Wealth & Money Quote by Dorothy Fields

Fields is giving away the quiet trick behind “timeless” pop: you can’t chase the crowd without letting the crowd chase you. “Keep it in tune with the times” is her pragmatic nod to fashion, slang, tempo, and whatever the culture is humming that year. She’s not romanticizing purity; she’s describing craft. A songwriter who ignores the moment risks sounding like a museum exhibit.

But the second clause snaps shut like a trap: “don’t write with the specific purpose of trying to create a hit.” The subtext is that audiences can smell calculation. A “hit” built to satisfy a formula tends to arrive as an imitation of last season’s success, already aging in real time. Fields frames the problem as intent, not talent: when money becomes the north star, the work narrows into a set of market predictions. Art turns into a memo.

The punchline is her hard-boiled realism: “If you’re doing it strictly to make money, you’re crazy.” Coming from a Tin Pan Alley and Broadway veteran who knew royalties, deadlines, and producers, that’s not naive bohemianism. It’s an industry insider’s warning about volatility. Hits are statistical flukes, not salaries; trends are a moving target; the gatekeepers change. Her “easier ways to make money” lands with a grin, but it’s also a dare: if you’re here, be here for the long game - for craft, for voice, for the weird alchemy where being current and being yourself overlap.