the kitchen.
A friend of mine who has been scoring movies and writing solo for sync for years, recently decided he wanted to start venturing into co-writing for country music. He was about to make his first trip to Nashville to try his hand at some good, old-fashioned Music Row sessions. This of course is a different way to write. A subculture many are fascinated with from the outside. On his way there he texted me and asked “How do I know my role in the room?”
Videos by American Songwriter
What a great question. As someone who had ONLY been co-writing for more years than my children have been alive, I had never really thought about that before.
So I told him writing a song is like cleaning up the kitchen after a party.
Maybe it was because I was driving down Highway 96 outside of Wichita, Kansas and nostalgia took me to holidays past, or maybe it was because I knew I had been gone working and our house was probably upside down, but my mind started to wander to the days I used to host an annual Christmas party. We called it ‘Joy To The Girl.’ Eighty ladies crammed in my living room and on my porch swings in red pajamas letting our proverbial hair down at the end of another long year in Music City. And the flow was always the same. Eighty would pile in, but at the end of the party, there would always be a number you could count on one hand who were left standing. And that number—as it turns out—is about the same number of people in a co-write.
From year to year, whoever remained in that kitchen, collaborated and figured out how to finish what I had started. If someone already had their hands in the bubbly sink, someone else would grab a drying rag. If the dishes were taken, then grab a vacuum. If the vacuum was taken, then someone would start filling up the trash bag. No one discussed whose job was whose. Everyone was capable of doing any of the jobs. And every once in a while, we’d all stop what we were doing and take another drink or re-tell a story from what happened earlier in the night. But, before we knew it—just like that—the kitchen was spotless.
And ain’t that just like a co-write?
The first few years I had a pub deal I not only had the same role in the room every day, but I also sat in the same seat—the piano bench. Dance with the one that brung ya, right? I had clocked my 10,000 hours there between studying classic piano and church pianist and learning to write songs on my own, and every day I would show up to write, I would assume that same spot. But that kind of assumption was limited to the kind of song that could be written that day. The room was being built around my skills, instead of building a room around the right idea.
About five years into my first publishing deal, the track guy revolution took over and I had to close the lid on the piano for a while. I learned what it was like on the other side of the room from the chords. I settled into a couch for about five more years with my laptop and nothing but ideas. It was then that I learned that the secret of being a songwriter isn’t bringing my strengths into a room, but that my strength was to be whatever I needed to be that day.
When I look back on the writes that have changed my life the most, I was in a different role every time. On songs like “Love Triangle” (Raelynn), I was a big sister with an open ear. On “Automatic” (Miranda Lambert), I was an old soul. On my very first cut, “It Ain’t Pretty” (Lady A), I was a vulnerable pianist. And so the lesson in that has been, be what the room needs.
If no one else has titles, have titles. (Do the dishes.)
If someone already has titles, have melodies. (Grab a broom.)
And if someone walks in with a half-written song that needs a little help, be the editor. (Trash bag under the sink?)
I guess I could have told my friend that his role in the room was to just be his best, but sometimes what makes a song great isn’t you. It’s actually just grabbing a broom and cleaning up whatever everybody in the room hasn’t gotten to yet. Because after all, there can’t be too many cooks in the kitchen.
Photo by Claire Schaper
