When asked which came first, the music or the words, the great lyricist Sammy Cahn famously replied, ‘The phone call’. There’s nothing like a deadline to spur creativity. And internal deadlines (“I WILL have this done by Wednesday!”) are usually not as effective as external ones. The deadline can be anything real – a gig, […] The post The Best Way To Complete Your Song appeared first on Tony Conniff ..read more

What’s a Title-based song? I’d say one in which the Title phrase – of words and melody – is featured and is what you want the listener to remember most when the song is over. Though less so now than in the past, most songs still work this way. Looking at it crassly, but not […] The post Where Should Your Song’s Title Go? appeared first on Tony Conniff ..read more

Writing is active. Moving forward, one note leads to the next, one word follows another. When it’s flowing it’s a beautiful thing, a high. Even when it’s not, I’m coming up with stuff, or attempting to by just messing around with the sounds of music and words. Trying things out, keeping my ears open for happy accidents that might be better than anything I expected.. I often have some sort of starting point but from there the key word is NEW. I’m more or less starting from scratch and, even if the ideas are familiar, I’m combining them in a new way. Rewriting seems to me to have two parts. One ..read more

In a song, music, especially melody, almost always carries more weight than words; especially when the music is  doing something interesting. Music is just that powerful. Great songwriters, composers and lyricists, understand this. When the music is eloquent, often the best lyrics are simple and direct… And simple and direct is a lot harder to do than it sounds. This is a big part of why lyricists are often less well-known than their musical partners. People talk about ‘a Gershwin song’ (meaning George), ‘a Bacharach song’, or ‘an Elton John song’ often not realizing that there was an Ira ..read more

Lately I’ve been hearing a lot of vintage Rolling Stones’ songs in various places… and I started noticing how harmonically clever Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were in their songwriting heyday. Although they’re known for their 3 or 4 chord rock and roll songs, there’s always an inventive, unexpected twist or two in them. This week I’m going to look at a few examples of this, as well as one simple device they use very well. For best results I suggest you listen to the songs before you read, or as you read. I especially recommend that you play and sing the songs through a few times if you can ..read more

Queen’s ‘We Are The Champions’ (written by Freddie Mercury) consistently intrigued me. I’ve always been impressed by how stirring its Chorus is, and how gutsy the over-the-top lyrics are. It takes nerve to write an anthem like this… and own it. Looking more closely at the song gave me a better idea of where its power comes from. (Play and sing it; you’ll be glad you did.) The first Verse lyric is basically the singer feeling sorry for himself. I’ve paid my dues Time after time I’ve done my sentence But committed no crime And bad mistakes I’ve made a few I’ve had my share of sand kicked in my f ..read more

The key in which you write a song often occurs randomly. You happen to start on a ‘G’ chord… so it’s in ‘G’. Sometimes this turns out to be a good key to continue in. But sometimes, later in the writing process, the choice of key can get you in trouble. A common example: I find myself well into the writing of a new song and I discover that the Chorus is low in my voice and the Verse is higher. Often this isn’t what I want – more frequently (not always) the Chorus works better when it’s higher than the Verse. To deal with this I try changing the key, sometimes by as much as a 4th or a 5th. This ..read more

My friend Marc Blatte, a hit songwriter himself, tells me that he had conversations, individually, with Kenny Gamble (of Gamble & Huff, one of the greatest R&B/pop songwriting/producing teams of all time) and with Kenny Rogers (of many #1s). He asked them what was the most important element of a hit song. They each gave the same answer. To me and others, a surprising answer. That answer? The Title. That was it. They said the most important element in a hit song was the Title. You don’t have to agree with them. But it’s hard to argue with how important a song’s Title is. It’s easy to un ..read more

There have been periods in my life, long periods, when I wrote two or three dozen songs a year. In those same periods I’d frequently wake up with a fragment of music and/or lyrics, sometimes a whole section of a song, in my head, out of some kind of dream. Trained (by myself) to get out of bed, more asleep than not, I’d get the idea down. Otherwise I’d certainly forget it. I can evaluate the quality of the idea later and develop it if it’s any good. The main thing is to pounce when it comes. In the last few years my songwriting pace has slowed down to probably one or two songs a month… maybe ..read more

In our lyrics, most of us tend to write about the same things over and over. We all have our themes: love, romantic love, romance, sexual love, sex, loss, commitment, betrayal, optimism, skepticism, joy, anger, inspiration, heartbreak, mortality, even obsession itself… among many others. Our obsessions seem to embed themselves in our songs no matter how we try to guide them otherwise. This can be part of having an identity as a songwriter, a ‘style’, a ‘voice’.  If the songs are products of my obsessions – themes that haunt me, taunt me, and insist on being written about until they’r ..read more