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“I write the songs that make the whole world sing” — Barry Manilow
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I was going to respond to a question I saw
but decided to turn it into a MyTake instead.
I work in the music industry and here's how professional songwriting works. This is mostly true for everyone, but we have a lot of our own quirks and I'm sure others do too.
Many of you know about my work in classical and country music, and let me first say I am not a songwriter, I have no talent for songwriting, I don’t want to be a songwriter, but I am around watching all the time while they’re doing it, and here’s some of what I’ve learned.
The songs we do take a year or more to develop by what starts out as large teams of professional songwriters and producers (10 or 15 or more), plus record company executives who are always in and out of the process (and mostly unwelcome by the creatives).
Usually (in our situation), the artist and 2 or 3 songwriters will get the final songwriting credit that is eligible for a Grammy Award, the only thing that counts (credit-wise) in this business. Our producer gets a songwriting credit on many of our songs, which is not common in the industry but how they do things here.
We're releasing an album later this year, and starting last month we have hundreds of songs we're sifting through just to get 18 songs plus a few bonus tracks called promotional singles, which sometimes become hits. A loose example of a promotional track is when Miranda Lambert recorded a cover of the 1970s song Fooled Around and Fell in Love with Maren Morris a few years ago. All of this writing and producing and recording will end up being supported by only 3 or 4 singles.
I'm just the violinist in a band of 8 plus the lead artist, which expands to 36 when we finally record, so I play what they put down and offer my opinion sometimes (in the core band I'm the only one with a symphony orchestra background, and one of only 2 girls), but mostly I stand around and wait while everyone else is arguing about something for hours and hours, probably 90% of my time right now. Our phones are blocked from the outside for security while we're in the studio, so it can get pretty boring with nothing to do and not even your phone to look at. I download things to watch or listen to or read and bring them in, but still it's not the same as being able to communicate with people on text and socials during all this downtime.
One other note about security, we have to wear our record company badges when we go into the studio, and our drivers licenses. If you're found anywhere in the studio without your drivers license around you neck, you're thrown out, and your record company has to try to get you back in, which can take days. We’re searched on the way in and on the way out (more so than TSA!). The idea of a new song getting out of the studio before it’s released is what they absolutely panic about (called “a Nashville felony” here, only half-joking).
I've played on 2 albums now with one song that went to #1 on Billboard Country Digital Song Sales, and a song that went to #1 on another artist's album (but played by our band), and 1 song that was #1 on Country Digital and Billboard Country Airplay.
These songs mostly are credited to the same 2 songwriters, plus our artist and producer, and on 2 of the songs an outside (unknown) writer has a credit for having sent in a demo probably 4 or 5 years ago, so some big songs still come from a germ of an idea sometimes, though the final songs we recorded are not really recognizable as what they originally wrote. Neither of those 2 first-time songwriters has written another charted song (yet), and the way things go for most, they probably won’t ever again.
One of those 2 professional songwriters I referred to has been doing it since the 1990s, when my parents were a big deal in the music business. He got his break when his college roommate was interning at a record company and took his demo in to his producer (a cassette tape at that time), and he had a hit song in Europe at the same time, which pushed him over the edge and got him started. Without that song in Europe the record producer might not have paid attention to his demo. Now he's written over a hundred charted songs and had 20 go to #1, and has won several Grammy Awards.
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“All is fair in love and songwriting” — Norah Jones
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