This songwriting story comes from the recording of Beck’s “Loser”, of which only 500 copies were originally released, but later become Beck’s breakout success.

Early in his career, Colin Graybill (Beck) would often spontaneously generate random lyrics, to escape the boredom (and sometimes invisibility) of busking in public or working in small venues. “I don’t think I would have been able to go in and do “Loser” in a six-hour shot without having been somewhat prepared. It was accidental, but it was something that I’d been working toward for a long time” he later said.

Beck gained the attention and friendship of Carl Stephenson, a producer for Rap-A-Lot Records. Stephenson had been the force behind Forest for the Trees, whose now somewhat awkward 1990′s psychedelic hit “Dream” now sounds like Beck, without the Beck. For songwriters, this connection in itself is a reminder that well-connected peers are usually the most important audience and influence on your music.

Stephenson decided to record Beck in his kitchen – a more or less spontaneous decision, that somewhat effected the eventual lyrics. Many of Beck’s words were inspired by looking at things in Stephenson’s kitchen – “Spray-paint the vegetables” to “Get crazy with the Cheese Whiz”.

They both got a laugh out of how terrible his rapping was, a sort of amateur version of Public Enemy’s Chuck D. In response, Beck started sarcastically singing, “I’m a loser, baby” to the playbacks (adding “so why don’t you kill me” to finish the line).

How much the final mix was decided by Beck, and how much Stephenson, is unknown – but perhaps academic. Beck had already perceived similarities between Delta blues and hip hop, which he said helped to inspire the song. Its roots in LA’s anti-folk scene are obvious also, as are his interest in hip hop and blues. Beck later said “I’d realized that a lot of what folk music is about taking a tradition and reflecting your own time. I knew my folk music would take off, if I put hip-hop beats behind it.” Indeed, in LA at the time it would be hard not to be influenced by the many musical influences around one.

Stephenson’s touch on the record is undeniable. The slide guitar is a brief guitar part from one of Beck’s other songs, copied by Stephenson onto an 8-track, looped, and added to a drum track. Stephenson then added his own sitar playing and other samples, including a tremolo guitar part and a bassline. According to a friend, the song was largely finished in six and a half hours, with two minor overdubs several months later.

The all-important song’s drum track is sampled from a Johnny Jenkins cover of Dr. John’s “I Walk on Gilded Splinters”.

As the original sample contained few variations that could be used for interest, silent ‘breaks’ in the beat are used (a technique which would later become a Beck signature). The same beat as Loser was also sampled by Blackalicious – “A to G”, CPO “Ren’s Rhythm”, Oasis’ “Go Let it Out”, Soul II Soul’s “Get a Life”, and the Wild Bunch – “Friends & Countrymen”. Comparing “Loser” to “Go Let it Out”, for instance, is an good lesson in using beats for any beginner songwriter.

A similar technique can be seen in many other Beck songs, most notably in “Devil’s Haircut”, which contains a similar sampled drum beat, the by now synonymous Beck rap talking style, and again, a simple, anthemic verse lyric – combined with various contemporary musical overlays. However, it was with “Loser” that the template was first laid down.

Coming soon: In our eBook we take a look at how drums, including sampled beats, are usually the most important genesis of many great pop songs. We take you through how to sample break beats from YouTube, and how to correct them for use in programs like Garageband. Why not register, above, to find out when it becomes available?

Kurt Cobain’s songwriting technique – in many ways – seems an enigma. Both musically simple and lyrically complex, and taking both from previously unrelated sources such as mainstream and alternative punk rock, it formed the basis for many of Indy music – which would become the default form of rock for at least the next twenty years.

Whilst Kurt and Nirvana were at the forefront of the neo-punk breakthrough into mainstream music, much of his songwriting influences came from much more conventional sources. Indeed, it may be his education in the ‘dad rock radio’ music of the 1960s, 1970s and ’80s that enabled Nirvana to break through into a mainstream consciousness. How this occurred will be the subject of this analysis.

One of Kurt’s first bands was a Credence Clearwater Revival cover band, perhaps a natural development for someone brought up in Washington state in the early 1970′s. The Beatles, and in particular John Lennon, were other important and early influences. Producers later learned that they could encourage Kurt to record double vocal tracks on Nirvana albums by reminding him that John Lennon would always do it. Whilst John was a self proclaimed hero, and the Beatles’ early work can be seen in some of Kurt’s songs, perhaps incidentally, John and Yoko’s experimental collaborations have been credited as early pioneers of punk music.

For Kurt, later hard rock informed the increasingly marginalized young individual, including AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Kiss, and even Aerosmith. The androgyny of many of these bands was an attraction for someone who hated mainstream, often homophobic, culture. Punk was an even more important influence, with influences including The Clash, the Stooges, the Sex Pistols, The Velvet Underground, Black Flag, Bad Brains, and the Melvins (also from Aberdeen) explaining nearly all of the Nirvana ‘sound’. The Pixies – as we shall see in Nevermind – were perhaps the most important of these later sonic influences.

In our brief tour of Kurt’s Songwriting technique we will focus on his breakout album Nevermind, and in particular Smells Like Teen Spirit – if only because its success was so unexpected, and its effects so widespread. How did such a unique, catchy version of Punk ever arise?

Kurt’s desire to extend himself after Bleach was well known. That he wanted something he could hum was recorded at the time. Yet it would be a mistake to dismiss Bleach merely as an album of overly distorted power chords. About a Girl was written after spending three hours listening to Meet The Beatles!

The 1980s American alternative rock band Pixies were instrumental in helping an adult Cobain develop his own songwriting style. In a 1992 interview with Melody Maker, Cobain said that hearing their 1988 debut album, Surfer Rosa, “convinced him to abandon his more Black Flag-influenced songwriting in favor of the Iggy Pop/Aerosmith–type songwriting that appeared on Nevermind.

Another, often neglected influence on the more radio friendly direction of Nevermind may be the influence of Dave Grohl in the band, after the departure of Chad Channing. Through the Foo Fighters, Dave has shown a willingness to embrace the mainstream, and the creative tensions between Kurt and Dave are well documented.

Not many people know Teen Spirit was originally written as a joke – a mocking cover (although, with Kurt’s mainstream roots, who can say) of Boston’s More Than a Feeling. When he showed the riff to the rest of his band, bassist Krist Novoselic instantly dismissed the song as “ridiculous,” but Kurt made the band play it repeatedly for an hour and a half until they had transformed it into their own sound.

If you listen to the Boston original, you will hear almost all of the melody and notes of Teen Spirit – from its riff (perhaps miss-transcribed), to its high plucked notes of the verses. Indeed, you could almost put the Melvins in a room with Boston to come up with Teen Spirit.

“Smells Like Teen Spirit” was his attempt at “trying to rip off the Pixies. I have to admit it. When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily that I should have been in that band—or at least a Pixies cover band. We used their sense of dynamics, being soft and quiet and then loud and hard.”

The genesis of the title has become a rock cliche, but on learning its genesis came from a deodorant, Kurt didn’t mind. The song was a joke anyway, and the kind of badass revolutionary slogan Kurt read into “Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit” had already let him find a way into the lyrics. They were “just making fun of the thought of having a revolution….Load up on guns and bring your friends.”

The rest of Teen Spirit’s lyrics are largely nonsensical, or spontaneous rants against the pressures of being a musician. After all, it was Kurt’s technique to write lyrics just before going on stage, or as he practiced, or right before recording an album. But more than that, Kurt was clear that the music came first, and the lyrics second. It was only when got that to something “that sounds listenable” (i.e. catchy) did he start adding lyrics to the existing music.

Yet there is a unique approach to his lyrics, with a decidedly more aggressive flavor than the seeming nonsense of Beck, or even Dylan. Kurt described them perhaps best:

a big pile of contradictions. They’re split down the middle between very sincere opinions that I have and sarcastic opinions and feelings that I have and sarcastic and hopeful, humorous rebuttals toward cliché bohemian ideals that have been exhausted for years.

His journal, particularly once processed via a cut-up technique (from Bowie and Burroughs), was an important source. Also so was the channeling of energy from breakups, or anger at types of people or situations. (Many of Nevermind’s lyrics related to his breakup with Tobi Vail, and similar emotional stress informed In Utero.) Other sources for songs include literature (Scentless Apprentice, about the novel Perfume), Newspaper stories (Polly), and general angst about the media, the expectations of fans and the pressures of fame (Rape Me, and Smells Like Teen Spirit). A large amount of disparate influences, but not so much of an enigma, after all.

Over the next few months we will be sharing with you the key moments when the songwriting greats broke through, and found their voice. We’ll start with an appropriate place to begin – with some Bob Dylan songwriting techniques.

Even someone seemingly as radical as Bob Dylan had songwriting predecessors – one of the nice lessons of Bob Dylan’s self penned Chronicles (you’ll be able to purchase the book here soon). It is full of little insights into his songwriting process, including learning to look at the newspapers “objectively” (not from your own preconceptions and biases), and use that renewed insight of the world as material.

Dylan’s own personal songwriting breakthrough happened after quite a logical, effort-ridden process. Already inspired by Woodie Guthrie, Bob Dylan had taken on the mantle of the everyman, and saw himself on the side of the underdog, sermonizing like Guthrie, if necessary.

Dylan already had a debt to Hank Williams, and also to old British folk ballads, and to the old English ballads as collected by Child. He had been schooled in these in Minneapolis by an English professor at the University.

“I could rattle off all these songs without comment as if all the wise and poetic words were mine and mine alone. The songs had beautiful melodies and were filled with everyday leading players like barbers and servants, mistresses and soldiers, sailors, farmhands and factory girls….”

Indeed, these basic structures from folk music formed the very backbone of Dylan’s music. Bob Dylan’s first album contained no less than eleven cover songs, so covering material helped ground his songs in the structures and techniques of the great work behind him. It also let him innovate, using the tricks and structures he had learned. Writing for Leeds Music for money, Dylan was forced to come up with music on the spot. “I didn’t have many songs, but I was making up some compositions on the spot, rearranging verses to old blues ballads, adding an original line here or there, anything that came into my mind—slapping a title on it…. I would make things up on the spot all based on folk music structure….” About the old song, “Sixteen Tons,” he says: “You could write twenty or more songs off that one melody by slightly altering it.”

Dylan had also gained Robert Johnson’s insights into the dark turns a soul must explore to become oneself. Johnson had also given rough blues form structure, and also allowed Dylan the permission -or sense of freedom and strength – to write the types of lines that he would’ve otherwise self-censored.

“I copied Johnson’s words down on scraps of paper so I could more closely examine the lyrics and patterns, the construction of his old-style lines and the free association that he used….”

However, it required a third, equally formative influence to take Dylan from simplistic moralist, into the true and complex voice that was to change music forever, and that came from European writing then filling New York bohemian life in the early 1960′s, in plays and poetry.

Dylan became blown away by the song “Pirate Jenny” from the Threepenny Opera (iTunes/ Amzon link soon) – later he would callit the greatest song ever written. He had heard it through his girlfriend of the time’s connection with the theater, which provoked Dylan to want to create music that would be important in 100 years’ time, not merely 2 or 5. “Big medicine in the lyrics” says Dylan of “Pirate Jenny” in Chronicles. In trying to find out what made the song tick, Dylan forensically took the song apart, analysing it bit by bit (much as kindred spirit beat writer Jack Kerouac did with the novels of Dostoyevsky).

“It was the form, the free verse association, the structure and disregard for the known certainty of melodic patterns to make it seriously matter, give it its cutting edge. It also has the ideal chorus for the lyrics. I wanted to figure out how to manipulate and control this particular structure and form.”

It was the clarity and simplicity of the individual parts – but enigmatic nature of the whole – that impressed Dylan. Dylan most closely drew from “Pirate Jenny” with the song “When the Ship Comes In”. In actual fact, it was the whole suite of songs by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill that were important, enabling Dylan to create the framework for a world where he could express almost anything. Indeed, Brecht had even written “Song of the Moldau,” featuring the lyrics “Times are a-changing. The last shall be the first/The last shall be the first.”

Through Brecht, “I could see that the type of songs I was leaning towards singing didn’t exist and I began playing with the form, trying to grasp it — trying to make a song that transcended the information in it, the character and plot.” The Brecht songs “were like folk songs in nature, but unlike folk songs, too, because they were sophisticated.”

This European angle to songwriting opened up a much more experimental Dylan, which was above seeing the world in terms of black and white, wrong and right. And while it didn’t produce fruit straight away, this greater complexity was the missing ingredient Dylan lacked. They allowed Dylan to become increasingly personal, ambigous, and gave a complicated view of the central characters of his songs, a surreal landscape where his personal ambitions could be achieved.

Another prompting into inhabiting not only other methods – but also other human beings (indeed, seeing the connectiveness between human beings) came from Dylan reading Arthur Rimbaud’s line, Je est un autre,

“which translates into ‘I is someone else.’ When I read those words the bells went off. It made perfect sense. I wished someone would have mentioned that to me earlier.”

You can read more about the songs that inspired Dylan here.

I can hear a collective groan (perhaps it’s internal) when mentioning Noel Gallagher – inane, meaningless lyrics, ripping off the Beatles when genuine experience would have been easier. But there is no doubt Oasis’ Noel Gallagher could turn on the songwriting tap effortlessly in the early days of Brit Pop. Artists such as Elliott Smith were fans of his tracks. What, then, was Noel Gallagher’s songwriting technique during those early, most productive years? We look at some of the key factors.

Listening to Hits

It should be no surprise that if you listen to, and learn to play, hit songs, you stand a good chance of writing them yourself. In this video, Noel states his record collection consisted of The Beatles, T-Rex, David Bowie, The Rolling Stones – with the rest being greatest hits albums. Listen to obscure Indy music if you like, he seems to say, but you create what you listen to.

Art of the Rip Off

Noel freely admitted to ripping off the fab four – particularly John Lennon – in his work. For Don’t Look Back in Anger, Noel Gallagher admitted that he had taken the opening piano riff straight from ‘Imagine’. We have seen how Lennon, Led Zepelin, and others, equally ripped off their heroes. Gallagher took less trouble to cover his tracks, but perhaps what separates him from every indebted bedroom riffer is that his debt didn’t stop his songs. As Alex James, Oasis’ arch-nemesis from Blur, said – the key ingredient for songwriting is confidence, and Noel had it in spades.

A short tour of some of the songs ‘ripped’ by, or seemingly similar to, Oasis songs might include the following (outlined by Music Radar):

• Cigarettes And Alcohol (1994) and Get It On, T-Rex (1971)

• Step Out (1996) and Uptight by Stevie Wonder (1966) AND Rosalie by Thin Lizzy (1978)

The chorus vocal melody is almost identical to Wonder’s Uptight (Wonder got a songwriting credit) while the middle eight guitar riff is ‘similar’ to Thin Lizzy’s live version of Bob Seger’s song Rosalie. Reportedly so close that it was pulled from the album.

• Lyla (2005) and Confrontation Camp by The Soundtrack Of Our Lives (1996)
• Morning Glory (1995) and The One I Love by REM (1987), and both taking from Neil Young’s Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)
• Whatever (1994) and How Sweet To Be An Idiot (by Monty Python’s Beatles parody The Rutles) (1973)
• The Importance Of Being Idle (2005) and Clean Prophet by The La’s (1988)
• Half The World Away (1994) and This Guy’s In Love With You by Herb Alpert And The Tijuana Brass (1968)
• Mucky Fingers (2005) and I’m Waiting For The Man by The Velvet Underground (1967)
• Shakermaker (1994) and I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing by Australia’s The New Seekers (then a Coke ad) (1971)
• Headshrinker (1995) and Stay With Me by The Faces (1971)

• Hello (1995) and Hello Hello, I’m Back Again by Gary Glitter (1973)

Glitter is listed as co-writer on the opening track of (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?

• Fuckin’ In The Bushes (2000) and I’d Like To Change The World by Ten Years After (1971) and  Little Miss Lover by The Jimi Hendrix Experience and I’m A Man by The Spencer Davis Group

This one’s complicated:

Noel wanted to sample Mitch Mitchell’s drums from a rare live version of Little Miss Lover, but the Hendrix estate blocked its use. So Oasis’s then-drummer Alan White simply ‘recreated’ it. The higher register guitar riff (Oasis, starting at 1:30) is a pretty straight rip from the Ten Years After riff (listen from 2:40). The organ riff apes The Spencer Davis Group’s I’m A Man (from 0:24). Add some vocal samples from the Barry Lerner’s documentary film Message To Love: Isle Of Wight (1970), and Fuckin’ In The Bushes is almost 100% recycled.

Noel noted the words inscribed on the run-off grooves of The Smiths’ Bigmouth Strikes Again, one of his favourite songs by one of his favourite bands. It’s a quote by Oscar Wilde: “Talent borrows, genius steals.”

You can listen to a whole other bunch of rip offs (we haven’t even really mentioned the Beatles!) here.

Do It Quickly

Noel was a reputably quick songwriter (he also lied, and said he ‘just wrote’ songs, when in actual fact he had more than 50 stored up before he met other founding members of Oasis).

I always remember hearing that Noel Gallagher had the art of quick songwriting down to a tee. I think back to one particular story when Oasis were recording their first album they needed one more great song to make the album and Noel went off for a couple of minutes and wrote Supersonic. This is a huge fan favourite these days and it was the first single they released.

Quoting John Lennon himself:

I spent five hours that morning trying to write a song… and I finally gave up and lay down. Then, ‘Nowhere Man’ came, words and music, the whole damn thing.

Keep it Simple

For a songwriter, often the biggest challenge is not to over-complicate things. Noel himself said the best antidote to that was simply being young. In his twenties, Noel wrote most of the songs for his first two albums, before he had a band.

“If you stop the man in the street and ask ‘What’s Oasis’s best album?’… the squares will say Morning Glory and the cool people will say Definitely Maybe. That album should just be called the Best of Oasis…. Look. I was a superhero in the 90s. I said so at the time. McCartney, Weller, Townsend, Richards, my first album’s better than all their first albums. Even they’d admit that.”

So why didn’t he remain a superhero into the next decade? “Because those songs were written in my 20s. All I had in the world was a guitar and a Dictaphone. When you’re young, you write about being young and shagging and drugs and drinking. You can’t do that when you’re 39. I was a different person then.”

Keep it simple. Everything has been said, so don’t strain to write something new. Stick to the basic drives, issues and concerns of 99% of the population, and you will be well on your way to a decent song.

Confidence

Even Noel admits he couldn’t write an album like his first two any more.

If I knew how to write another Definitely Maybe, I’d do one every year. It astounds me that I wrote those songs. But nobody has ever bettered Definitely Maybe, don’t pin it on my shoulders. The Arctic Monkeys came close, but that’s it. They’ve got the tunes and the attitude.

And between tunes and attitude, attitude is perhaps the most important part – the essence of Oasis.

This first episode (part of a great 4 part series) outlines Led Zeppelin’s songwriting technique, basically as an extreme form of sampling, whereby uncredited covers were passed off as its own. Elsewhere we have looked at how the Beatles used a similar technique – what was important was what they added to their original material. The video is great for showing where songs like When The Levee Breaks, The Lemon Song, and even Stairway to Heaven came from.

And as an aside, you’ll never guess who invented the term ‘Heavy Metal’.

Lady Gaga’s path to success has more in common with that of traditional singer/songwriters than we would, perhaps, realize. David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, Kurt Cobain’s lab coats, even Elvis Presley’s dyed black hair are earlier examples of image and spectacle being a key factor in gaining an audience. If we were honest, most of us have a little too little, rather than too much, Lady Gaga in our personas.

So, what can we as performers learn from the Gaga? Besides proclaiming that she was ‘Born this Way’, Fast Company’s Dayna Steele isolates a few key factors that helped her becoming the media phenomenon we know today.

• Practice. Lady Gaga is known for her solid grounding in training and technique, and when she is not performing, she is usually practicing her skills.
• Quality control. Whilst it may be tempting to belt out some ‘fillers’, ultimately anything that reduces your quality level weakens you.
• Be different. As Elliott Smith said, “Playing it safe is the most popular way to fail.” If there is a way to do something that hasn’t been done before, take it.
• A constant interaction with fans, including through social media. Being kind and thankful – remembering your roots.
• ‘Remember that a rock star is never done. At the end of the day, you rest and recharge because when you wake up, you have to do it all again. Everyday. And on the days you don’t feel like it, do what Gaga told Rolling Stone she does. She tells herself, “Bitch, you’re Lady Gaga, you get up and walk the walk today.’

Read the full article here.

Elliott Smith – perhaps the finest songwriter of his generation – shares with us his video tips for songwriting. An Elliot Smith songwriting technique combines equal parts lazing on the couch with being true to – and trusting – your gut, it’s a great resource to have, particularly as he is with us no more. Check it out.

George harrison Songwriting

A small documentary on George Harrison’s songwriting technique. If nothing else it reminds us about the theory that you need 10,000 hours doing something to be world class (that’s only 9-5 for 285 days, folks!).

He explains Lennon and McCartney had a “head start” with getting their bad songs out the way, whereas he had to start when the Beatles were already famous. Songs like “Something” and “Tomorrow Never Knows” are testament to his ability and tenacity.

George Martin wrote that he wasn’t a great writer at all in the beginning. “He would craft his music meticulously with every little stitch in the canvas and gradually built up his songwriting technique to the point he became a great writer.”

What are YOUR favorite George Harrison songs? And what is it about his tunes that make them “George” songs? Do you think he ever reached the hights of John Lennon or Paul McCartney?

Hooray For Tuesday – The Minders
This tab is my own interpretation of the song, shown for educational purposes only.

Hooray For Tuesday is a fantastic, Beatlesesque song, famously covered by Elliott Smith. It’s easiest to play with bar chords (for instance, the transition from G# to A)

B: (799877) or (024432)
G#: (466544)

E D A E
Hooray for Tuesday
One more day around and I’d be dead and done
Packed up my suitcase
The suitcase is the only thing that I’m taking along

G# A
I’ll write you a letter
C E (small lick on the E)
From someplace where they don’t have telephones
And I’ll, I’ll send you a postcard
A postcard is better, you can see where I sent it from

Fill:
D A B
Using F shaped bar chords, hammering the middle finger on the G string

Hooray for these days
No more arms around this time, the crowd will crawl along
Pack up my suitcase
The suitcase is the only thing that I’ll be taking along

And I’ll, I’ll write you a letter
From someplace where they don’t have telephones
And I’ll, I’ll send you a postcard
A postcard is better, you can see where I sent it from

Hooray for Tuesday
Hooray for Tuesday
Hooray for Tuesday
Hooray for Tuesday
Hooray for Tuesday
Hooray for Tuesday
Hooray for Tuesday
Hooray for Tuesday

Sorry Young George Harrison, this post has moved.