Transcribed from TAXI’s 2023 Road Rally Sequels on YouTube
I have been teaching at the BMI Workshops for 30 years, maybe 31 years. I started when I was seven [he’s kidding!]. And those workshops—which by the way, are now online and open to anybody—at those workshops I could take a song from each person, and I always ask them, “What’s your intention or your hope for this song?” so that I can know if they’re hitting the target that they’re aiming for.
Well, I want to tell you that in the 31 years that I’ve been doing that, I would say for the first 20 years I never had a single person say to me, “Oh, I wrote this song for sync licensing. My goal, my hope is to get it in a movie or a TV show.” No, every single person’s hope was to have a big superstar record their song, and back then there was a chance of that happening.
In today’s world it is extremely not useful for an artist to record what I call an “outside song,” meaning one that they didn’t co-write, the producer didn’t co-write it, it wasn’t written by anybody inside the project like the A&R person’s girlfriend or somebody in the band.
“Sometimes a great song can get through, but it’s a lot easier to place a song in a TV show or a movie than to get a Morgan Wallen cut.”
But at the same time, while we have so many fewer opportunities to pitch outside songs, there are exponentially more opportunities to pitch for TV shows and for films, because we’ve got hundreds of cable channels broadcasting 24/7, and all those shows use music. Now, there are some places where it’s not impossible to still get a song recorded if you don’t write with the artist. I would say the last two bastions are Country music and Christian music. But even in those genres, only about 30% of the songs are not written with the artist, or somebody inside. So those odds are not great, but an exceptional song can still get through. For example, this year Billboard’s 2023 Song of the Summer—meaning the song that got the most airplay and streaming, and also to some extent sales is included in this number—is Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night.” So it’s the proof—you know, he didn’t write that song. It’s the proof that sometimes a great song can get through, but it’s a lot easier to place a song in a TV show or a movie than to get a Morgan Wallen cut.
So, what are you supposed to do if you write a pop song, or you write rock or hip-hop or R&B, maybe Americana, folk music—genres where people tend to not record anything they didn’t write? What do you do with what you write but you’re not the recording artist? Well, one option is to collaborate with artists, and the other is sync licensing. Sync is a really great outlet, not only for recording artists and people who do instrumental tracks but for non-performing artists like me. I don’t want a record deal; I want to write for other people. For people like me, it’s not just a solution, it’s like the magic answer.
I wanna tell you something. I do a weekly tip of creative tips and encouragement that goes out on my mailing list every week, and you can subscribe to it at Jason Blume.com. Well, anyway, one of the things that was in that, because I know of opportunities for writers and artists, I share them. I shared this incredible opportunity for a singer-songwriter to win an all-expenses paid trip to Australia, where they would co-write with artists and also perform at a huge music event. By the way, that deadline is now closed, so please don’t ask me how to apply for that. But anyway, in the description and requirements for the contest, I mentioned that it was limited to people who were between 18 and 35 years of age. Well, my mailbox blew up. People were furious; they were like, “Hey, I’m older than 35 but I’m still a viable artist, I’m still a really talented artist. It’s just not fair.” Well, you know what? I agree, it’s just not fair, but it’s the way it is.
There are a lot of very talented writers and artists who are really frustrated, because they are locked out because they’re too old. And I relate, because I wanted to be a recording artist when I was much younger, and at the point when I had been 28 years old for six years, I sort of accepted that I was not going to be the next Justin Bieber. So, sync is the great equalizer. They don’t know or care how old you are, what you look like, where you live, who you know; all they care about is does the piece of music perfectly fit this sync? And if it does, you’re in!
Now, before I get into why this particular song of mine got placed so many times, I have to give a disclaimer. There are no rules in songwriting. I am a teacher, not just a songwriter who happens to teach occasionally—my identity is I am a teacher. I have taught at Berklee College of Music, and I’ve taught at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, which for me was like walking on hallowed ground. It’s where McCartney and Lennon went to school—it was their high school—before it was turned into this institute. And I’ve taught in more than 10 countries.
“So, when one of my own songs landed more than 20 sync placements, I had to look at why—what did I do right?”
What I do as a teacher is I listen, and I analyze why these songs are successful; that’s my job. I’m looking at what are the common denominators. Why did these songs get chosen and then connect with listeners’ hearts? So, when one of my own songs landed more than 20 sync placements, I had to look at why—what did I do right? And some of these were big placements on TV shows like Scrubs, Friday Night Lights, Assassination Games, Kickin’ It Old School, and my personal favorite, MTV’s 16 and Pregnant. Lord, help us.
Anyway, there are two reasons why my song got placed so many times: Number one, I’m brilliant; number two, I’m lucky. Well, actually, both of those things might be true, but it’s not why these songs, or this particular song, got placed so many times. So, before I go further, I have to tell you that I’m not allowed to play the songs that I’m gonna talk about because of copyright issues in TAXI’s Youtube videos. So, you can hear these songs—and I hope you will—by going to my website, Jason Blume.com, and the songs are on the website and you can listen to them.
So, there I was at a conference, and I was a presenter. One of the other presenters was a sync publisher, and he said to me, “Do you ever write topline?” Like, “Absolutely.” By the way, if you don’t know what topline is, it’s writing the melody and the lyrics to an existing musical track, a backing track. So essentially, I’m writing every single thing except the background. I’m not writing the beats or the bass line or the chords, I’m writing the melody that the singer sings and the lyrics. And I said, “Absolutely. I do that all the time.”
“I was at a conference, and I put myself in a place where I was likely to get lucky. I was not gonna get this opportunity if I had stayed home.”
Now, what just happened? That's the first lesson? I started by saying to you, “I was at a conference and…” Yes, I was at a conference, and I put myself in a place where I was likely to get lucky. I was not gonna get this opportunity if I had stayed home. So, you need to put yourself in the places where opportunities are likely to arise.
Editor’s Note: You’ve still got time to register for your 2 FREE tickets to TAXI’s annual conference, The Road Rally! Click here to learn more!
Next thing, I asked him, “Do you have any direction for me about what you might want the song to be about?” And he said, “Well, gosh, in sync licensing they ask for songs about almost everything.” And he thought for a moment and said, “You know, in the last week, for whatever reason, I’ve gotten a lot of requests for songs about money. Money, money, show me the money.” And I thought, Ah, so cliché—probably been done a thousand times. Nope, let me think about it a minute. I thought, “Show Me the Money,” “Show Me…” Wait a minute. “If you want to get down with me, there is something I need to see. You gotta show me the honey.” Ooh, clever, good idea, interesting twist, a title that might be likely to jump out of a pile and grab attention. So next thing I did, in a sense, was I chose a title for my song that was clever, attention-grabbing and interesting. Not, “Girl Tell Me Why I Should Go with You”; no, “Show Me the Honey.” Interesting.
So, I had to have a new angle. I won’t bother to waste my time writing a song if I don’t have a concept, a title, an angle, a new way of…, a fresh way to say something that millions of people are likely to relate to. And if you’re not good at coming up with those kinds of angles, collaborate with somebody who is. You know, we don’t need to be able to do everything as songwriters. Isolate what it is that you do great, and I guarantee that you’re gonna find other people whose skills complement what you do, and they’re looking for you.
Editor’s Note: TAXI’s FREE (for TAXI members) conference—The Road Rally—is being held November 7th – 10th. Click here to learn more! And if you’d like to see some examples of members finding other members to collaborate with at the Road Rally (as Jason just suggested), click here.
So anyway, we need to give decision makers compelling reasons to choose our song over the really good competition. And some of the reasons, if they’re gonna choose the song, are based on concept and the title, obviously the melody, the lyric, the groove, the production—yes, it’s gonna matter tremendously—and the backing tracks.
So, this reminds me. I got an assignment… Because what I’m talking about is giving the listener a reason to pick your song instead of everything else. Many years ago, I got an assignment from a publisher, and the assignment was to write an end-credit movie theme, and all they were able to tell me is that it had to be about empowering little girls. If that’s what the movie is about, and the concept is sort of… “If I believe in myself, I can do anything,” and I knew what kind of style they wanted musically because they played me the temp track. So, I could hear that it was sort of a Pop… a little bit of an R&B flavor, but really a Pop song, and I heard what the tempo was that they liked, so of course I was going to write to that tempo. And I hung up the phone after getting the assignment, and I thought, Okay, as long as I believe, I can do anything. As long as I believe—and that became my title, “As Long as I Believe.” Great. I finished the song in about 45 minutes, wrote it by myself, had some dinner, went back to review it, looked it over with some fresh eyes and I thought to myself, “You know, Jason, you just hit the nail so squarely on the head.” Well, what’s the problem with that? I gave them what they asked for. Well, the problem with that is that if they gave me that assignment, chances were good that at least 50 other professional writers got the same assignment. And I was going to need to do more than basically pare it back to exactly what they said they wanted. I was going to need a different angle, a special way to say it if they were going to pick mine instead of everybody else’s.
So, I looked back over the song, and I realized I had one great line in the entire song. Everything else was well-crafted, perfectly done, but not wow. And I looked back over the song and I saw the one line toward the end of my second verse, “If I wasn’t meant to fly, I wouldn’t have these wings.” Ooh, that was an interesting way to say that I know I was born to achieve, I know I can do anything, without saying it in a boring way. And that is how I got the end-credit song in the animated Barbie movie, Barbie of Swan Lake.
Let me tell you, a lot of times I share this story when I speak live, and when I say it was a Barbie movie, people snicker, they laugh. Well, guess what, ha-ha-ha, I am laughing all the way to the bank years, and years later! When my quarterly royalty statements come in, they always include payments for this song that I wrote by myself. It’s the gift that keeps on giving, because it’s still playing on television all around the world.
But I have to tell you my favorite thing about this song and this usage is that for the rest of the movie’s entire soundtrack of Barbie of Swan Lake, they used Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake Ballet for all the music. So, when the credits rolled at the end it said, “Music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Jason Blume.” That was a happy fun moment for me. Ch-ching.
“I pay attention to the music that’s being played, and I don’t hear a whole lot of deep, dark, poetic, depressing music in these films… not most of them.”
So anyway, when I’m at my workshop, as I was saying earlier, I still often hear writers bringing in these bad slow songs that sound perfect for funerals, but they say, “Oh, this is for a movie. This is for film and television.” And you know, I’ve watched a lot of TV and movies, and because it’s my business I pay attention to the music that’s being played, and I don’t hear a whole lot of deep, dark, poetic, depressing music in these films… not most of them.
So, it reminded me… I had been at a conference where it was all about sync-licensing, and there was a panel of music supervisors, and the question was asked, “What is the easiest type of song for you to place in a TV show or a movie?” And the answer was unanimous. The answer was, “The easiest song. The songs I get the most calls for are songs that sound like they would be on today’s radio—contemporary hit songs.” And they said lyrically, the kind of ideas and the kind of feeling that they were so looking for were things like P!nk’s “Get This Party Started,” and Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling” and with a positive, fun context. Things like “We can do this, it’s gonna be a great day, it’s a good time to be happy and starting now things are gonna be great.” And one of the most-synced songs ever, Katrina and the Waves’ “Walking on Sunshine.” Not “I’m feeling so good, I’m so happy”; no, “I’m walking on sunshine.” It’s a fresh, unique way to just say this positive thing.
Actually, it reminded me that I have gotten a lot of placements with a song that was picked through TAXI, and the song is called “Get Up,” and the whole concept of the song is “What are you waiting for? Get up, now’s the time, do it.” And the song has gotten some really interesting placements. One placement that I never would have even thought about! It’s been used over and over again in a corporate video where this big, big company has a convention every year and this is their inspiring video to get everybody worked up and ready to be successful. And they used my song every year in their new version of their video, and they pay for it really well every year.
Let’s talk about the lyric of the song “Show Me the Honey” that I got so many placements on. I had to find ways to not exclude possible placements while still finding unique fresh words to say things that would be, for lack of a better word, universal, meaning something that most people are gonna relate to, that many people are going to relate to.
I’m going to share an example of my favorite sync song. And what I love about it is how it just grabs with the opening lines that were so fresh, so unique and yet really didn’t say any detail. It’s a song that was the opening-credit theme song from the vampire series on HBO True Blood. It was written and performed by Jace Everett, an artist on Warner Bros. Anyway, the opening lines of the song, “When you came in, the air went out, and every shadow filled up with doubt.” Wow! What a unique way of expressing that this person was really something special, not the predictable—give me a break—“She walked into the bar and every head turned, lookin’ at those painted-on jeans and cowboy boots.” Please, give me something fresh and new. “When you came in the air went out,” I’m in! Already I’m cranking it up if I were a decision-maker and going, Whoa, this is something special.
There’s another tool I’ve noticed sometimes. It’s not a rule, because as I said, there are no rules in songwriting, but what I do is, I look for what works. And in a series called Inventing Anna—it was a Netflix series that was fantastic—they made a very interesting choice, and it was a pretty consistent choice across the music that was used. There was very little lyric in the songs that were used as the soundtrack. And what I mean by very little lyric is that they really hammered home the title over and over again, not bringing in a whole lot of other words or story or images. This is just an example, not from that show, but to give you an idea of what I’m talking about. Say there’s a scene and it’s mentioned that this woman is beautiful. Well, the song playing behind the scene lyrically might have said something like “Beautiful, so beautiful. That’s what you are, just beautiful, so beautiful, so beautiful. Yeah, that’s what you are.” That kind of thing, I heard it a lot in that movie, and I thought, “Now that would be interesting to have part of my catalog with just topics that hammer home the concept or the title.”
So, I’m sharing that idea with you, and I do expect that you will be sending me a portion of all of your income from now on [he’s kidding!]. Thank you for that.
Don’t miss Part 2 of this powerful presentation in next month’s TAXI Transmitter!