In a recent live Q&A session at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA), Paul McCartney told Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker that, in the early days of The Beatles, he and John Lennon had to write catchy songs because it was the only way they could remember them. Portable tape recorders hadn’t been invented yet.
“We had to write songs you could remember easily,” McCartney said. “I think that turned out to be a good thing.
“John and I would have a writing session, go away and have an evening out, and in the middle of the evening we’d think, ‘What was that thing we wrote? Oh my God we’ve forgotten!’ But it would always come back to us in the morning.
“We said if we can’t remember it, how do we expect other people to? So, we were writing stuff that was memorable … and I think it still is.”
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“SURPRISING RHYMING” – The Alternative Rhyming Dictionary for Songwriters and Poets – is available from Amazon as a US paperback, a UK paperback, and also across Europe. It is also available as a Kindle ebook in the United States and in the UK and Europe. Read more about the book HERE (USA) … HERE (UK) … HERE (CANADA).
![“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=145&h=218)
A 5-star rated book at Amazon, “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, a UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store. It is also available from Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music), Barnes & Noble’s Nook store, and KoboBooks.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
“How [Not] To Write Great Lyrics! – 40 Common Mistakes To Avoid When Writing Lyrics For Your Songs” is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store. It is also available from Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music), Barnes & Noble’s Nook store, and KoboBooks.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
In its latest All Songs +1 podcast, America’s National Public Radio network (NPR) talks to Paul McCartney about his songwriting process and how he manages to stay inspired despite having written some 30 albums worth of songs over the past five decades.
The intriguing 40-minute discussion shows how McCartney, at the age of 73, is still in love with making music, and still feels a spark of enthusiasm in the way he approaches songwriting.
“If I was to sit down and write a song now,” he tells NPR’s Robin Hilton and Bob Boilen, “I’d use my usual method: I’d either sit down with a guitar or at the piano and just look for melodies, chord shapes, musical phrases, some words, a thought, just to get started. And then I just sit with it to work it out, like I’m writing an essay or doing a crossword puzzle. That’s the system I’ve always used, that John [Lennon] and I started with. I’ve really never found a better system …”
You can listen to the full NPR podcast here …
http://www.npr.org/player/embed/481256944/481471157
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![“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=127&h=191)
A 5-star rated book at Amazon, “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, a UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store. It is also available from Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music), Barnes & Noble’s Nook store, and KoboBooks.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
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).
Sir Paul McCartney recently revealed that songwriting has often helped him get through emotional and dark times. He told Mojo magazine: “I think it’s good when you’re in a dark period and the song is your psychiatrist. It’s your therapy.”
Now, Britney Spears has revealed that writing songs for her new album Britney Jean was like therapy for her too.
The 32-year-old singer split from her former fiancé Jason Trawick when she was working on the album and, she says, some of the new tracks are about the heartache she experienced.
While she understands some people might prefer to keep those feelings private, Britney is happy to lay herself bare through her songs.
“Actually I really kinda had no choice,” she recently told MTV News. “At the time I was going through a breakup that was kind of public, and everyone knew about it. And I felt like, it’s not a secret, so why not write about it and say how I’m feeling about it and what it feels like?”
She added: “I feel like when you write you do depict what you’re going through in your life, and that’s what I was going through at the time. So it just made sense for me, therapeutically, to write it out and get it out.”
In a recent interview with Mojo, Sir Paul McCartney said: “When you’re really upset about something, going away and putting it in your song you come out of that cupboard, toilet or basement and go, ‘I really feel better’. You’ve actually exorcised the demon. It’s one of the great joys of songwriting.”
However, it is important to avoid being too personal and too insular in your ‘therapeutic’ writing. If you still want your songs to be successful commercially, they should always be about your audience—not just you.
That means writing about experiences, hardships and situations that everyone can relate to. By writing about something that listeners experience in their own lives, you can touch people’s emotions. And if you can make the listener feel something, it’s the sign of a good song.
As US singer-songwriter Jackson Browne once remarked: “It’s all about reaching inside to something that you have in common with many.”
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a paperback, or as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music) and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
SONGWRITING: THE HIT FORMULA 