Transcribed from TAXI’s 2023 Road Rally Sequels on Youtube
Editor’s Note: This is a continuation of an incredible class that Jason taught for TAXI in 2023. Lots of songwriting gold to harvest, here!
So anyway… Back to my song “Show Me the Honey.” What I’m trying to figure out is what did I do right? Just like I just described to you, I hammered home the title a lot. I didn’t think about it when I was writing it, it just happened, but then I looked back and I thought, oh, every single chorus repeats this title four times. But more than that, it repeats this little hooky part of it as well. So, for instance, it might say, “Show me the honey/Show me, show me, show me the honey/Yeah, the honey, show me the honey.” I was hammering it home, and not a deep, complicated story, but just bam! Here’s the concept, here’s what we’re trying to show.
So, the next thing I did was I needed to write a song that sounded like a hit song, a really good song. There was one challenge—well, there are always a lot of challenges—but the big challenge for me was I was writing to an existing track, and I couldn’t change the track.
Now, before I get on to this issue with the track, I want to tell you that not only do we live in a world where it is ageist… You know, people who are above a certain age definitely are looked at differently in the music business, it’s just the way it is. But it’s also sexist in a lot of ways, that’s why I want to make a point of saying that the track that I was writing to was just slamming. This was such a good, funky track that was composed, created, written and produced by a woman. So, ladies, if that’s your talent and you are driven to do that, you go for it. You can be successful doing this.
Anyway, this excellent track had a killer groove and killer feel. It only had two chords in the entire track. It went back and forth between an E major and an A minor, and an E major and an A minor for four minutes. How in God’s name am I supposed to make the chorus really pop and jump?
Now, before I talk about that, I want to explain that years ago—I don’t know, 20 or 30 years ago—whenever artists like Whitney Houston and Celene Dion were ruling the pop charts, those kinds of choruses needed to just jump out of the song with huge high notes and… That was pretty much de regur, as they would say. But that has changed. I’m not saying it never happens, and in fact in probably the vast majority of Country songs and Christian songs you’re still gonna have choruses that are pretty big; even if they don’t have that massive, big money note, you’re gonna go rise up when that chorus hits. The chorus is gonna lift, and it’s probably gonna have the highest notes of the song in the chorus. Nowadays… as I said, that might be the case, but it’s also very acceptable to differentiate not with the huge high notes but with a different rhythm. And my song “Show Me the Honey” really had a different rhythm between the verses and the chorus.
I’m just gonna give you an idea of the rhythm of the verses. Dee-dee-dee-dee… pretty straight-ahead, no syncopation, nothing rhythmic to it. Then the chorus hits and it’s deeta-deeta-deeta… So in other words, even if I weren’t going to go up with the notes, you knew it was a different section. It was clearly differentiated because it was a different rhythm.
“Every chorus needs to differentiate itself from the verses, but it could be done with different rhythms or different vocal range.”
But I also wanted higher notes in my chorus. And what I wound up doing is taking the chorus up an entire octave from where the verses were. The highest note in the song was in the chorus; the lowest note in the song was also in the chorus. So, every chorus needs to differentiate itself from the verses, but it could be done with different rhythms or different vocal range.
It reminds me of a common mistake I hear when I critique songs that are intended for an outside artist. I can’t tell you how many times I hear a song and it’s got maybe a total of one octave in it—from the lowest notes to the highest notes, one octave, maybe one octave and the whole step—and I’ll say to the writer, “Who do hear this song for? What artist?” And they’ll say, “Carrie Underwood” or “Reba McEntire.” These are artists who can effortlessly sing two full octaves, and they can hold out these huge, impressive, dramatic notes, and you are giving them nothing to shine on. Why would they sing this melody?
And what happens is we tend to write what’s comfortable for us to sing, but if you’re not going to be the singer, you need to write for somebody else who is gonna be the singer. And think about it, that person records songs that they didn’t write. They probably are a great singer because they didn’t get signed just because they’re a songwriter. They are gonna look for songs that really allow them to shine vocally, so you have to be sure to give a singer other than yourself those long notes that they can hold out, and those higher or lower notes that they’re gonna sound really good on.
Sometimes I hear the opposite problem, where there’s too much range in a song. Well, what’s too much range? I did an article… Oh, Jason has articles that are at his website, jasonblume.com? Yes, there are 125 free articles, and one of them is called “Are Your Songs Too Rangy?” For that article, I interviewed vocal coaches for literally some of the biggest superstars in the world, and they were talking about the kind of range that artists typically have. It would be almost unheard of for an artist to not comfortably have an octave and a third, meaning like from a C to the C above plus another third of an octave up to that E. That would be pretty much standard; nobody is gonna have less than that.
If you are targeting the singer with exceptional range and you know that’s the kind of song you are writing, that’s the kind of artist you are targeting, I would probably want even more range than that, maybe even an octave and a half. I’m not saying you have to do two octaves just because, you know, Celene Dion in her day, or Carrie Underwood or somebody like that can sing two octaves. Sometimes it’s gonna be the case. But what I’m saying is you don’t want to make it so that most normal, excellent professional singers can’t sing your song. What I have done in those cases, I jokingly say, “I de-ranged the song.” And what I mean by that is usually it’s a big, dramatic, exciting note that comes toward the end of the song or in the chorus. I don’t want to mess with that note; that’s going to be the money-note. Instead, I’m gonna take maybe the less important low note in the verses and see if I can’t raise that up so that by lowering the key, now that they don’t have to go so low, the singer is going to be able to hit that big high note and that low note. So anyway, one of the things I did with my song was I was sure to write a range that is going to be singable and sound normal.
“The verse lyric is there to tell the story—who, what, where, when, the details, the pictures—the chorus is typically gonna be your summary.”
Next thing I did… Let’s talk about the lyric. I wrote a lyric that supported the title. It makes the title satisfying when everything is leading to that title, so that your verse leads to your chorus. Your chorus is the logical conclusion of your verse. The verse lyric is there to tell the story—who, what, where, when, the details, the pictures—the chorus is typically gonna be your summary. But you specifically want your verse to lead to the chorus and chorus title. The title is always going to be in the chorus, almost always.
So, if I start with the melody or I start with the track, then it’s time to write the lyric. I almost always come up with the title first. Why? Because I want my lyric to lead to the title. If I don’t know where I’m trying to lead people, as Yogi Berra famously said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up somewhere else.” I need to know, what is the payoff, where am I trying to lead people, or I’m not going to get from there—it’s like trying to shoot arrows in the dark. I need to know where my target is and to be able to see it. And my target is my title.
So here’s a trick. Once I have settled on my title—and bear in mind, I might not start with a lyric, I might’ve started with the melody—but once it’s time to write the lyric, I start with the title, and I ask myself, why would the singer say this title? Let’s say, for example, my title is “I Love You.” Just totally out of the blue, when a chorus hits, why would a singer say, “I love you?” If they’re in a relationship and it’s a good one, I would think that the other person would say, “Well, I certainly hope so. Why are you saying that to me now?”
So, when I’m trying to craft a verse, what I want to do is look at scenarios that will lead me logically to “I love you.”Here’s one: “I saw black mascara tears on your pillow, and I heard you tell your best friend that you wonder how I feel. Well, baby, there’s something I want you to know, I love you. I love you with all my heart. I love you today, tomorrow and always. I love you, blah, blah, blah.”Now there has been a reason: “I saw you crying, you asked if maybe I don’t love you anymore.” Here’s your answer, “I love you.” It’s not the only way to get to that title; maybe “I saw you looking in the mirror examining every line, every wrinkle, and I saw that fear in your eyes. Well, baby, let me tell you something. As I wrap my arms around you, I want you to know I love you more than I ever have.” Now there’s a reason: “I see you’re really concerned about this, you’re thinking that you’re getting old. Well, you are, but I love you.” (Kidding!)
“If I read a book and I love chapter one and I get to chapter two and it’s pretty much saying the same exact things but with different words, I’m done.”
Anyway, when it comes to the second verse, here’s my trick. I try to answer the questions, and then what happens? Or what else happened? Meaning, it’s not necessarily even a story, but I want to continue on; I don’t want to reiterate what we’ve already heard in the first verse or it’s gonna be really boring. If I read a book and I love chapter one and I get to chapter two and it’s pretty much saying the same exact things but with different words, I’m done. You know, that’s not gonna hold my interest. We need to develop the song, take it to a next level.
Now, when it came to the production of my song, I did something really, absolutely crucial. The track was already awesome, that was out of my hands, it was done. If it was not, I would’ve hired the very best musicians that I could afford, and that would not be me, because just like I am not the best singer—we’ll get to that in a second—I’m not the best musician, and I want the people who are fantastic to be playing on my song. Why? Competition is tough and I want to give my song the best possible shot. So instead of singing it myself, even though I really am a good singer—I sang a television theme, I did an album, I’ve played gigs—I’m a good singer, but I am not the best singer for this song. It’s sort of a funky, R&B kind of a groove. That’s not me.
Don’t miss Part 3 of this incredible interview in next month’s TAXI Transmitter!