And to be honest, the writing of it was entirely a paint by numbers affair. I used this lovely album cover generator to find a random title. That gave me ‘Rattle Your Jewellery’ which I started messing around with, eventually come up with the first two lines sung over an A Minor chord.
Then I hit a brick wall. What was I going to write? The words seemed to be saying something about empty beauty, the idea of being nothing but your jewellery. So I jotted down some lyrics, all in one take (I still haven’t revised them) and set about filling in the blanks, musically.
It sounded vaguely folky, so I tried using minor folk chords A minor D minor E minor. That sounded too nice, so I added extra notes – a B pedal note, a minor seventh on the D minor and both an F sharp and C sharp in the E minor.
That gave me a verse. How to stretch it out into a whole song? Three verses, with very similar lyrics, a bridge that ended on an E7 to take us into the third verse, plus some A minor noodling with the guitar.
That’ll do, I thought, hit the record button and played the thing in one take, which is what you can hear above.
I’m not too proud of it. I find the best songs always turn up when you’re not trying to write them. It’s usually better therefore to create the situation where inspiration can flow and be caught, rather than trying to force a song.
This song was forced, and it feels that way to me.
Nevertheless, I don’t think it’s a bad song.
Ideas to steal:
Avoid chords sounding everyday by adding unexpected chromatic notes. Got an E minor chord? Stick a C sharp in it!
Use common structures. A A B A can be a real boon if you have an effective verse but can’t think of a chorus.
Instrumental passages can hide a multitude of sins. Seriously, if you’re not sure what should happen next, just throw in a guitar solo!
I’ve discovered a sure-fire method that will allow you to write great songs in 30 minues or less.
Here’s what you do (NB I haven’t got all of these absolutely sorted for myself yet. I’m still learning):
1. Start learning music from a young age. It helps to have musical parents, to go to a school where singing is mandatory and to live in a country where free instrumental lessons are available (NB you may need to emigrate before your fifth birthday if you country does not provide such facilities and services. You may also have to change your parents). Time taken:-15 years
2. Spend a decade or two playing other people’s songs. This is a must. Immersing yourself in other people’s music is vital if you’re to get a grip on what makes a song work. After only three or four years playing other people’s songs, your own music will have gone from awful to just about acceptable. Time Taken:- 15 years
3. Learn your instrument – If you’re performing then you’ll need lessons from a pro. This includes singers. Anyone who tells you that lessons will destroy your natural ability or uniqueness is a fool and should not be listened to. Time Taken:- 5 years at least.
4. Study composition and music theory – If you’re lucky/determined enough you can do this at college. Find a course with a good songwriting or composition tutor, the sort of tutor who lets you be yourself, but gives you all the tools to be yourself fully. if college isn’t an option, find more experienced composers and learn from them. Time Taken:- a college course could last two or three years.
5. Write. Compose constantly, always seeking to improve. Keep records of your songs, good bad and indifferent. Demo as much as you can. Seek always to be better, and seek always to entertain yourself as well as others. Time taken:- if you want to do it properly, maybe 5 years.
6. Perform. Get in front of an audience and learn the rhythm, groove and feel that makes a song work. Time taken:- a few years of performances under your belt wouldn’t hurt.
7. Learn all the rules about songwriting, then learn how to break them. Time taken:- decades.
Follow those simple rules, and you’ll be able to turn out decent songs in half an hour, no trouble at all.
Today I interviewed a lovely songwriting duo, Cubinoid (AKA Ben) and Tixia who go by the name of ‘Moth’. I came across their stuff because of my own interest in all things steampunk (I have a steampunk inspired album you know…)
1. When did you start writing songs? What kind of musical education have you had?
Cubinoid: I started writing songs when I was a kid – I had piano lessons when I was really young, then drum lessons, sax lessons, a few guitar lessons…weird thing was loads of musicians used to use the loft of our Victorian house in Clevedon for jamming, and they’d leave their instruments in our loft. I learnt loads by just being around all these great players and using their instruments whilst they were gone. My mum and dad had a keen interest in Jazz, and I used visit late night jazz sessions and sit in with the local jazz bands. After I left art college, I was going to go to Manchester Uni, but I went to London and joined a band instead. A few years later we had landed a record deal in Japan with the Polystar label, and I was writing and composing with the band (Boa) for the next eight years!
Tixia: It was shortly after I met Ben – initially I only wanted to write songs, and searched for someone to sing them – until one day someone heard me singing my own songs and said, “Why don’t you just sing them yourself?” So, I took some professional singing lessons from Celia Civiic and we started to get the band together from there.
2. If you had to pick one of your songs to show someone exactly what Moth is about, which one would you choose and why?
Cubinoid: My favourite song is the title track of the album “Children for a Day”. It’s got piano, autoharp, accordion, mandolin and a weird instrument called ‘Waves of Nightingales’. I guess the style of that song sums up what Moth are about – weird little acoustic trip hop songs with melodies. I like it ’cause Tixia wrote it for me!
Tixia: One song? There are so many… Probably “Tree Snow” because of the video (above) – we made an animated video last year and stuck it up on youtube.
Took ages to make because we made the robots ourselves and did all the animation.
It seems tales of artificial intelligence robots in a Victorian setting appeals to some people!
3. All songwriters steal from others. Which songwriters have you stolen from the most? Er, I mean ‘been influenced by’:-)
Cubinoid: Actually, this is the thing – our music is a reaction against that. There are very few artists that I actually like – I have a handful of CDs in my collection, and our music doesn’t sound like any of them at all, really. You might find traces of genres rather than artists, but we definitely don’t nick music ideas or structures if we can help it. We are looking to create something unique and different – and this is why our music has such limited appeal (laughs). It takes a very discerning ear to truly appreciate a Moth album. The select few who love our stuff say, “Whoa! That’s really different!” and buy all our tracks, but the white herd majority are like, “What? I don’t get it. Let’s put some Oasis on.”
Tixia: I get influenced mostly by films and sometimes write songs about situations or characters, or real life situations. Sometimes I’ll take a bit of dialogue from a film and mould it into a song, but I don’t steal others lyrics – I work hard at my writing, and just wouldn’t do that…although, I am aware that there are songwriters who have stolen my lyrics outright! But, you know, it happens. Imitation is said to be the best form of flattery.
4. Music or lyrics?
Cubinoid: What’s the question?
Tixia: I write all the lyrics. The melodies just seem to drop into my head, I sing them and then he puts the music to it – and we are really prolific. Last year we released five albums! Usually I hum a melody and you just write the music around it, don’t you?
Cubinoid: Yeah – she sings the melody into a dictaphone, and then writes the words around that. I’ll pick up a guitar, or sit at the piano and we work together and rough something out. When we are happy we can play it all the way through, we start to record it; one of the luxuries of owning a recording studio! I play a whole bunch of different instruments too, so that helps. When the song is finished, we compile it into an album and release it on http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/Moth
Tixia: Or on our weird little website that no-one seems to understand: It’s a bit like a video game – you have to click and find out how it works…
5. ‘What musical ideas (chords structure whatever) do you use too often?’
Cubinoid: Well, hopefully we don’t use any structures too often! All our songs tend to be uniquely crafted, although in terms of time signature, I am fond of writing in 4/4 time. Some of our songs are 6/8 and there are a few waltzes in there, and a few songs have quite odd time signatures with bars of 5/4 and 4/4 mixed together. Chord wise, I think there is a variation – particularly as I compose for orchestra – there are lots of instruments in a Moth song sometimes that create unusual chords and textures. There is an eastern scale that I am fond of, but it doesn’t feature too often…actually – I know a structure we use a lot – many of our songs are in a similar tempo – it seems to just feel right that way.
Tixia: Perhaps we write songs about real life situations too often? I don’t if that’s a bad thing necessarily though…but we do it a lot.
The word ‘Anthem’ usually refers to a song designed to bring people together – it’s the piece that everyone sings along to.
The particular kind of anthem I’m refering to in this article is the moderately paced, string laden singalong ballad that have provided hits for bands such as Snow Patrol, Kings of Leon and Take That; and that have become a ubiquitous part of TV mission documentaries.
Lyrically, these songs tend to be relatively bittersweet – triumphant yet sad at the same time.
My favourite set of lyrics for this sort of song is atypical: Motorcycle Emptiness has a wonderful set of lyrics that reference biker culture, and seem to be about the distance between an individual and a hollow culture, rather than the distance between two individuals that so many other ‘anthems’ talk about. Use Somebody (Kings of Leon) and the Space Between (Dave Matthews Band) are great examples of this latter idea.
Of course, meaning doesn’t come solely from the lyrics – it’s clear from live footage of these songs that regardless of the words, all of them are as triumphant and celebratory as the more obvious Greatest Day by Take That.
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Chords
There is one chord sequence that is common to a lot of these songs: I V (1st inv) vi IV. For example in C major: C G/B Am F.
This chord progression is used in Take That’s Greatest Day and Manic Street Preachers’ Motorcycle Emptiness.
Other songs use variations, for example Use Somebody by the Kings of Leon uses a much simpler version C C/E F. Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars is slightly different again, but the important factors in this chord progression are:
The use of inversions – this gives us interest without having to change chords too much. An Anthem needs to sound easy, and have a flowing motion. Using inversions allows us a smooth bassline and interesting harmonic ideas without changing chord drastically. In particular, a bass line that starts on the tonic then descends to the leading note seems to be very popular.
Ending on chord IV – Which gives us a cadence of IV – I (eg. F to C). Why is that important? I think the so called ‘plagal’ cadence still has connotations of spirituality and contemplation (it’s used in lots of hymns and gospel songs, so much so that it’s known as the ‘amen’ cadence). That mood suits the anthem to a tee.
Example chord progressions
Motor Cycle Emptiness - E B/D# C#m A
Greatest Day - C G/b Am F
Use Somebody – C C/E F
Chasing Cars – A E/G# D A
Arrangement
The anthem is all about that triumphant-with-a-hint-of-sadness chorus.
Often this has to be built to. So in both Take That’s ‘Greatest Day’ and Snow Patrol’s ‘Chasing Cars’ you get extended periods with little or no percussion, perhaps with repeated quavers from the chord instruments (or toms), emphasising the tension and build up to the inevitable chorus. Of course, a more traditional quiet verse, loud chorus approach works just as well, as in ‘Use Somebody’.
High-pitched guitar arpeggios are also very popular, as in Chasing Cars, or the very lovely Space Between by Dave Matthews
Melody
The major pentatonic scale is your friend here (C D E G A) – Both ‘Use Somebody’ and ‘Greatest Day’ have melodies that make great use of the first three note of the major scale, with occasional leaps up to the fifth note on the title line.
Use Somebody Greatest Day
An alternative is to emphasise the seventh or leading note, as in Chasing Cars, (Or the verse of the Killers Mr Brightside, which uses some of these elements). Chasing Cars also makes great use of the first three notes of the major scale here.
It’s interesting to note the common themes between the chord and melody ideas in these anthems – they’re all pretty static and don’t use a huge range. Almost as if the songs intend to keep us in stasis, slowly growing a mood rather than taking a journey.
A Summary – Ideas to Steal.
If you want to compose your own anthem, try using these ingredients:
Bittersweet lyrics about emotional distance
A chord progression that includes inversions, perhaps chord I to the first inversion of chord V, a descending bass line and a plagal cadence (chord IV to I)
A melody that emphasises the first three notes of the major scale, a leap up to the fifth, or an emphasis on the leading note (possibly over the IV chord)
An arrangement that follows conventional pop song structure and/or includes a building dynamic and restrained use of percussion
There is no excuse for laziness. There just isn’t.
Now, let’s get a few things straight.
1. Songwright.co.uk isn’t about the songwriting business. I’m not interested in whether a song makes money, I just care about the craft being done well.
2. Amy Winehouse has no redeeming features. She could never sing, she has never recorded an above average song, and she has apparently squandered the life she was so lucky to be given. She made some money for some people, but that doesn’t stop her sounding tinny and unpleasant, or looking so vile and unwashed.
3. Copying has to be done well if you’re going to do it.
What I’m building up to is the sheer waste of recording and video budget on the well-below-average song ‘Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful’? by Paloma Faith
The woman’s voice and to an extent her look have clearly been chosen for their similarity to Winehouse. That’s offensive, but I suppose it’s not suprising.
What really annoys me is that the song just isn’t good enough. I wanted to hear it, because I saw a TV ad that mentioned the title and played literally one line of the song. That one line sounded good, I liked the title, so I fired up the laptop and found the video on youtube. After listening to half the song my blood was boiling.
This song isn’t good enough.
If one of my pupils had written this, I would give it top marks and say ‘well done’. For a secondary school pupil it’s a good song. From a pro? No way. The verse is forgettable, but the chorus is something worse: it’s a bridge. It promises, it says we’re going somewhere, we’re going to get a chorus… here it comes…
And then it doesn’t.
And later there’s a middle 8, and it isn’t very good, and yeah it goes to the dominant 5th and the chord progression kind of makes sense. But so what? Where’s the emotion? Where’s the suprise? Where’s the art?
I know the pop music machine has given up, has chosen immediate and bland because it can’t do interesting and musical. But I don’t want this lazy crap being released. I’m not just saying I don’t want to hear it, I don’t want it to even be recorded.
I’m not in favour of any kind of censorship except self censorship. What I want is for songwriters to be critical of their own work, and to realise that you should only be making public the truly good songs.
This isn’t good, it’s dull copycat music. It’s lazy and there’s no excuse for it.
It is nearly February. For the last two years, the second month of the year has meant only one thing to me: February Album Writing Month!
What’s that then?
FAWM is a songwriting challenge. The idea is to write 14 new songs or pieces of music. If you can, record them upload them and generally share them with others via the website fawm.org.
Is that it?
Not quite. The best thing about FAWM is the community. The FAWM forums are full of wonderful, creative fellow songwriters, all of them eager to leave helpful, constructive comments on your songs. You can find people to collaborate with, people to advise you on recording technology, music theory or any other subject. Most of all, you can find like minded songwriters, all of them eager to expand their song crafting skills.
A lot of my best songs in the last couple of years have been composed as part of the FAWM challenge, and I heartily recommend you give it a go.
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