Category / Songs I Love

by Keppie

What I’m listening to and why.

I got a phone call from my friend Benny the other night (Benny, who I make videos with on all things songwriting). He was very excited: “Kep! You have got to listen to the new Sam Smith song! It’s in…Phrygian!”

What the hell is Phrygian, and why is this so exciting?

Well, music nerds, Phrygian is a mode, which means it’s a scale that is not your average minor scale or major scale. This particular mode is a minor scale, yes, but it has a crucial note that gives it its own special dark sauce: it has a b2.

For a more in-depth look at Phrygian (and also the wild extra note that makes the Chorus pop), check out this video on the channel:

The b2 note in the scale makes it very dark, and also totally unique among the songs on the charts right now.

In fact, it makes it unique amongst almost all Top 100 songs from the past decade or more.

But why should we care what’s on the charts? Well, I have it on very good advice (John Mayer told me this himself…) that a very good practice as a songwriter is to listen to the Top 10 on any day, without judgments of good and bad, but instead with this question in mind:

Why do millions of people love this?

And secondly: Can I use that thing in my own way (regardless of whether I happen to ‘like’ this particular song? Which, incidentally in this case, I very much do).

The video above gives some tips in the second half about ways you can take the musical concepts that make this song a standout, and apply them to your own song, without ripping it off.

For another example of how to take a cool musical idea you hear in a song, and apply it to your own songwriting, you can check out this video from the archive, on adapting this beautiful neo-soul progression.

And for a more structured and in-depth guide to taking a music idea, and turning into a full song, with step by step tools, techniques, and strategies, check out our brand spanking new Online Mini Course: The Songwriting Process Start to Finish!

MORE INFO

Enjoy!

by Keppie

Writing better lyrics with metaphor magic

In this video, I show you how to write songs—and specifically lyrics—like Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars, and John Mayer. There is a particular type of song and songwriting that these three songwriters have in common—it’s a way to write songs that lots of songwriters use: metaphor songs. I start by defining metaphor, and share the principles and methods for creating original ideas, and furnishing them with great lyrics, just like these songwriters.

Want to write your own original lyrics? AUGUST 25/26 2022 – LIVE ONLINE METAPHOR WRITING WORKSHOP. Join in here!

by Keppie

6 Songs That Taught Us How to Write Songs

One of the best ways to learn how to write great songs is to learn from great songs and songwriters. In this video, songwriter Ben Romalis and I take 6 songs that each taught us a crucial principle or technique about writing great songs.

Drawing from a range of inspirations from Radiohead, Tom Waits, to Gillian Welch and John Mayer, Benny and I talk about the specific musical or lyrical technique that we learned from these 6 great songs.

Of course, these 6 songs are just a beginning! We picked these for this video because they showcase a range of different principles and techniques: we talk here about chromaticism in chord progressions, about borrowing chords outside the key, about balancing types of language in your verses, about narrative and non-conventional song forms, about verse development and great chorus writing, and how a great intro can set your song apart.

More will come out of this series, as we explore how to listen to music so that you can extract ideas, and put them to practice in your own songwriting.

by Keppie

The Secret Life of ‘Hallelujah’ by Leonard Cohen.

The song ‘Hallelujah’ by Leonard Cohen is now thought of as a glittering jewel of genius. But the story of its rise to recognition reveals that it was the thinnest thread of circumstance that brought the song to the attention of the public imagination at all.

Malcolm Gladwell tells the story of the song in his wonderful new(ish) podcast Revisionist History. You can listen to the episode here:

Gladwell traces the history of the song (starting around halfway through the episode). Hallelujah was first released by Cohen in 1984. Cohen performed the song, but would constantly alter verses, sing verses that didn’t get recorded, eliminate biblical references (then bring them back), and generally move the pieces around like an Escher jigsaw. Very few people beyond fans paid attention to the song.

However, a singer-songwriter, John Cale, heard Cohen perform a version at a club in New York, and recorded his own version, taking Cohen’s sombre, dramatic, gospelised version and turning into a melodious piano-vocal that extracted the emotional core of the song and put it into a stark, haunting light. It was released on a small French label. Still, very few people paid any attention.

One of the few people who happened to have the record was a woman who was friends with a young man, a young and little-known singer-songwriter, by the name of Jeff Buckley. While house-sitting, he happened to put the record on. He happened to like the song, and happened to perform his own cover of John Cale’s cover in a tiny club in the East Village.

This happened to be heard by an executive at Columbia Records, and the version was released on Buckley’s debut album Grace. Grace also missed its target and fell disappointingly short of the public’s attention—until Buckley disappeared into the Mississippi River in 1997, and the rest in history.

What is astounding about this chain of events is how fragile and circumstantial the links of the chain really are. This was the farthest from an inevitable outcome. The song could very easily have remained in obscurity, a gem buried in the sand.

The journey of genius is complex; creativity is an impossible web of personality, circumstance and damn hard work (it’s well known that Cohen wrote between 50-70 verses in the process of crafting Hallelujah); and the recognition of genius is never guaranteed.

We just got lucky this time.

 

by Keppie

Student Profile – Sister Ursuline

SISTER URSULINE is a Sydney-based cello-wielding songwriter with a soft spot for pigeons, bloomers, and hidden historical stories of woe-begone women and confounding men. The first song she brought to me became the name-sake of her alter Screen Shot 2016-07-21 at 9.54.15 pmego, Sister Ursuline. Sister Ursuline was a real person—a well-meaning former nun who somehow mistakenly ended up interned in a mental institution.

Sister Ursuline’s fascination with little-known historical characters turned into a full-blown obsession, and sparked a series of cello-webbed songs exploring their narratives and sometimes strange motivations.

I love thatSister Ursuline is unafraid to write from the perspective of people on the edge—on the edge of proper society, and sometimes dangling off the edge of their own minds.

You can hear Sister Ursuline’s song, In The East River, below. In The East River plunges a wet hand into the world of a woman who served a double crime: spreading contagion, made worse by the condition of being a woman and a servant. History knows her as Typhoid Mary.

You can find out more about Sister Ursuline’s music at her Facebook page.

by Keppie

Songs I Love: ‘One Way Ticket’ by Busbee

My friend showed me Busbee’s album last night, and I listened to it on repeat while driving from San Diego back to LA. There are a lot of songs from this beautiful album that are both poetry and extraordinary songwriting craft. I couldn’t help myself but keep coming back to this one though.

As far as songwriting elements go, the 2 things that really stand out to me are the simplicity and beauty of the chorus/hook. He’s picked something that is an image, something evocative and personal, and used a phrase that implies so much more story than is being openly shared. To say, “he’s got a one-way ticket this time” begs so many other questions: what did he have last time? How many times has he gone away and come back? What’s different this time? What’s gonna happen?

I LOVE phrases that imply stories, and spark the imagination. My partner’s forthcoming illustrated novel is called ‘Back Already?’, which I love for the same reasons.

I also love the way the story develops. The first verse is about the character – a boy/guy who needs to find some freedom and get away from the ‘shackles’ of his mum. A classic independence story. So he’s got a one-way ticket this time.

Then the next verse is about the girl he’s presumably leaving behind. It adds a new and emotional dimension to the whole song. It’s about HIM to start with, and then it’s about THEM.

Beautiful song. Busbee is an artist, and also a really active songwriter, with cuts by Lady Antebellum, Rascal Flatts, and Timbaland, to name a few. It’s refreshing and inspiring to me to hear the kind of craft that goes into uber-commercial writing being applied to a personal songwriting, and reinforces the idea that some songwriting techniques work across genres. It’s all connected.