Wouldn’t it be nice if you could write songs faster, start new songs that you always finish, and still express yourself in the way you want to? You’d have more songs to pitch, you could reach more listeners, and songwriting would be more exciting and fun to do. You bet it would.
We all want to be more creative, have more songs in our catalog, and feel satisfied that we’re getting things accomplished. It’s just that reality doesn’t always work out that way. More often than not, we run into problems.
We don’t have any good ideas for new songs.
We’re not sure what kinds of songs we should be writing and for what market.
We get stuck working on one song that’s in trouble.
We’re scared our songs aren’t good enough so we don’t finish them.
We all know that the quality has to be there, but I bet you could write more songs and keep the quality at the level you want or even improve it. Here’s a whole bunch of ideas for writing FASTER and BETTER.
“All On Me” is the breakthrough debut single for Country artist Devin Dawson. It zoomed up to #2 on the Nielsen Radio charts, topping 19 million views on YouTube and 95 million listens on Spotify (and still climbing). A remarkable achievement for a single by a brand new artist.
I love digging into songs that propel a brand new artist up the charts. Those artists don’t have a billion fans breathlessly waiting for their next release, guaranteeing it shoots like a rocket straight into the Top Ten. Nope. Their releases have to make it on the strength of the song and performance. It takes an exceptional song with a lot of appeal to make that happen and that’s what makes these songs so much fun to pull apart.
SONG GUIDE
“All On Me” – Devin Dawson
Writers: Devin Dawson, Jacob Robert Durrett, Austin Taylor Smith
TECHNIQUES TO HEAR AND TRY:
Use a lyric “measuring stick” to express emotion.
Fresh rhymes are happening in all mainstream genres.
Create a contemporary melody using phrase patterns.
Make your hook stand out with a rhythmic melody line.
Although I usually feature songs at the top of the mainstream music charts in this section, today I want to look at “The Other” by Lauv, an artist who took a different path to success and whose work and career provide plenty of inspiration for independent artists and songwriters.
Before huge hits like “I Like Me Better”—which has had over a billion and a half listens on Spotify—Lauv quietly released his self-produced single “The Other.” With one small break it launched his career.
Co-written with Michael Matosic, “The Other” debuted on a friend’s music blog and was picked up by other bloggers, spreading virally through blog aggregator Hype Machine. It just goes to prove that listeners WILL spread the word when they find good music.
I often suggest in my songwriting posts that you learn to sing and play (or just sing ) successful songs. But why is that so important? Because you miss so much when you don’t. It’s like the difference between zooming down a highway at 80 mph versus rolling slowly along with your head stuck out the window.
When you slow down, you notice things… road signs, blue sky. You feel every bump in the road and the smells on the breeze. At 80 miles-per-hour you can feel the emotional rush; when you slow down, you can learn what the rush is made of.
I thought it might be fun for you and I to slow down and go through the process of learning to play and sing a hit song together. I chose “Hello” by Adele because, as I listen to it, the 80 mile-per-hour experience is pretty good, and something tells me that if I slow down and take a closer look, there might be some good songwriting tips I could use to create that experience in songs of my own. So, let’s take it for a drive.
Learn hit songwriting. Study "Legend" by John Mayer.
“All Of Me,” recorded by John Legend, is a hugely popular piano/vocal love ballad that has been embraced by listeners around the globe. The song went to #1 on seven different Billboard charts in the U.S. and eleven countries around the world. The YouTube video has had over one billion views. (That’s billion with a “b.”) Proof that, even in this era of giant Dance/Pop extravaganzas, a simple song with an honest, emotionally moving lyric can hold its own.
Because the production is so bare bones, the song itself has to sustain the listener’s interest. That’s a challenge for any song, but especially a ballad. There are a number of simple but very effective lyric and melody techniques at work here, ones that you can easily adapt for use in your own songs.
“All Of Me” – John Legend
Recorded by John Legend Writers: John Legend and Toby Gad
TECHNIQUES TO HEAR AND TRY
Write a ballad melody that keeps listeners engaged.
“All Of Me” is a ballad in the Pop genre. The memorable, easy-going melody drops it right into the heart of the Adult Contemporary side of Pop. As its name implies, the Adult Contemporary format features songs that appeal to a broad adult age range, from 25 to 55. Surprisingly, this melodic ballad with minimal production also topped the Pop and R&B charts.
There’s a mix of influences here and it’s a little hard to tell who is influencing whom. Certainly this song reminds me of Adele’s huge hit “Someone Like You” but that song may have been influenced by John Legend’s own Neo-Soul hit of a decade ago: “Ordinary People.” And, let’s face it, everyone here is paying their respects to Lionel Richie.
SONG STRUCTURE
This song has the same structure as most of today’s biggest Pop and Rock hits, yet it doesn’t really sound like one of those hits. The structure is:
VERSES: Verse 1 starts the song off with the line “What would I do without your smart mouth?” It’s a great opening line, immediately drawing the listener into the song with an intriguing question and a glimpse into a complex and very realistic relationship.
Verse 2 begins with “How many times do I have to tell you, even when you’re crying you’re beautiful, too.” Another unusual statement that makes us curious to hear more.
