WITH THIS CO-WRITE, I THEE WED: 10 CO-WRITING VOWS

By entering the songwriting room to write with you, I hereby promise:

To be faithful to you in keeping our song “OUR” song. I will not change our song in any way without getting your approval. No lyric changes, melodic changes or production changes. Nor will I bring another writer in on our song without your approval.
 
I will honor you as an equal creator of this song. I will not count lines or try to measure who contributed most. I will respect that fact that WE created this song and that everything that happened in the writing room contributed to the song being the way it is.
 
I will not take this idea and write it with anyone else, even if it was my idea. If I don’t like the way it turned out, I will suggest changes or ask you if we can bring someone else in to help us make it better, but I won’t do anything without consulting you. At the end of the day, if I still don’t like it, I will move on and learn from the experience.

I will do my part in producing and paying for a pitchable demo if the song turns out great. If I can’t pay for my half of a demo, I will discuss that with you up front. There is nothing more frustrating than writing a song that is amazing and not being able to pitch it because one party can’t or won’t pay their part of the demo. I will let you know upfront that I can’t pay, or I will pay my part of a demo.
 
I will contribute everything I can contribute to make our song succeed. This includes “working” the song by playing it for people that could help us get it recorded. It also includes paying for a song plugger It might include chipping in a portion of my publishing share to get someone interested in our song. I won’t make you do all of the work or pay all of the costs of getting our song heard.
 
I will deal with you honestly and give you your share of any royalties I collect from our songs. From any source.
 
I will communicate with you over the life of our song if there is any activity with it. This includes letting you know if it gets recorded or used in any way. I will also consult you if there are decisions to be made regarding our song.
 
I will give you credit any time I talk about our song. For instance, I will not announce at a show that “here’s a song I wrote”. I will tell people who I created the song with.
 
I will respect your thoughts, opinions, and ideas in regard to our song at all time.
 
Since this copyright will live 75 years longer than we will, I will do everything in my power to maintain a good, working relationship with you, even if this is the only song we ever write.
 
You may kiss your co-writer now!

Author

Hangi Tavakoli is our in-house established and professional music producer with more than 17 years of experience in songwriting, music production, mix and mastering. He has produced more than 3,000 and written more than 4,800 published songs to-date, including some major hits in international scale.