PIECES OF A SONG PT. 1 'THE VERSE'

There's no science in songwriting. Well, Rivers Cuomo might disagree. But there is some method to the madness. I'm gonna do a short series of mini-blogs about the art, method, struggle and magic of writing a song. Let's start at the beginning...

Verse 1.

I'd argue that the most important part of a song is the hook. We'll save that for later. The next most important, I'd argue is the line right before the hook. Some might say the title is up there too. Truth is, it's all way important, but we're here to talk verse. See, without the verse, there's no chorus, or hook.

Here's the experiment: we're gonna write a song (you're not getting any publishing). And I will take a look at each section, with each blog. While, this first one's about the verse, we're still gonna need a title. For our purposes, let's go with "Ferris Wheel". And let's just say for the sake of focus, that it's a country song. Not "twangy" country. We don't really do that around here. So, if I walked into a writing room with that title, the next thing that would be discussed is...what's the concept here? What's it about? Is it about the guy who invented the Ferris Wheel? Well, no that's awful. Is it about a runaway Ferris Wheel that destroyed a town? Of course not. It's obviously about a boy and girl who met on one.

So, verse 1. We need to establish...what's up? A carnival or fair has clearly come to a, we'll say small, town. Bobby is a bit of an outsider and Jenny is the prom queen. They're both in line for the, well you know; and they end up sitting on it together (wonder if anything happened interesting to put them in that fateful position? Remember that for verse 2). Then we need to establish what happens. In this case and in around 60% of all modern songs, they fall in love (yes, there was a study). We should, also set the scene best we can. Fill it out with some heart racing and introspection.

So something like this:
Small town, summer love started at the county fair
Jenny's waiting to take a ride Bobby's trying not to stare
Somehow they end up together his heart starts beating fast
Funny where you sometimes find the one, the one that's gonna last

Tune in soon for the next mini-blog: The Chorus, where things get...BIG.

STAY WITH THE SONG

I've had the pleasure of working with and becoming friends with the incredibly talented Travis Hill, who writes under the name Scooter Carusoe. Travis has written several hit songs, including perhaps my favorite country song ever, "Anything But Mine". Go listen and I'll wait.

See? Right? The melody on that "Cleveland" part. The verse lyrics that just put you in that seaside pavilion seeing them laugh when they trade "I love you's" cause they know it's not true.

I sat recently on a panel at a songwriter's event and he talked a lot about grinding...staying with a song. And I also can tell you he practices what he preaches. We have written a dozen songs together and not one happened in a day. We talk, get coffee, talk, maybe start a little idea; grab lunch, get a little further down the road on the idea; decide it's not quite right and make a minor adjustment that makes the whole first verse unusable, then we have to end the session to go pick up our kids at school (we record where the song is at into our phones before we leave).

Then we reconvene the next week and exchange notes. This is where he usually says something about waking up early this morning with a new first verse; which turns out to be brilliant; but makes the bridge not quite right. We plug in all the pieces then play the song down into our phones.

He calls me the next day and says he sat in bed last night tweaking the ending; one little twist makes the song all the more poignant. He sends me a voice memo of the latest version of our song.

Some days I write a song and demo it by happy hour. But with Travis I know it's gonna be different. That's his process and it works. Find your process (and trust it like Philly) and get to work.