who wrote this song anyway??

[kevibass]

has this happened to you?
a guitarist brings a riff or lick or whatever to the band, you lay down a bass line the drummer puts in a beat, jam on it... but... the guitarist will claim, this is his song.
now, a bassist brings something similar to the situation, you know, then the guitarist adds his whatever, same for drummer etc.. but magically it is now a group effort/song/jam. the egos of guitarists never cease to amaze me!

[JimK]

Depends.


(Initially) The Doors, up front, agreed everything would be composed by "The Doors".

Just watched a Cream docu...Baker (FWIW) was sayin' his ideas, Clapton's ideas...nada. The song would come out as "Bruce/Brown".

[markorbit]

Never allow others to take your songwriting credit. It is where the majority of any real money will be and you will rue the day it happened should anything happen.

[Roscoe East]

Originally Posted by kevibass

a guitarist brings a riff or lick or whatever to the band, you lay down a bass line the drummer puts in a beat, jam on it... but... the guitarist will claim, this is his song.

Arguably, whatever you contributed to the "jam" wouldn't have been created if the guitarist hadn't originally brought in his "riff or lick or whatever" that inspired you to contribute in the first place...so his idea was the seed, the inspiration, and to some musicians that alone constitutes songwriting credit.

But that works both ways too, so if you brought in the original lick you have just as much claim to credit even though you are just a bassplayer.