Dave Carroll: United Airlines guitar song is YouTube hit
Dave Carroll: United Airlines guitar song is YouTube hit
Dave Carroll, a Canadian musician who wrote a song about United Airlines breaking his guitar, has become a YouTube hit. Following the success of "United Breaks Guitars" on YouTube, Carroll is set to release another song.
Carroll claims that United Airlines broke his prized guitar last year at Chicago's O'Hare airport. The country and western style song has already had 3.7 million hits on YouTube.
United Breaks Guitars turned into a "public relations disaster" for United Airlines, which had initially refused to pay repair costs for Carroll's guitar. However, once the song became an online hit, the carrier offer compensation.
Explaining the direction he took, Carroll told BBC Radio Four's Today programme: ""I asked myself, 'if Michael Moore was a singer-songwriter, what would he do?'." He subsequently decided to write three songs and make videos about United Airlines and to "share them with the world".
Carroll was surprised at the popularity of his song and accompanying video on YouTube; "I said my goal was to get one million hits, perhaps over a year with the three songs, but today we're already at 3.7 million." His second song will be online soon, he added.
The song is currently the 20th best selling track on the iTunes online music store in Canada, according to The Daily Telegraph. When United Airlines contacted Carroll after the release of his work, it offered him compensation worth £700. However, Carroll asked for the money to be donated to charity.
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