Last month I was invited up to Ringo Starr’s home in Beverly Hills. He asked me to write a song with him for his next “virtual” album. In two days’ devotion, we conjured and recorded a piece called “Bamboula.”

We then sat back and guessed what our possible “day rate” for that time and effort would be. What an irony!

Forty years ago, co-writing a song with Ringo Starr would have provided me a house and a pool. Now, estimating 100,000 plays on Spotify, we guessed we’d split about $80. When I got home, on closer study, I found out we were way too optimistic. Spotify (on par with other streamers) pays only .00065 cents per play.