To pave the way for a remixed, deluxe edition of his classic album Pipes of Peace, Paul McCartney has released a new remix of his 1983 hit with Michael Jackson, ‘Say, Say, Say’, which was originally produced by George Martin. The song became Jackson’s seventh Top 10 hit in a year.
In the video below, McCartney talks to Manic Street Preachers’ frontman James Dean Bradfield about what it was like to write songs such as ‘Say, Say, Say’ with Michael Jackson.
McCartney reveals that the song was written quickly, with Jackson and himself face-to-face around a piano in the former Beatle’s London office.
“It came very easily because I was excited to be writing with him and he was excited to write with me,” said McCartney. “We just popped off each other.”
![“HOW [NOT] TO WRITE A HIT SONG! - 101 COMMON MISTAKES TO AVOID IF YOU WANT SONGWRITING SUCCESS” is available from Amazon as a paperback and also as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple's iTunes Store, Barnes and Noble's Nook store, and from KoboBooks.com.](https://thehitformula.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/how-not-to-write-a-hit-song-smashwords-cover-blog-widgit-188x282.jpg?w=119&h=172)
“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music), Barnes & Noble’s Nook store, and from KoboBooks.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA) and HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
Music publishers and A&R executives sometimes reject perfectly good songs by new writers because the songs lack that ‘special something’ that makes them stand out from the crowd.
The answer, according to US singer-songwriter Bruno Mars, is to try to “shock” people by writing a song that is so different and groundbreaking that it becomes “an event”. But he admits that writing this kind of “big” song is “one of the hardest things to ever do”.
Bruno recently revealed that Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is his favourite song. “That song’s an event,” he told GQ magazine. “And that’s what I want to do. I’m sure that song shocked the world.”
He also lists songs like Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’ and Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ as “events”. “Kurt Cobain put everything he got into that song, and he meant it. It’s that unexplainable high…That feeling that you keep on chasing and chasing. Because it’s nothing, man. It’s taking the air and turning it into something. That’s the feeling.”
Bruno Mars hit the music scene in 2010 with his first album Doo-Wops & Hooligans which included the worldwide number-one singles ‘Just the Way You Are’ and ‘Grenade’.
His second album, Unorthodox Jukebox, features the hit single ‘Locked Out of Heaven’ which some people felt was blasphemous. Bruno denies this and says it was “just poetry”. However, he concedes that some of his songs – such as ‘Grenade’, ‘Liquor Store Blues’, and ‘Talking to the Moon’ – do address darker subjects like self-destructive behaviour.
“I don’t ever want to come out with something safe,” he said.
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is now available from Amazon’s Kindle Store for only US$7.22 or GB£4.78.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA) and HERE (UK).
Also available from Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music).
SONGWRITING: THE HIT FORMULA 