Publisher Spotlight: No. 1 with Believe Music Publishing

Inside Believe’s approach to unlocking and sustaining catalogue value.

Music publishing shapes far more than royalties. It influences how songs are discovered, licensed, translated, monetized, and remembered. Our new Publisher Spotlight series sits down with the people helping songwriters and rightsholders extend the life of their music.

In this inaugural edition, Believe Music Publishing’s Global Head of Music Development, Simon Pursehouse, shares his thoughts with us on the ever-changing publishing landscape, the lasting value of lyrics, what today’s industry should pay closer attention to, and more.

LF: In your view, what role do accurate, licensed lyrics play in the modern music ecosystem?

SP: Some people, (“fools,” I call them), claim they’re “not that bothered about lyrics.” Can you imagine being one of those people?! Can you begin to conjure up in your mind, just how much poorer your life would be? Music is art and lyrics are intrinsic to its power. There are certain lyricists who, when they release something new, I will put as much time and effort into reading their words as much as I will do listening to them sing them. I want to make sure I understand, notice, and feel every phrase, aphorism and syllable. When Guy Garvey wrote, “You are the only thing in any room you’re ever in,” arguably my favourite lyric of all time, he wrote it to be heard. I promise I’ll play my part and listen, Guy!

LF: How do you view lyrics and lyric translations as part of your catalogue’s long-term value?

SP: It’s an income stream that’s not to be overlooked, especially as we grow and begin to represent more evergreens and classics. Truly great songs are proven to stand the test of time, and with that, there will always be demand for lyrics that resonate with people to be deified in all manner of ways. From the sublime (we recently licensed some lyrics of an evergreen hit to be used on a special-edition football kit by one of the biggest teams in the world) to the refreshingly ridiculous (we once licensed lyrics from a Christmas song to be printed on some pyjamas), wonderful lyrics deserve to be celebrated.

LF: What’s something about this work that still feels personal to you?

SP: Whatever mood I’m in, there is a song with specific lyrics out there that can either elevate or quash my emotion, and that feels like a cheat code for life. Feeling sorry for myself? Well, let’s have a listen to “One Love” by Ian Dury and get out of that funk. Or, indeed! Maybe, I want to wallow in that pit of despair and really, really lean into it. That’s perfectly human. In that case, then, let’s get “Smother” by Daughter on the speakers and have a lovely lay in the dark, shall we? Had my heart utterly destroyed by someone who I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with? Well, let’s have a cry along to “Get Out” by Frightened Rabbit, but quickly follow it up with “The Heart is a Muscle” by Gang of Youths and remember that it’ll not feel like this forever. Music really is the best thing in the world.

LF: Is there a moment where you saw fans connect to a song in a way that surprised you? 

SP: You know what never fails to make me cry? Being at a gig and hearing thousands of people all singing the same song. Doing so at the top of their amateurish voices. Some, not even singing, but shouting, on some occasions, literally screaming; the words simply bursting out of them. It’s catharsis! It’s therapy! To me, at the very least, it’s beautiful. Last summer, I was lucky enough to attend concerts by both Olivia Rodrigo and Oasis, and the respective lyrics had the same effect on both teenage girls and fifty-year-old boys. Arms around each other, sheer bliss pasted on their faces. It made my heart so, so full to watch an eleven-year-old sing along, word[ed] perfectly, to a song about getting your heart broken. What a life she’s going to have.

LF: What changes in the publishing landscape are you paying the most attention to right now?

SP: It’d be amiss of me not to say the constant mergers, catalogue purchases and general amalgamating of copyright holders. It’s an interesting time to be [a] songwriter with a valuable catalogue. That’s for sure.

LF: Believe Publishing was founded to challenge traditional publishing models and give songwriters more control over their rights. Nearly 20 years later, how do you think that mission has evolved?

SP: Our ethos is still the same now as it was then: transparency shouldn’t be a USP. A specific evolution that I feel is prominent today is that it’s no longer enough to simply register copyrights everywhere, and wait, or "hope," for that money to make its way to us and our clients. You have to work tirelessly with PROs and CMOs worldwide to get the most out of them as possible. Here at Believe Publishing Group, we created a revenue optimisation team, whose job it is to do just that; increase our clients’ income by a number of ways. From data matching, to scraping unclaimed royalty databases to find our copyrights that have been misreported. Our “going above and beyond” approach has resulted in millions of £/$/€ in income that otherwise either wouldn’t have been distributed at all, or if it did, probably not to the right people. Let’s end the black box, hey?

LF: What makes a song stand out when you’re pitching for film, TV, gaming, or brand opportunities?

SP: Songs with more hooks than a fisherman’s car boot. For sync, being memorable within a super short window, sometimes in only a matter of seconds, is key. We regularly run sync writing camps with our partners where we have members of our sync team in the rooms with the songwriters, guiding them on how to make their songs as syncable as possible. We’ve seen fantastic results, landing placements worldwide for a lot of the tracks created at these specific camps. It could be an instrumental hook, or it could be, and often is, a lyrical one. Ultimately, it just needs to be something that is once heard, never forgotten.

Publishing is what turns songs into enduring assets – connecting creative work to opportunity, revenue, and long-term cultural impact. Within that ecosystem, lyrics are one of the many signals that drive discovery and engagement, reinforcing the value publishers are responsible for unlocking and protecting across a song’s lifecycle.

Thank you to Simon from Believe for sharing his perspective on publishing, songwriting, and the opportunities ahead!

Stay tuned for the next Publisher Spotlight as we continue highlighting the people and companies helping songs go further.

About Believe Music

Believe is a global artist development company. It empowers local artists, songwriters, labels and publishers to grow their audiences at each stage of their careers with expertise, respect, fairness and transparency.

Operating in 50+ countries, with more than 2,000 employees, Believe offers a full range of services across recording, publishing and distribution.

Believe’s publishing business represents the roster of songwriters and publishers across Believe Music Publishing, Sentric, Tunecore Publishing. With a dedicated team of 160+ experts spanning creative, sync and revenue optimization.  

Learn more at www.believe.com/music-publishing.

Follow: Believe Global  |  Believe Music Publishing |  Sentric Music  |  Tunecore

Written by: Kayla Higgins, Copywriter & Content Coordinator