not fame and fortune, but making music for love.
Make no mistake, I’m not saying that the music industry should adopt Gillian’s approach to making music. But there are far better business models than what the industry has adopted including suing teenagers and grandmothers for illegal music downloading.
