The next time you happen to be on Long Island, look out for Joan Jett. She’ll be the one riding around in a brand-new Cadillac ELR.
“When I bought it a few months back, it was the only one in Nassau County,” Jett, now 55 and still touring hard with her band the Blackhearts, tells The Post. The rock ’n’ roll queen isn’t someone who allows herself to splurge on $75,000 electric cars or other flashy accessories very often, but it’s one of the things that “I Hate Myself for Loving You” — the theme to NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” — has bought her.
Released in 1988 and co-written with songwriter Desmond Child (who also co-wrote some of Bon Jovi’s biggest singles), it originally hit the Top 10 on the Billboard chart. The track got a new lease on life in 2006 when NBC picked it up to be the theme tune of their primetime football show and renamed it “Waiting All Day for Sunday Night.” Over the past eight years, new versions with altered lyrics have been sung by Pink, Faith Hill and Carrie Underwood, but Jett and co-writer Child have enjoyed the spoils.
Veronica Gretton, founder of New York based music publishing company 401K Music Inc., estimates that although Jett won’t be hurting financially, she probably hasn’t earned quite enough to move next door to Mark Zuckerberg just yet. “[The year] 2006 was a bit of a lean period for Joan, so NBC probably low-balled her,” she speculates. “But even so, it’s a well-viewed show, so I think she probably got a couple of grand a week, times that by a 17-week season over eight years. So that’s $272,000 as a base figure, which will be split 50/50 with Desmond Child.” When added to performance royalties, international screenings of ‘SNF,’ as well as sales of the original track prompted by fans hearing it, Gretton estimates it would have netted at least a cool half-million for Jett alone.
Bizarrely, the writers of “I Hate Myself for Loving You” initially didn’t want to hand over their baby to NBC, but Jett has come to terms with it. “I’m not Kanye West and I’m not on the radio all the time, so it helps keep my band paid,” she says. “I’m just glad I don’t have to sing the new versions. I’d probably end up singing the football version onstage by accident.”