Writing on Assignment
Background: In my second blog about character development, I mentioned a quote from Carole King, that praised Joni Mitchell’s ability to write for herself, rather than writing on assignment, or writing for other artists, as King did in the early days of her career. Mostly, we have focused on people who have written the songs they sing. But it is also important to talk about the people who write songs for other artists. Though songwriting also involves composing, for purposes of this blog, “writing” will be focused on writing lyrics.
We will look at “writing on assignment” from four different standpoints
You write the lyrics, someone else writes the melody
You write the lyrics and the melody for a movie or TV show
You write the song for another artist
You write the song and someone else cuts it
You write the lyrics, someone else writes the melody
“Crocodile Rock” by Elton John, with lyrics by Bernie Taupin
Part of the reason this topic fascinates me is due to the lack of this kind of partnership in modern music. Brad Paisley often writes with Ashley Gorley and Chris Dubois, but Paisley has also written and composed on his own. If someone has success with another songwriter, they typically go back to that songwriter. Go back to the late 90s, early 2000s, and present day, and you can see writers such as Max Martin and Benny Blanco listed on many pop hits, along with many other writers. It is rather unclear what each writers’ contribution to the song was. But Elton’s partnership with Taupin (where the former would write the music and the latter would write the lyrics), lasted for 11 albums, before he worked with other lyricists.
It’s worth noting, before we go any further, that both writers of the song have dismissed it in recent years, Elton referring to it as “a joke,” but I chose this song because it differs from his other Bernie Taupin-penned songs in that Elton came to him with the idea and Taupin took it from there. We contrast this with something like “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” and “Honky Cat,” which Bernie wrote about his retreat to the countryside, after life in the spotlight, due to Elton’s rise to popularity, wore him down. The singer brings the songs to life, but they’re mostly about Taupin’s experiences.
Lyrically: The song reminisces about the early days of rock ‘n’ roll when he and his ex-flame, “Susy” would go out dancing. No matter what they did, including “holding hands and skimming stones,” nothing compared to the fun they had doing “The Crocodile Rock.” Upon learning about Australian band Daddy Cool’s song “Eagle Rock,” Elton John told Bernie Taupin about it, and Bernie wrote his own quasi-response song, “Crocodile Rock.” It also adds a little twist to the musical nostalgia with the breakup of Elton and Susy, leading to “Long nights crying by the record machine.” On a personal note, I loved this song when I was a kid, but definitely thought “Rock” was Elton John’s kid, and the song was about the fun they had when they got away from their son. I must have missed the line in the second verse about Rock dying.
Melodically: The song contains piano and organ, electric guitar, bass, and drums. The Farfisa organ gives the iconic sound in the verses and the chorus, in which the chord progression is the classic doo-wop progression I vi IV V. The song is in the key of G major the verses use a progression of G Em C and D. The chorus begins on the Em (vi) chord but then goes to the II7 (A7) chord to the V (D) chord. The A7 is the secondary dominant chord for D and D is the dominant V chord in the key of G major. The second time through the chorus we see the E7 (VI7) chord which is a secondary dominant to A7 (the II7) chord to the D7 (V7) chord back to G. This is a VI7, II7, V7, to the I chord turnaround based on secondary dominant movement (a.k.a a circle of fifths progression).. The time signature also goes from 4/4 rock to a 12/8 meter typical of a doo-wop rhythm.
Structurally: I mentioned earlier how I basically grew up with this song, and for someone who was exposed to music at such an early age, this is the first song that made me pay attention to song structure. It has a verse, chorus, verse, chorus, solo, verse, chorus format. That isn’t reinventing the wheel. But what did stick out to me was the fact that the third verse was the same as the first. Though this doesn’t always work when telling a story, it does in this particular song, because it’s all about nostalgia. Everything you need to know about the main character in the song happens in the first two verses: there are good times, then those good times go away, as does the person you had them with. But it all comes back to nostalgia that makes him happy–and that’s the ultimate implied conclusion by repeating the first verse. Of note as well: the “chorus” doesn’t have any words to it–it’s just the Farfisa organ that is immediately recognizable.
On a personal closing note, my 5th birthday was a Halloween party, and we played “Musical Squares” (Musical Chairs with paper napkins,) and one of the songs we played was “Crocodile Rock.” When I returned to my school in 7th grade after a two year absence, one of my friends immediately asked me if I still liked Elton John. Of course the answer was yes, and that’s why this song will always be special to me, no matter how its writers feel about it.
Embedded, you will find a link to “Crocodile Rock.”
2. You write the lyrics and the melody for a movie or TV show
“Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees
Background: In an earlier blog, I discussed former Fountains of Wayne lyricist and bassist Adam Schlesinger and his gift for knowing the moment. The Bee Gees were notorious for their ability to know the moment and mimic a particular genre–making it a memorable and iconic song that people remember for generations to come. The brothers could have fit any of the categories I’ve talked about, as they wrote for their brother Andy (knowing him well enough to know what he’d sing about, when he was physically unable to write,) writing for other artists, such as Kenny Rogers (“Islands in the Stream” and its entire parent album, Eyes That See in the Dark, were written by the Gibb Brothers,) and writing for film, such as the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever and its sequel Stayin’ Alive.
Lyrically: Some of you are probably reading this, wondering, “Mike, have you lost your mind? How are you going to praise this song for its lyrics?” But hear me out. Every time you’ve heard this song, it was probably at a wedding, dance, or some other type of party, or maybe it was in its original context, in the movie Saturday Night Fever. When you look at the context of the movie, “Stayin’ Alive” is a particularly apt hook. The main character, Tony Manero, is a burned out 19 year old, who lives with his parents and works a dead end job at a paint store. The only respite he gets is going to a nightclub in Brooklyn and lighting it up on the dance floor. In the real world, he’s exhausted, but at the club, he definitely declares that he’s stayin’ alive. The movie was based on a newspaper article in the fledgling New York Magazine, called Tribal Rights of the New Saturday Night, probably explaining the lyric, “We can try to understand the New York Times’ effect on man.”
Now think about the last party you went to: Better yet, before you think about the party, think about how much you looked forward to it all week. What was your work week like? Probably pretty frustrating. But you see the right people, you hear the right song, and all of a sudden, you’re rejuvenated and on top of the world. Though other songs on the soundtrack cover more ground lyrically, (my favorite line being, “We can take forever just a minute at a time” from “More Than a Woman,”) there’s so much said with so little.
Melodically: Of course, the bass line is iconic disco. The song is in the key of Fm where the i chord is an Fm7 that the iconic bass line is played over. It drops to an Eb (bVII) chord back to the Fm7 (i) chord. This repeats throughout the verse. The pre-chorus goes to a Bb (iv) chord for four bars. The chorus stays on Fm through until the last four bars where it goes between Cm (v) and Fm7 (i) chords. Each line of the chorus is a repeating descending melody. Following the second chorus we go to the bridge which alternates between the Fm7 (i) and Bb (iv) chords. All in all this is a fairly straightforward chord arrangement. The bVII (Eb) chord adds tension to the verses which adds to the mood of the song's character.
Structurally: This song has a fascinating structure: verse, pre-chorus, chorus verse, pre-chorus, chorus bridge, verse, chorus, bridge, bridge, bridge, bridge, bridge. Not since driving through Arkansas have I seen a group of people do something so interesting with a bridge! The verses are short, the pre-chorus transitions smoothly into the chorus, and the bridge becomes crucial to the end of the song, as well as the middle of it. Lyrically, “Life goin’ nowhere, somebody help me,” followed by cries of “I’m stayin’ alive!” just give the song a little bit more pull in our day to day than just another song from a movie.
“Stayin’ Alive” is embedded below:
3. You write the song for another artist
“No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems” by Kenny Chesney (written by Casey Beathard)
Background: In an earlier blog, I briefly mentioned how Nashville songwriters have a gift of taking a cliche or common phrase and tipping it on its head. As a listener, if we hear the phrase “No shoes, no shirt,” our mind probably pairs it with the phrase “no service.” But finding a place where you can be your laid-back self, rather than being kicked out for not wearing shoes and a shirt adds a nice little twist to the phrase.
Before we dive into the analysis of the song, it’s worth noting that although this still falls under the “writing on assignment” umbrella, songwriter Casey Beathard did not initially go about writing this song for Kenny Chesney. He was writing the song and played it for a friend. That friend said, “Get this to Kenny Chesney,” and Chesney told him, “Finish the song and I’ll cut it.” So the assignment started after he had already begun writing the song.
Lyrically: This song follows a character who’s been working his tail off and needs some sort of escape. As he says in the first verse, he’s been “Up to my neck, working six days a week, wearing holes in the soles of the shoes on my feet.” (Going back to our discussion about rhyme scheme, the inter-line rhyme of “holes in the soles” just flows so nicely. His desire is to be somewhere with “The sun and the sand and a drink in (my) hand, with no bottom.” For context, the original phrase, “No shoes, no shirt, no service” comes from anti-hippie sentiment. The laid-back hippies in question were anti-establishment, with the establishment being “The man.” The man in this case is the main character’s straight-laced boss, who wants him to put in the work, no matter how much, with no questions asked. In my last blog about character development, I made a snarky comment about the song “The Only Way I Know” being written by someone else and cut by three people who probably live in Franklin. And although the stresses of performing for a living doesn’t compare to the stresses of a 9-5, Chesney stated his reason for cutting the song when he did is that he had been escaping to the Virgin Islands, while not on tour, and the mentality of the song was exactly where his head was. After the success of the song, escapism would be a recurring theme in many of Kenny’s future songs, including “Old Blue Chair,” “Be As You Are,” “Somewhere in the Sun,” and “Guitars and Tiki Bars.”
Melodically: This song contains guitar, ukulele, and violin in the intro of the song’s album version, and mixes in bongos as well. The song has an island feel including a marimba can be heard on the solo, evoking an island sound.
The chord progression is fairly simple and the song is written in the key of G major. The song starts with an intro of G (I) to Em (vi) alternating in a G (1+2+) and Em (3+4+) count. This rhythm repeats through the verse which goes from G (I) to Em (vi) for four bars, then Am (ii) to D7 (V7) repeating for four bars. In the chorus, we start on the C (IV) chord to the D (V) chord, for one bar each, to the G (I) chord for two bars. This progression repeats for the first and second stanzas of the chorus. On the third stanza we go from C (IV) to D (V) to G (I) then a scale-wise walkdown from G (I), to D/F# (IV), to Em (vi) over the line “With no bottom” and repeating the C, D, G chords to resolve the chorus. This walkdown moving the bass line along G, F#, E is repeated in the bridge (maybe more of a refrain) which resolves on the C, D, to G.
Structurally: The song follows a verse, pre-chorus, chorus, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, solo, ending format. In the second verse, a romantic interest is added in: “Wanna look through my shades and see you there with me,” and the ending mirrors that: “Babe, let’s get packed, tank tops and flip flops, if you got ‘em. No shoes, no shirt, no problems.”
“No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems” is embedded below:
4. You write a song and another artist cuts it
“Stupid Boy” by Keith Urban (written by Sarah Buxton, Dave Berg, and Deanna Bryant)
Background: Similar to “No Shoes,” this song was not written with the intention of somebody cutting it. Even after it was written, this was not on Sarah Buxton’s mind. But Keith Urban heard the song and told his wife, Nicole Kidman, “I wish I could write a song like that.” Her response was, “Why don’t you just cut that one?” I don’t want to downplay the importance of exposure for someone else to cut your songs, but this is an excellent example that if your song speaks to an artist, the right people will find it. In other words, you write what’s in your heart, not saying, “I think this song would be perfect for ____.” If you build it, they will come.
Lyrically: This song tells the story of someone who was in a bad relationship with someone manipulative and abusive. “She was precious, like a flower, she grew wild, wild, and innocent,” it starts out. Interestingly, it doesn’t tell any of the “stupid boy’s” background, only saying she was this way until he ruined it. The power of diving right into the chorus, and scolding the “stupid boy” for his behavior is just stunning. It should be noted that there are two well-known versions of this song: Urban’s version and Buxton’s version, the latter of which was recorded after Keith’s version was already a hit. It’s worth listening to both versions, because they give off very different vibes. Sarah wrote it based on a personal experience – an abusive ex, so when she says at the end (presumably to a current/soon to be former) lover, “You’re that same old, same old stupid boy,” it comes from a very real, visceral place. However, in Keith’s version of the song, he concludes with, “I’m that same old, same old stupid boy,” and it adds a bit of vulnerability that isn’t there when it’s sung from a woman’s perspective. (And truly, there shouldn’t be vulnerability or culpability from the woman’s perspective, in this song.) In Keith’s version, the ending is pleading with God to let her know he’s sorry.
Melodically: This song has a slow cadence, accentuated by acoustic guitar, an accordion, over the verses adding slide guitar, electric guitar, and drums as the song builds in the pre-chorus and chorus. Its slow, intimate feel fits the somber tone of the lyrics, and allows for the gut punches throughout, especially at the end, when he declares that he’s “That same old, same old stupid boy.”
The song is in Eb but with the guitar in dropped D tuning with a capo at the first fret. Relative to the capo, the intro chords are Gsus2 (IVsus2) to Dsus2 (Isus2) to the A (V) chord. In the verse this progression continues, but the movement between the Gsus2 (IVsus2) and D (I) is pushed, meaning the change to the D chord comes just before the downbeat instead of on the downbeat. By pushing the D chord it adds some tension with the suspenses of the suspended chords. The chorus has the Gsus2, but goes from D (I) chord to the A (V) chord for the first two lines. In the third line, it goes Gsus2 (IVsus2), D (I), Bm (vi), to A (V) and then repeats the chords as in the first line but ends on an Asus4 (Vsus4). Rhythmically for the chorus, the D (I) chord is on the downbeat which opens up the rhythm and melody to support the lyrics. The bridge starts on the Gsus2 (IV) chord but substitutes the Bm (vi) chord for the D (I) chord then to the A (V) chord. So, Gsus2, Bm (pushed), to A alternating with Gsus2, D (on the downbeat), to A. It does this twice and ends on the Asus4 chord. This is a very effective bridge whereby pushing the Bm mimics the verses and placing the D on the downbeat mimics the choruses.
For reference, the Sarah Buxton version is in the key of G, but played with the G chord at the 10th fret using the D-shape on the guitar.
Structurally: This song follows a verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, solo chorus, ending format. Similar to “The House That Built Me” and “One,” as mentioned in a previous blog, the bridge sneaks up on you and happens rather quickly, as it uses the same chords as the end of the chorus (when he sings, “She never even knew she had a choice”). After the addressing of the stupid boy in the chorus, the second verse builds nicely on that, asking what made him think he could “Take a life and just push it around.”
“Stupid Boy,” both the Keith Urban and Sarah Buxton versions, are linked below. In my next blog, I will talk about outdated visuals within songs. Thanks, as always, for reading!
