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| Displaying Songwriting Anecdotes: 78 Found |
Tempo
Gabriel Faure was once asked what the ideal tempo for a song should be. "If the ...
Wallflowers
Fiercely independent, Jakob Dylan determined early on to make his own name rathe...
Mark Knopfler: Money for No...
Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler was once asked about the origin of the line ...
Danni Leigh: Lonely Country
Among Danni Leigh's earliest musical efforts was a tortured composition entitled...
Mother and Child
Paul Simon was once asked by a journalist about his "profound" song "Mother and ...
April in Paris
One April, a friend of Vernon Duke's, inspired by his famous song "April in Pari...
Russell Crowe & Meg Ryan
Shortly after his break-up with Meg Ryan, Russell Crowe (the lead singer, lead g...
Ta-Ta Dumdum
Oscar Hammerstein's wife, Dorothy, was not shy about singing her husband's prais...
Alphabet Soup
One evening Johnny Mercer attended a British musical which proved rather indiges...
Bitter Irony
Having been driven from the American stage by the jealousy of his fellow actors,...
Darwin Awards?
"Weird Al" Yankovic was once asked about his favorite landmarks. "The Biggest Ba...
Alicia Keys: After Bedtime?
So musically precocious was Alicia Keys that her compositions often outpaced her...
Thousand
As a disk jockey in mid-'80s New York, Moby honed his performance skills and pro...
Yesterday
Paul McCartney's classic song "Yesterday" - voted the most popular song of the 2...
Ben Taylor
"I've really never heard a song with good lyrics that I didn't like."
Ben Taylo...
Musically Challenged
Lew Brown was once summoned into the office of a musically challenged producer w...
Auntie Grizelda
Monkees bassist Peter Tork, denied a chance to sing on the first Monkees album, ...
Can Do Berlin
"When the Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun was being produced, the pro...
Adam Levine: Poetic Soul
From an early age, Maroon5 frontman Adam Levine thrived on angst. Indeed, during...
Shadow Morton: Morton's Bluff
After landing a songwriting contract with Jerry Leiber for producing "Remember (...
John Mayer: Triple Time
"I wrote my first record in the bathroom," John Mayer once recalled, "because I ...
Joni Mitchell: Man from Mars
Joni Mitchell: "My cat, Nietzsche got mad at me about something, and he got up o...
Yellow Gold?
While meeting with a journalist in Hong Kong one day, Beck was bemused to hear t...
Three Weeks
Legendary studio chief Jack Warner once asked composer Harry Warren how long it ...
Happiness Sucks
Ben Folds' upbeat nature, he once explained, did not conduce to downbeat songwri...
Trina
Bonso Thompson, the fearless editor of music magazine XXL, once asked rap...
Wanton Plagiarism?
Few Beatles fans, a reader wrote to the Globe and Mail in 2003, "wouldn't...
Take Me Out to the Ball Game?
In 1908, Jack Norworth wrote "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." Though the song bec...
Sleep Alone
"The lyrics for the song Moby would eventually call 'Sleep Alone' began with an ...
Odd Consideration?
Fun Lovin' Criminal Huey found musical inspiration in unlikely places. "There wa...
Shiny Happy People?
Reviews of R.E.M.'s music were not always to Michael Stipe's liking. "If I ever ...
Maybeline
The original version of Chuck Berry's 1955 hit song contained the chorus: "Ida R...
Methods of Mayhem
Former Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee composed Methods of Mayhem while ser...
Alicia Keys: Hair Today, So...
Alicia Keys once revealed that her song "A Woman's Worth" was inspired by a L'Or...
Moby Music
"There's a song off my new album called 'The Rafters,'" Moby once remarked. "Whe...
Foreigner: Double Vision
One evening in 1978, Foreigner frontman Lou Gramm went to see the New York Range...
Michelle Branch: Hotel Paper
As a young songwriter, Michelle Branch borrowed a trick from her forgetful fathe...
Beastie Boys: Fight for You...
In May 1986, the Beastie Boys found themselves drinking vodka and grapefruit jui...
Donna Summer: Working Hard
While washing her hands in the ladies' room at a swanky hotel one day, Donna Sum...
Macy Gray: I Try
Macy Gray's tracks for On How Life Is had many unlikely inspirations. Gra...
Cole Porter: Pailletted Gown
"People who meet Cole Porter for the first time often find his personality baffl...
Cole Porter: Fear of Success
"Within a few years after his marriage, Cole Porter had written, and had courteo...
Johnny Cash: Folsom Prison ...
"That line in 'Folsom Prison Blues,' the one that still gets the biggest rise ou...
Hoobastank & the Gray Mushroom
"We had one song called 'The Gray Mushroom,'" Hoobastank guitarist Dan Estrin on...
Bob Dylan: Songwriter
John Mellencamp: "I once asked Bob, as we stood in my art studio, in Bloomington...
Donna Summer: Orgasmic Vocals
Donna Summer was once asked about the rumor that the orgasmic vocals on her 1975...
Almost Always?
"To the playwright George S. Kaufman, sentiment was an otiose emotion that actua...
Enterprising Griffin
In June, 2000, Merv Griffin noted that he "may have written the shortest, most v...
Sheryl Crow: Trouble at Wal...
Though such bands as Nirvana, White Zombie, and Public Enemy catered to Wal-Mart...
Small Request
Many of Gershwin's songs - among them "I Got Rhythm," "Nice Work if You Can Get ...
Fish Needs a Bicycle?
Paul Simon once recorded a song about Belgian surrealist artist Rene Magritte an...
Focused Group
Bon Jovi once played 30 tentative songs (written with professional songwriter De...
Latona, Dude
Pop chanteuse Amanda Latona once recorded a Richard Marx song. And? "And it didn...
Michelle Branch: Misheard L...
Michelle Branch was inspired to begin writing songs when she was seven years old...
Morrissey: Hang the DJ
What inspired The Smiths to write "Panic," with its refrain of "hang the DJ, han...
Potatoes in the Paddy Wagon
In 2003, Michael McKean (best known for his role as David St. Hubbins in Rob Rei...
Semisubtle?
Semisonic's Dan Wilson once declared that he had "tried to learn from R.E.M. a l...
Funny Boy
"Singer Watty Burnett [once recalled] being in the studio when Lee 'Scratch' Per...
Pete Townshend: Mystic Rhythms
"[In 1971] Pete Townshend had been at work on a science-fiction rock-concept wor...
Cole Porter: At Long Last...
"On October 24, 1937, Cole Porter went out for a horseback ride at the Piping Ro...
Brian Wilson: Pet Sounds
"As a producer, [Beach Boys frontman Brian] Wilson was willing to try anything. ...
"Saddam Hussein"
In May 2003, Brazilian songwriter Vinicius Pecanha, having written a song called...
Long Song?
"I've written songs on everything," Chuck Berry once remarked. "Menus. Napkins. ...
Sheryl Crow: Heroes
In 2001, Sheryl Crow wrote a song ("Steve McQueen") lamenting the lack of heroes...
CSNuttY
One day in 1975, Neil Young stormed out of a recording session with Crosby, Stil...
Stipe & Reflin
R.E.M. drummer Bill Berry, who suffered a near-fatal brain aneurysm during the b...
Fellatio Music
Neptunes co-founder and rap producer Pharrell Williams once called Stereolab's m...
Paradise by the Dashboard L...
While writing their classic teen lust-in-a-car anthem, "Paradise by the Dashboar...
Young Ludacris
"I started rapping when I was nine," Ludacris once recalled, "but I needed somet...
Joni Mitchell: Woodstock
After the legendary concert in 1969, Joni Mitchell wrote the hit song "Woodstock...
Madonna: Love Over the Tele...
Madonna once cowrote a song called "Love Over the Telephone" with Don Johnson. A...
Avril Lavigne: Songwriting
From an early age, Avril Lavigne heard songs in her dreams. "I wake up in the mi...
Christmas Gift
Lewis H. Dedner got a remarkable gift one Christmas Eve. He awoke from a dream w...
California Sun
The Ramones, the godfathers of punk famed for their hyperkinetic rifs and simple...
John Mellencamp & Bob Dylan
John Mellencamp was once asked to name the perfect song. "Dylan's 'Like a Rollin...
Violent Femmes: Creative Spurt
"I was in my bedroom," Violent Femmes frontman Gordon Gano once recalled of a ce...
From Autumn to Ashes
From Autumn to Ashes vocalists Francis Mark and Benjamin Perry developed a novel...
Cynthia Weil: Whoa-Whoa-Whoa
After hearing "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin,'" Phil Spector told songwriters C...
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