The recent broadcast of the BBC’s “Secrets of the Pop Song” featuring Guy Chambers has brought attention back to Ray Heffernan. At the time, he was a very young musician that met Robbie Williams in Dublin and went on to work on the song that became “Angels”. He eventually sold his share of the song for €7,500, with Williams’ team arguing that the song had changed totally between the original composition and the final version. The song went on to generate some €7 million. Although these cases are rare (and it could be argued he was lucky enough to get upfront cash rather than being ripped off), it only serves as a reminder that you have to learn the basics of songwriting as a business if you hope to receive any reward for your work. I don’t say that to freak people out or make you paranoid, but a little music business knowledge goes a long, long way.

As a second thought, I’d add that your songs can always be improved. It would be better to be in Chambers’ position than Heffernan’s. Being able to recognise the good elements of a song and re-work them to perfection is a skill to aim for.

Check the interview and then drop over to Ray Heffernan’s YouTube channel.

Image via Wikipedia

Unfortunately, I only came across this programme after the first 15 minutes. But it must be said: “Secrets of the Pop Song” is an absolutely amazing songwriting series on the BBC. As the title implies, the idea is to get behind the process of writing pop songs, ie songs that have huge appeal.

The first one (Saturday July 2) was devoted to the Power Ballad with fantastic interviews from producers, lyricist and composers, each throwing in their own two cents. Lyricist Don Black focused on accessibility, Diane Warren underlined the need to say something universal in a new way. Her example was the title “Unbreak my Heart”. Boy George told he tried to block the release of “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me”, as he felt it was “too personal”. It’s interesting to note the importance given to the lyrics overall.A very significant part of the show was also given over to Guy Chambers and Rufus Wainwright’s attempts to write their own power balled. Chambers is the man behind Robbie Williams solo hits (“Angel” is discussed) and worked with Diana Ross, Sir Tom Jones and others. From the early fumblings (Wainwright had an idea to combine a folk song with rap), the song slowly came together melodically and lyrically. It was also nice to see how it changed harmonically and picked up more depth when instruments and backing vocals were added.If you are coming to this article later, the title is “World War Three” – and sounds like a fantastic song at this earlyish stage.

For those that saw it, what did you think of the use of “Don’t bore us, get to the chorus…” as the actual chorus? I thought it was a classic case of a filler line being left in when it needed more work. Ugh.

The Secrets of the Pop Song, BBC Two, Saturday July 2, 9:45pm – The Ballad
Sat 9th July 9.45pm – Episode 2 - Breakthrough Single
Sat 16th July 9.45pm (tbc) – Episode 3 – Anthem

Find out more about the programme on the BBC Two website. You might be able to watch the series online using the BBC iPlayer.

Carosel - I'm Sorry (Official Video) from carosel on Vimeo.

A friend tipped me off about this band, actually from my neck of the woods in Dublin. I haven’t seen them live nor know their work. All I can say is that there are times when you stand back and let the songwriting do the work. “I’m Sorry” is a very straightforward contemporary ballad. They seem to have made the most of a trip to Paris to shoot a very straightforward contemporary video too. There are times when you really can keep it simple, stupid. This is one of them, and my tip of the week. Check them out at Carosel.

UPDATE: I have since learnt that Carosel are now actually based in Paris “for inspiration, beauty and [the] artistic vitality of the city”.

Although I spend a lot of time sending out music demos and tracks to people, I also occasionally have to sit at my desk and receive them. Over the years, I have acted as an occasional A&R person for different projects ranging from Playstation games to niche labels and singers. My latest stint for a small label in Europe prompted me to write down some of the things that strike about listening to other people’s music.

• There’s a lot of it out there!

It really is a buyer’s market in many respects. If A&R people are not careful they can be overwhelmed by submissions. In fact, the label I was working for in this case has more or less decided that it is not a very productive use of time to check demos that are sent in and will be switching to a panel that makes personal recommendations soon. Lesson: get to know (and be liked by) people that count, such as radio programmers, concert promoters, influential journalists, etc.

• Stick to the brief

If it’s a song pitch, don’t send dance tracks to someone looking for country. If it’s a deep house label, your Eurodance is probably going to irritate them more than anything else. They won’t be so overwhelmed that they will change their own style, believe me, and they won’t sit down and give you career advice about what to do with songs that are in their eyes irrelevant. Lesson: focus, focus, focus.

• Sameness means instant death

What am I looking for when checking song demos? Basically, something that stands out. No matter what the genre, you want something that demonstrates some distinctiveness, that will be recognised on the radio. The voice is absolutely essential for this, followed by the instrumentation and groove. Lyrics will be checked as a way of separating the great from the good in the second run. But remember, there are thousands of bands and producers churning out stuff in your genre. How distinctive are you within that genre?

Along the same lines, if you have 12 tracks in the same tempo you are inviting people to skip onto the next track and then the one after that. Variety is the spice of society.

One exception to this is when you are pitching song demos. The demo singer hopefully is close to that of the one being pitched to, but it’s not an absolute necessity. In this case melody and lyrics are the two keys points, as everything else can be re-arranged.

• An awful lot of music should be re-written

It’s very frequent to come across a song that has “something”. It could be a vibe, or a good singer or some quirky arrangement. But too few people keep re-writing the songs until they are really good and have all the elements in place. That means playing with structure, tempo and instrumentation until you have milked every good idea. This is another way of breaking out of the sameness mode. Yeah, it takes time. Lesson: look at the various versions of “Torn” to see what a difference a great arrangement can make. Aspire to that.

• You don’t have much time to catch my attention

I’d say that 20 seconds is the max for knowing if a track is worth listening to. If that sounds cruel, it’s not. It comes from listening to lots of music out of the blue. If a song hasn’t grabbed you after 20 seconds or the first chorus at most, it rarely does after the third verse. Lesson: focus on that first verse and chorus as if they are all people will ever hear. In many cases, this is true.

• Some writers are not sure what they want

Think carefully about who you are sending stuff to, and why. Are you looking for a label deal or a licence? Are you pitching a song to a singer? Is the publishing available? Are you open to co-writes? Have your answers before you send stuff. This also helps you craft a clear letter.

• Graphics/visuals are nice, but…

Some submissions come with complete artwork, which is always nice. But just make sure that all the info is readily available. Don’t hide the woods behind the trees. Lesson: always remember that it’s the music that will clinch the deal, not the envelope it came in.

I hope that helps, and doesn’t put you off sending in stuff. If you have any tips you think could be useful, drop them below as a message.

Phil Wilde has been busy over the past few months overseeing remixes of CB Millton’s “It’s a Loving Thing“. The final radio edit is ready, with a glossy video to go along with it.

This is still one of the most popular CB Milton tracks (and one of the most successful lyrics I wrote). CB won’t be promoting it, unfortunately, as he has a separate career now. But you can catch Phil Wilde DJing if you’re lucky. I’ve seen some pretty nice comments about “It’s a Loving Thing” on YouTube over the years. Do you have any particular memories about this track?

Get the full lyrics here.

Someone asked me the other day about the “new paradigm” for songwriters and musicians. I mentioned that increasingly, entertainment will be sponsored. This puts the transfer of money before the consumption rather than during or after. Then I caught the new Heineken ad, and was struck by the singer. Turns out, the new ad was shot around the promo clip of the Asteroids Galaxy Tour‘s new single called “Golden Age”. So the ad is a short version of the clip, or vice versa. Given the huge amounts of sponsorship already in music (notably Lady Gaga’s super-productions) I don’t really have a problem with that.

Who are the Asteroid Galaxy Tour?
So who the Smurf are The Asteroids Galaxy Tour? The group was formed in Denmark in 2006. They are no newbies in terms of corporate sponsorship, as Steve Jobs chose their single “Around the Bend” for an ad for the iPad Touch and they now have the Heineken gig (note to self: hook up with their publisher!). They also opened for Amy Winehouse in Denmark and Katy Perry at the legendary Olympia in Paris.

Increasingly, if you want to get broad exposure in major media, some variation of this route will have to be followed. You can get by without it, of course. But there is no escaping the attention these sorts of campaigns bring. If your publisher is on the ball, there are also large amounts of money to be made in performance royalties – but that’s a different article.

It’s encouraging that major brands are willing to work with lesser-known acts rather than throwing insane money at the usual suspects. So good luck to both the group and the brand.

I took some time at Midem 2010 to put a question to David Stark, publisher of SongLink. His tipsheet provides some of the best tips in the business, hooking up major artists with songs. The “names” have included Tina Tuner, James Blunt, Kim Wilde and many others. Publishers and songwriters use SongLink obviously to get their songs on the shortlist. So the obvious question was: what does it take to write for a name artist?

You’ll find the answer here.

This is the reason it’s such a pleasure working with Perry Rose: his sheer musicality. Over a simple ukulele riff, he builds layers of piano and vocals (bear with him). He will be interviewed on Belgium’s Classic 21 radio on November 18 2009 at midday, with a show on Nov 21 in the Belgian town of Mons.

Perry Rose downloads

One of my writing partners, Steve Willaert (known for his soundtracks for movies such as “Hell in Tangier”, “Stille Water” and “Vermist”, has just announced concert dates for an ambitious project he put together with a bunch of multinational musicians.

ChiBeJa features Chinese flautist (and Real World artist) Guo Yue, Japanese drum master Ryutaro Kaneko, dancers Gerlo Geverien and Christiaan De Donder and singer Chantal Kashala. It took me a little time, but I eventually worked out the name is an acronym of “China -Belgium – Japan”.

They promise to play extracts of “Stille Water” and compositions combining the multiple influences of the performers. More details can be found on the Eventually Productions site.

Click through for the concert dates.

ChiBeJa dates in Belgium, October 2010

* zaterdag 3 oktober 2009
CC Casino Beringen
* zaterdag 10 oktober 2009
CC De Plomblom Ninove
* zondag 11 oktober 2009
CC Ter Dilft Bornem
* vrijdag 16 oktober 2009
Arenberg Schouwburg Antwerpen
* zaterdag 17 oktober 2009
CC De Biekorf
* donderdag 22 oktober 2009
Schouwburg Kortrijk
* vrijdag 23 oktober 2009
De Spil Roeselare
* woensdag 28 oktober 2009
Stadsschouwburg Sint-Niklaas
* vrijdag 30 oktober 2009
Stadsschouwburg Brugge
* zaterdag 31 oktober 2009
Cultuurcentrum Hasselt

Feeling stuck on a song? Worried about blank page fever? Writer’s block? Then try a little exercise. Take out all your lyrics and give them a hard look. Spot any trends? Are you still writing about that one big break-up? Are you still fuming about that same two-faced liar? Are you still copying Smokey Robinson or Motown? Does the same sense of social injustice drive all your lyrics, except this time it’s driving you into the wall?

Chances are you’re stuck in a rut. You’re bored by your own writing. Your songwriting habits are sending you – and most likely your listeners – to sleep. Time for a little lateral thinking.

Habits can be handy. They are comfortable, as they enable you to function on low energy. You’ve learnt a few skills and apply them almost automatically to pad out your songs. Trouble is, they can lead you to write emotional clones, songs that have an almost identical point of view. Isn’t that a little, um, boring?

But the good thing about habits is that they are there to be broken – and quite easily. I remember talking with the singer of a great band called Venus, who was preparing to record a new album. The first thing that struck me when we spread out all the lyrics is that all the songs were first-person. “I this/I that/I feel/I say/I want/I don’t…” That one letter “I” led to another one, “Z” as in “zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…” Each individual song was OK. But as a block? Snore.

I introduced him gently to the concept of the “you” song. As an exercise, I suggested he completely abandon “I” and re-write a few of the songs from a new viewpoint. It’s not as if he had never heard a song about “you”. It’s just that he had been sitting inside his comfort zone, the habit of “I”. It happens to us all.

Songwriting tools: don't forget the chololate!

Songs are emotional conduits; they channel stuff. But people have to recognise the emotions involved. If your songs only “work” when you sing them, you’re relying on interpretation. So they might only have surface attraction, and it’s unlikely anyone else will ever record them. When’s the last time someone recorded “Be Bop a Lula”?

My Scotty Trick
One idea that I particularly enjoy is what I call the Scotty Trick, beaming someone else into the song. I remember writing for the Dutch singer Sylvia Samson. I was stuck. She has a great voice and I was basically churning out another weepy ballad. Oh yes, “woe is me/now you’re gone/zzzzzz”. I happened to watch a documentary about No Doubt and really enjoyed Gwen Stefani’s attitude. It struck me that she’d never sing the self-indulgent tosh that I was writing for Sylvia. If it’s not good enough for Gwen, why should I foist it on someone else? So in my head, I edited out the glissando strings and minor chords and actually imagined Stefani on stage singing the melody, including her hand gestures and attitude.

The result became “I’m not Looking”. It’s still a slow song, but one about self-affirmation: “I’m not looking for someone / That will change my life [...] When I know that someone is me”. It turns out, it really struck a chord with Sylvia. She would probably have sung the weepy version very well. But now we both had something we could hang real emotions onto. But I had reached beyond my comfort zone of writing girlie love songs. Yay! And guess what: “girlies” have recognisable emotions too, and you give your song more when you give them the right words. I’m being facetious, of course, but it’s dispiriting the cynicism that I sometimes find in songwriting teams (I’ll get back to this subject).

Wake up your lyrics

So dig out your lyrics. Scan them for recurring themes and structures. Hopefully, your next song will step away from them. “But that’s not me,” you might be tempted to say, “I have my style.” Perhaps, but it could also be that you have yet to reach the full potential of your writing. There are perhaps parts of your writing that you haven’t yet uncovered. So break the habit and wake up your lyrics. The listeners might pick up their ears as well!

Shameless plug: Michael Leahy puts words in other people’s mouths. Buying just one track of their music will thrill both them and me! I’d also really love to get a discussion going, so feel free to comment. What’s your technique for breaking the habit? Don’t forget you can sign up to follow lyric news on A-Lyric on Twitter or Song Lyrics RSS

The infobahn is alive with Susan Boyle’s rendition (nice word, eh?) of the Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses”. There is an overwhelming opinion that Boyle has now recorded one of the definitive versions of the song. This, however, is seen as sacrilege by others, who cling to memories of the Stones and Gram Parsons. This sort of fuss is frequent when someone decides to cover a song. Why? What’s the issue?

One of the most enduring myths in pop culture is the myth of the auteur. There is a strange obsession about artists singing their own lyrics. I think it comes from our desire to associate the performer with the song – as if most men could actually love you “all night long” or Marilyn Manson was as dark and twisted as he tries to make out (which I doubt – he’s remarkably well-read and articulate). To burst the bubble, all one has to do is think of some absolute defining moments in pop and ask: who cares who wrote them?

Who cares that Elvis Presley didn’t write “Hound Dog” (Lieber & Stoller)? Who cares that Edith Piaf didn’t write “Je ne regrette rien” (Doumont & Vaucaire)? Who cares if Jimi Hendrix didn’t compose “Hey Joe” (Billy Roberts)? Each made history and moved countless millions of people with their versions. What’s more, how would those songs sound if sung by their respective authors? The answer is easy: disappointing in most cases.

If it’s worth singing, sing it well
So I can’t knock people singing “covers”. It’s a tribute. If a song is worth writing, it is worth singing well. And for me, the better the singer the happier we should be. Yes, even if that singer is Celine Dion, Nana Mouskouri or in this case the winner of a TV show.

Coming back to “Wild Horses”, Boyle has indeed created a superb version. Yes, it’s a bit incongruous Susan Boyle slipping into a song made famous by Mick Jagger. But she breathes new life into the song. When you look at it from a songwriting perspective, “Wild Horses” is basically a magnificent melody and structure with dubious lyrics. I’m not sure how Boyle manages to put such emotion into Jagger’s mild misogyny, but she does. Being a nice guy at heart, I salute verses such as:

I watched you suffer a dull aching pain
Now you decided to show me the same
No sweeping exits or offstage lines
Could make me feel bitter or treat you unkind

Wild horses couldn’t drag me away
Wild, wild horses, couldn’t drag me away

But I’ll pass on the rest. We should be thanking Susan Boyle for her voice and heart. We need more of both in the charts.

Susan Boyle: I Dreamed a Dream

The way music is licenced around the world means that I have no control over where the tracks I work on eventually crop up. As Perry Rose has played quite a lot in France, just about all his albums are available on Amazon France as MP3s.

I have to say: Perry Rose is truly one of the best melody writers I know, in addition to being a great singer and songwriter. His Irish roots are also pretty clear to see (check the liner notes on the compilation “Celtic Circus” where he talks about the Duffy Circus in Ireland – he has circus roots on both sides of his family).

I’ve written lyrics with him on nearly every album over the past ten years, and seen him countless times in concert. It’s always interesting to work as a lyricist for someone regularly, as you get to know each other and know what will work well.

Amazon have a neat widget, so I made a selection of our co-writes over the years and added comments for each track. My faves are “On my Knees” and “Down to the Sea”, but there’s not one track here I’m not proud of.

Get more news about Perry Rose or follow me on Twitter for lyric news.