Welcome to the MSA BLOGs
Songwriting Methods Minnesota Mike
Relationship Co-Dependency
Background: The beginning of a relationship can be tricky to navigate. It’s exciting hanging out with someone new, but you don’t want to come off as clingy or possessive. Sometimes you don’t mean to, and you just can’t help it. And while this can be a bad thing, both relationship-wise and mental health-wise, it has become one of my favorite things to explore in song form. I have been on both sides of the codependency, and it’s fascinating to see it when someone else acts that way toward you, because you can’t always see it in yourself. So the songs we are going to look at in this blog explore that theme. With this coming out right around Valentine’s, I hope this helps you feel a little less alone, and helps inspire your own writing about this topic, even if it might be painful. Also, as always, since it’s an interesting topic to explore, maybe you’ll create a character who’s codependent, if it doesn’t apply to your own life!
Twist and Shout!
You have probably heard it said that you should never judge a book by its cover. Sometimes, though, judging a song by its title can lead to some great songwriting. Jason Aldean has a song called “I Break Everything I Touch,” which I knew was either lamenting how he ruins relationships or about him being a whirling dervish, who makes no apologies. It turned out to be the latter. Jake Owen’s “Startin’ With Me,” I thought was going to be about how the party doesn’t start without him, but it turned out to be all the things that needed to change in his life, “Startin’ with me.” There are many ways to put twists into your songs, so the viewer’s ears perk up upon realizing the song isn’t going where we thought it would. For the purposes of this blog, we will take a look at songs that add a twist at the end, and how they transform the songs from okay to great.
Color Me Impressed!
Ok, I have a confession to make: Adjectives drive me insane. Sometimes people will use a seemingly endless amount of them, before they even get to what it is they’re describing. Of course Spanish puts adjectives after the noun to alleviate this problem. But in song form, adjectives can be very useful to paint a picture, and what better way to paint a picture than with colors? In this blog, we will talk about using colors in songs and the emotions those colors convey, including one song in Spanish.
Dating Your Songs
Background: The publishing date for this blog is right around New Year’s Day. In honor of that, I thought I’d do a blog with songs that focus on the calendar. Obviously we want our songs to stand the test of time, so if we do use these dates in our lyrics, we must do them strategically. All of the songs we’ll look at do just that, and I hope they inspire you to do the same!
Story Songs, Example Songs, and Hybrid Songs
Background: In previous blogs, I have alluded to “Story Songs” and “Example Songs”, and every time I tell someone about this concept, they always bring up a third type of song, which is a little bit of both. To me, story songs tell a somewhat linear story: “Tangled Up in Blue” begins with someone wondering what ever happened to his ex, and then recounts their rise and fall, as well as times after the fall when they ran into each other. It skips time frames, but concludes with him moving on, so we still get some closure, like a good story usually provides us with. But we also have example songs, which don’t necessarily tell a story, but instead give an example of a concept, usually detailed in the chorus. Finally, you have what I call “Hybrid Songs,” which tell a story while using examples of a concept. We will look at all three in this blog, which means you’ll get six songs analyzed instead of the normal four.
Outlaw Songs
Background: After writing my first album of breakup songs in 2010, I told myself I did not want to be known for that (which didn’t take). After writing that batch of tunes, my next project was called Wild Wild West – an album split into two five part sagas, one about a woman in a saloon convincing me to go rob a bunch of banks and the other being a True Grit-inspired story about getting revenge for the man who (fictitiously) killed my father. Though few things in the songs were based on actual events, they did provide me with a valuable lesson in character development, in the tradition of many country stars before me. And while two blogs have focused on making up characters and the details surrounding them, I was inspired to focus a whole blog on outlaw songs, after talking about “Copperhead Road” in a different context in a previous blog.
Where the Streets Have a Name
Background: In an earlier blog, we talked about writing songs involving cities and states in the title or hook. Now we are going to shift our focus to songs that mention streets, highways, interstates, and avenues within the title or hook. Although I will avoid generic references, like “Road to Nowhere” by Talking Heads or “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC, some of the street names will still be rather generic – and rely on the rest of the lyrics painting the picture around street names that appear in multiple cities.
Oxymoronic Behavior
Background: Sometimes the lyrics we hear in a song are a little predictable or formulaic. Since many songs are about emotions or people, we can kind of predict which words are going to rhyme with each other to further the song. Since we know how the world works, we can do the same for storylines within our songs. But what if the lyrics conveyed the opposite of what you thought when you turned on the song for the first time? In this blog, we will focus on the use of oxymorons in songs, or phrases that contradict one another, but still are able to tell a good story.
Productive Co-Writing
Background: In modern day pop music, it has become somewhat of a trend for producers to be listed as co-writers on various tracks. Sometimes this is because a producer comes up with a line, other times, like in the case of Max Martin and Benny Blanco, it is because the sound is so unique to that producer.
Making Your Songs Sound Suite
Background: In my last blog, I talked about medleys–songs that had two distinct parts, both of which were played in their entirety. I distinguished it from a mash up, where parts of songs are interspersed together, but none of the songs get played or sung in their entirety. I further distinguished this from songs that had separate movements–those are suites, and we will be discussing them in this blog. For our purposes, all the suites we will look at will be housed under one title, though if you look at them on Wikipedia, you will see bulleted titles under the suites of many 70s prog rock bands, such as Yes.
The Art of the Medley
Background: Around 2009, when the show Glee was gaining popularity, we also saw a rise in popularity of the mash up. These were songs that got mashed together, usually due to a common theme. In Glee, the cast did a mash up of “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor and “Survivor” by Destiny’s Child, with the common theme being the word “survive” and empowerment of women. They also did a mash up of Journey songs. But a medley, which we will be focusing on in this blog, is unique in the sense that it’s two complete songs mushed together.
Not Titling to a Hook
Background: When writing songs, we have a tendency to write the chorus or refrain around a memorable line, and then title the song after that line. Country music tends to say the title of the song once at the beginning of the chorus and once at the end, with it sometimes appearing in the first two verses before the chorus. And while this can help both the listener and the singer remember the song better, it’s not always necessary. In this blog, we will be talking about songs that are not titled around a hook, but rather the details surrounding it. This frees you up to rhyme however you need to, without getting bogged down by making the title as memorable as the hook.
The Power of the Subjunctive Within Songs
The subjunctive tense is one of my favorite things to teach in the Spanish language. It expresses something that’s unsure to happen, and therefore causes some sort of tension within the unknown. In addition to talking about something with an unknown outcome, there is also a subject change – with what the second person does being a potential outcome. In song form, this is a great way to hook the listener. Some songs have a resolution by the last verse. But not knowing whether they will or not is great for the listener. We will look at four examples of songs that use the subjunctive tense and why they work.
Mapping Out Your Next Song
Background: The country duo Big & Rich sat at a songwriting workshop early in their career. As each person at the table introduced themselves, Kenny and John started taking notes on where everyone was from. This exercise would later become the title track to their second album, Comin’ To Your City. While this makes for a great story, writing about a city or state has proven successful for many artists: Johnny Cash (“I’ve Been Everywhere”), The King Cole Trio “(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66”, Gladys Knight and the Pips (“Midnight Train to Georgia”), the mention of “South Detroit” in “Don’t Stop Believin’” and countless others. In this blog, we are going to talk about using cities and states in song titles, or at least in significant lines within the song. As an added bonus, all of these songs were written by people I’ve discovered and associated with while living in Memphis, and 3 out of 4 of the artists are from the area.
One, Two, Better Not Sue: Similar Chord Progressions in Songs
Background: As a musician, it has always been fun for me to create odd pairings of songs and make medleys out of them. You probably wouldn’t associate “One” by U2 with “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen or “All Along the Watchtower” by Bob Dylan with “This is Where I Came In” by The Bee Gees, but they flow into each other quite nicely. Although those songs are very different from one another, there is a reason why they fit so nicely: The chords and chord progressions. In this blog, we will discuss those odd pairings and why they work. As you write and search for an appropriate feel for your melody, I hope this blog will be one to reference, so you don’t write off a good melodic line of best fit, just because the vibe of the lyrics doesn’t match what inspired it.
Don’t Cover Your Ears: The Best Cover Songs
Background: Cover songs are an important way for aspiring songwriters to figure out their identity, before they begin writing their own songs. It is hard for us to imagine, but the Beatles and Bob Dylan both started off recording cover songs, before getting deep into songwriting. Back in the early 60s, this was not always done to try to find a style. Dylan knew he wanted to be like Woody Guthrie, and the Beatles wanted to be like Buddy Holly. Fun fact, the Beatles actually named their band because Holly’s band was named The Crickets. Plus, the singer-songwriter revival within rock n roll had not taken off (I say revival because you had people like Woody Guthrie in the dustbowl era, and many jazz and blues musicians who wrote their own material. Though standards now, writing and composing your own work was a common practice among those genres). However, as the music industry moved into turning art into money making enterprises, it was common to have staff writers, and even have staff writers for labels, and multiple acts cut the same song, to see who would have a hit with it. Here, though, we are going to look at bands who covered songs deep in their career, when they already had a good discography of originals. For our purposes, we will also define “cover” as a song that the original artist made famous first, rather than one a songwriting team wrote and another person cut.
How To Effectively Break the 4th Wall
Background: In the early to mid-2000s, we saw an increase in shows that used breaking the 4th wall as a narrative device. This happens when one of the characters looks and/or talks directly into the camera, acknowledging that this is indeed a TV show. It has also been done to humorous effect in movies like Spaceballs, in which the characters are looking directly at what’s happening in the movie at the same time we are. But what about doing this in song? In my opinion, it’s okay to do it if you’re going to commit to it. If it’s just a filler line, it feels to me as the listener like you could have put in a little more effort as the writer. For example, in Brad Paisley’s “She’s Everything,” he lists off a handful of things that she is (metaphorically,) and then ends the second verse by saying, “She’s the song that I’m singing.” With the title being what it is, that’s an unnecessary line. So we’ll look at songs that completely commit to breaking the fourth wall.
Outdated Visuals
Background: There are some songs that are timeless, and they work because they deal with the human experience, and not a trend: A midnight train, something that cuts like a knife, or a mountain that won’t keep me from getting to you. But sometimes, we use outdated visuals to get our point across, and somehow the song still holds up. The focus of this blog will be songs that have been popular (if not “hits,” as defined by my Billboard rules), while still using those outdated visuals.
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
Stone Cold Rhymin’
Background: Now you may have read the title of this blog and thought, “There’s absolutely no rhyme or reason for it!” My friend, Mark, who is not a songwriter, but an appreciator of music, asked me when I was going to be writing about rhyme schemes. Mark suggested it and I thought it was a great idea. So I will be breaking down the rhyme schemes of four different songs, and how they affect the rest of the song, melodically and structurally.