Recording - December 2014 - 51

DECEMBER 2014
TAXI Road Rally 2013

What Makes a Chart-Topping Song: Ralph Murphy
Introduction by Michael Laskow
Ralph Murphy is an artist, songwriter, producer,
and music business executive who has worked
extensively on both sides of the Atlantic during his
career. His first #1 song in Europe was "Call My
Name," by James Royal in 1966. After several years
as an artist and producer, Ralph moved to New
York in 1969 to produce the band April Wine, which
earned two Gold albums and a Platinum record as
well. In 1971 Ralph had his first Country hit as a
songwriter with "Good Enough to Be Your Wife,"
with Jeannie C. Riley, which went to #2 on the
charts. By 1976, Ralph and his business partner
Roger Cook, opened Pic-A-Lic Music in Nashville.
During the decade of its existence, the company
prospered, and more of Ralph's songs became hits,
including: "He Got You," for Ronnie Milsap and
"Half the Way," with Crystal Gayle. Ralph served as
President of NSAI, and Vice-President of International at ASCAP. He is based in Nashville, but
regularly flies all over the world to speak at just
about every music conference imaginable. He is
also the author of the incredibly great book, Murphy's Laws of Songwriting, which is used as a
textbook by universities the world over. Ladies and
gentlemen, my dear friend, my favorite golf partner, the one and only Mr. Ralph Murphy!
[Applause]
OK, what's silly about this is they flew my
mangy butt all the way to Singapore to present
this report. But, I'm not really a teacher. I'm a
songwriter, and what I do is I gather all this valuable information once a year, and I don't mind
sharing it. And because we [songwriters] are so
dysfunctional, and we are such victims as creative human beings, that it's really important to
know this stuff. Knowledge is power. So, everything I'm about to tell you is knowledge to help
you going forward.
What is a hit? Well, the interesting thing is
when I was in Singapore they were talking
about delivery systems and content and all

Ralph Murphy dishing out some of his wisdom during his presentation at TAXI's Road Rally.

those kinds of things. In actual fact, no one was
talking about a song.
Now, our industry is an inverted pyramid that
rests squarely on the song. The song functions as
everything to all people. So every year-for three
weeks over Christmas, I punish myself by gathering all the songs that have been #1 on both the
Billboard Pop and Country charts in the United
States and study them by genre for the things
that they have in common. The reason I do this-
and I've done this for many years-is that our
industry relies heavily on what was just successful as a projection for what potentially will be
successful in the near future. The second reason
is for me to be successful as a writer and a music
publisher, it's essential that I know what fuels
my business. The good news is that in traveling

from country to country-because I teach in
England, Norway, Sweden, Australia, Canada-
the big hits are a constant and they're always the
same. That human animal appreciates those
songs in exactly the same way, OK? So, prepare
to be bored for the next three minutes, because
I'm going to give you data. I will then take that
data and inform you; I will show you all the
things that happened within that data.
Let's start with the Pop Charts. A #1 song on the
Billboard Pop charts will be mid-to up-tempo. At
least two-thirds of all #1 Pop hits last year were
100 beats per minute or more, and those records
spent two-thirds of the year at #1. Women featured prominently in Pop at #1, with 75% of the
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