How to credit a songwriter?

If you look in SHS you won't find a song credited to Israel Isidore Baline. Why not? Because this gentleman signed his songs with the name Irving Berlin. And that's what you'll find.

I believe that when a songwriter signs a song with a different name and it's that name that is printed on every label of the records containing that song, SHS should credit it to this name.

I bring this to discussion because I Never See Maggie Alone is credited in SHS to the composer Lawrence Wright and every cover I checked credits it to Everett Lynton. It's clear they are the same person, but the music industry links this song to Everett Lynton and not to Lawrence Wright. Why should SHS act otherwise, not respecting what is printed (right not wrong) on the record labels?

I sent an error report for this to be corrected and it was rejected.

Quote from Tunesmith

Why should SHS act otherwise, not respecting what is printed (right not wrong) on the record labels?

I sent an error report for this to be corrected and it was rejected.

Tunesmith - SlimD explained the SHS position to you already Case #276769

This section of the Forum is called Discussion for some reason. I know why I was rejected, but I would like to know what other people think about this. I feel you're sure that nobody cares and you're probably right.

There is a database limitation that we can only use one name for songwriters, whereas with performing artists we can use as many names as the artists themselves used.

I don't know anything about Lawrence Wright/Everett Lynton but if all of his works or the majority of them are credited on record labels to "Everett Lynton" then personally I wouldn't have a problem saying that his name in SHS should be "Everett Lynton". There are plenty of examples of this e.g. Irving Berlin as you say, many rap/hip-hop artists e.g. E*vax, Alex da Kid etc. If some works are credited to 'Lawrence Wright" and some to "Everett Lynton", then we would have to choose one of those names for all works and the decision about which name to use is pretty much arbitrary.

There can be discussion on this individual artist level but the database limitation I guess means that there isn't much point in any wider philosophical discussion which might be why trying to have one might feel like wading through treacle (I don't know how likely it is that the database limitation will be removed or even whether there is a call for it to be removed).

Thanks baggish for your contribution. I didn't realize there were such data base limitations. In this case the name not printed on the labels has to prevail.

In the case of Lawrence Wright the same applies to the song "Among my souvenirs". He wrote it under the name Horatio Nicholls. This name is printed on the labels, but the song has to be credited to Lawrence Wright for system limitations.

Souvenirs

The database has many examples of works credited to pseudonymous songwriters.

Quote from Tunesmith

Thanks baggish for your contribution. I didn't realize there were such data base limitations. In this case the name not printed on the labels has to prevail.

Yes, this is really the key factor. Surprisingly it was not mentioned in the previously mentioned Case #276769 or in the topic linked in that error report.

Quote from Tunesmith

In the case of Lawrence Wright the same applies to the song "Among my souvenirs". He wrote it under the name Horatio Nicholls. This name is printed on the labels, but the song has to be credited to Lawrence Wright for system limitations.

We have both Horatio Nicholls and Everett Lynton listed as Aliases on the Lawrence Wright page, and this is the best we can do at the moment. When we as editors add a new work we can enter any of the three names Lawrence Wright, Horatio Nicholls or Everett Lynton and they will all connect to Lawrence Wright so there shouldn't be any errors. I hope it works in the same way when submitting a new work for entry, but I don't have any experience of that.

Quote from Jeff Chamberlain

The database has many examples of works credited to pseudonymous songwriters.

Yep, I don't think we have any rules about which name to choose, not as far as I know anyway!