Glen Ballard wrote his first song when he was 4. “I Wish I Was a Buzzard” was a ditty about his longing to fly. “I was a really bad music student, I just wanted to write songs, and it’s been this disease that I have,” Ballard tells American Songwriter. “Without learning music, I could play well enough to start doing it that way, and that’s how I actually learned music.”
Born May 1, 1953, in Natchez, Mississippi, Ballard was learning piano as soon as he learned to crawl, and would often see Jerry Lee Lewis, who lived 10 miles from him, perform. Playing in bands from 5th through 8th grade, half of the songs they performed were original content that Ballard had written. “Nobody really cared,” he quips of his early band days, “because we were just loud.”
Later on, his affinity for French Impressionism music and the composer Erik Satie’s work would inform his earlier songwriting. “Whole tone scales are kind of the thing that mystified me,” shares Ballard, “so I just kind of went down my own path musically and lived in the nether world of that music and just started writing songs early on.”
After moving to the West Coast after college in 1975, Ballard started working with Elton John’s band and was adding his writing credits to artists by the late ’70s, including Kiki Dee’s 1978 song “One Step.” By the ’80s, Ballard connected with Quincy Jones and began writing with him under his Quest Record, penning George Benson’s 1980 “What’s on Your Mind” and another track, “Nightline,” which nearly made it onto Michael Jackson’s Thriller. In 1983, Ballard also co-wrote a No. 1 country song for George Strait, “You Look So Good in Love.”
“Shoot the Moon” by Patti Austin in 1984, and Barbra Streisand’s 1988 single “The Places You Find Love” were just a handful of songs Ballard wrote for artists throughout the ’80s, including Jackson’s No. 1 Bad hit “Man in the Mirror” in 1987.
Videos by American Songwriter
[RELATED: Behind the Meaning of the 1988 Michael Jackson Hit “Man in the Mirror”]
By the early 1990s, Ballard connected with Alanis Morrisette and co-wrote her breakout 1995 album Jagged Little Pill. Later extending himself into into television and film, working mostly alongside composer Alan Silvestri, Ballard wrote the music for A Christmas Carol, Charlotte’s Web, and The Mummy’s Return, and more, including the 2022 live-action Disney film Pinocchio.
In 2004, Ballard also co-wrote and produced Josh Groban’s Oscar-nominated “Believe” for the film The Polar Express, which won a Grammy for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.
Working with his production company Augury, by the 2010s, Ballard broke into Broadway scoring the musical Ghost in 2011 and later revisiting Jagged Little Pill: The Musical. In 2023, Back to the Future, based on the 1985 film starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd, premiered with Ballard’s score written with longtime collaborator Silvestri, who composed the original movie and its two sequels.
Recently working on the Netflix series The Eddy, Ballard is also writing the music for a forthcoming stage adaption of the 1979 musical drama The Rose, which starred Bette Midler, Alan Bates, and Harry Dean Stanton, and has been producing songs for the French electro-pop group Hyphen Hyphen.
Writing and producing for everyone from Ringo Starr, Annie Lennox, Dave Matthews, George Strait, Shakira, Chaka Khan, Van Halen, No Doubt, Katy Perry, and many more for nearly 50 years, Ballard, has sold more than 150 million records worldwide and was also inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2023.
Ballard spoke to American Songwriter about his self-taught writing, why he prefers working on Broadway, his friendship (and song) with the late Lisa Marie Presley, watching “Thriller” get written, and recording his first solo material.
[RELATED: The Somber Meaning Behind Lisa Marie Presley’s 2003 Single “Lights Out”]
AS: Obviously there were some songs you had to cut from Back to the Future. After all these years, is it still difficult to let go of songs when necessary?
GB: No, because there’s no other medium like theater, where you really do have a chance to fix everything between the workshops when you’re constantly changing things. You do more rehearsing for a Broadway show than you would ever do for a movie or a TV show. Everything has to happen in real-time, so the preparation for that takes a lot longer, and you’re a lot more fluid with everything. By the time you get there, you know the material a lot better. It’s a huge undertaking, but at the end of that process, when we lock the show, we don’t want to ever change it. I have no lingering regrets, maybe on records, but not on a show because, at that point, we’ve had a chance to fix it.
AS: As a songwriter and producer, have you ever thought “I could have made the song much better”?
GB: I’ve trained myself not to because it’s a loser’s game. It’s a fool’s errand. You cannot do it. Some directors are able to get a director’s cut of a movie and get the one that they really want, but that rarely happens on the record.
I would hesitate to go back because there’s so much magic involved with a hit record. Some of it, you have no idea how you did it, and when you start analyzing it, it’s not how you got there, so I’m okay with leaving it. That’s what’s so beautiful. There are certain records that I’ve made and there’s no way I could do it again. We hit it at that moment, that wave, and if I tried to do that again, it wouldn’t sound the same.
I really believe in that white-hot moment when it all comes together. It’s why I don’t really make many demos. Everything that I do is of recording quality because a lot of times that’s actually better than the next version of it. That’s how I did Alanis Morissette’s record Jagged Little Pill.
AS: You also sang the demos for Back to the Future?
GB: I almost make a fool of myself on a regular basis. I’ve had to inhabit many, many characters badly. The best thing I do as a singer is suggest what it could be and then a real actor and singer do it.
AS: After hearing your vocals, it sounds like you’re ready for a solo album.
GB: I actually am working on an album, but it’s only because these are songs that nobody else wants to do.
AS: Do you remember the first song you wrote?
GB: The first song I wrote when I was 4 years old, so it did not get recorded. Ballard sings:
I wish I was a buzzard
I’d fly around all day
But as it is, I’m just a tree
So ain’t got nothing to say
I’ve always been a songwriter. I was not a good music student. I was kicked out of a couple of music schools, right away, within two weeks. I’ve written thousands of songs. That’s the way I learned music. Every time I write a song, it’s an investigation of music.
AS: It’s research in order to tell the story.
GB: Completely, and I have this thing about intervals. All the [Erik] Satie pieces are very simple to play. All of them are these really unusual and interesting intervals and combinations and I used to be able to play a lot of them. It makes you think about music differently. Nothing is working out. There’s an unresolved nature to it that I love. It’s more of a question than an answer.
AS: Let’s go back. You started writing for artists by the late ’70s. Do songs still come to you in the same way as they did back then?
GB: Early in my career, I was writing exclusively for other artists. When I became a record producer, I was always making good demos, because I always wanted it to sound good, so I didn’t realize I was preparing myself to make records. So I became a record producer and songwriter concurrently. It was always very important to me to be hands-on.
I spent many years doing that, and it was a lot of fun. The focus for me now is bigger stories— movies and using songs to tell the stories. We did this series, The Eddy and I wrote 60 jazz songs for it, and it’s really the vocabulary of the storytelling. We don’t even have a score. We just have songs. That’s always been my MO [modus operandi]. We’re doing lots of stage musicals. I’m doing a movie musical, and I’ve just finished a novel about the 1995 music scene that we hope will be a series. I’m using songs now more in a storytelling fashion.
AS: Do you ever pressured to make more hit songs?
GB: A lot of times, when the goal is to write a hit song, which is obviously a very noble goal, if that is the only goal, what you end up with is a lot of songs that are trying to be hit songs, and most of them aren’t. The only thing that they are trying to be is hits, and it leaves out some of the things you would have normally done, that would satisfy you on an artistic level, which ultimately might lead to a more interesting hit. I’m much more interested in an album that a hit comes out of whatever it is you’re writing.
AS: When you are working with an artist, is there always a piece of you that goes into the song you’re writing for them?
GB: Absolutely. Otherwise, they don’t need me. I’ve always felt with all my collaborations that I get more from them than they do for me. I hope they feel the same. These are all songs I wouldn’t have written without them. And it doesn’t matter who wrote what. If they weren’t there, it wouldn’t be a song. I’ve never had any torture writing with people. I just try to find one thing that feels good, one phrase or whatever, then you build on that. I like to work with artists especially if they’re the ones who are singing so they’ll give me some of that voice in the room. It changes everything because that’s the vessel for the song, right? Very often when I’m just writing by myself, I don’t have that gift, but if somebody I’m writing with is the singer … boy, you can’t beat that.
Any time somebody is in the room, they relieve me of some burden of something, whether it’s the music, or if I’m just writing lyrics. If you want me to be involved with both, fine. I write every day. I’m writing two songs right now. Most of it’s abstract at this point. They always find their way into something—either one of my projects or another artist I am working with.
AS: Are you at peace with holding a song for months, even years, until it’s ready, or does it need to get out so you’re able to move on to the next thing?
GB: I have hundreds of songs that nobody has ever heard. I typically write a couple hundred songs a year. I have this one song that I just think would be great for Tim McGraw and Faith Hill called “Lead with Your Heart,” and they’re dear friends of mine. I’m going to finish this demo, and I’m going to send it to them. Every now and then I get to write a country song.
AS: You co-wrote “Lights Out” for Lisa Marie Presley (To Whom It May Concern, 2003). What was your relationship with her?
GB: I really loved her. She was an extraordinary human being and she had so many things to deal with, but at the same time, she was funny, smart, irreverent, and kind of wore the crown of being the princess—you know, Elvis’ daughter, and all that stuff. She had a great sense of irony, and she realized that everyone else took it seriously.
I had a very honest relationship with her, and I said “I just want to make a great record with you,” and I had to talk her into writing this song “Lights Out.” She said, “I don’t want to write about Memphis or any of that,” I said, “What do you mean, you don’t want to write about it? Everybody wants to hear about it. Rather than everybody else talking about it, why don’t you give us your own take on it?” Eventually, she found her way into it. I love the way she is so poetic, the way she kind of talks about it, metaphorically.
AS: You mentioned Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. At this point in your career, who are those artists you haven’t worked with yet?
GB: All of them! Everybody that I haven’t worked with. I did get to work with Ringo Starr on a couple of his albums and that is like a dream come true. That’s the one that I can’t quite get over, and to call him a friend, which I do is remarkable because The Beatles were iconic for me. I have been blessed to work with so many great artists that it would be greedy if I said “Oh, I should have the opportunity to work with this person.” I feel like I’ve been sort of like this zealot character around all these famous, wonderful people.
Early in my career, the great songwriter, Rod Temperton was really responsible for me being involved with so many great artists, including Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson, and George Benson. Rod put me under his wing, and I saw him write the song “Thriller,” literally. He wrote it at the Sunset Marquis Hotel on Hildgard Avenue in Westwood, [California]. He would have an egg sandwich at noon every day. He smoked three packs of cigarettes. He had a Fender Rhodes in his room, and he just liked hanging with me. I was like 23 years old, and I think I got lucky. I got to be around the whole Thriller thing, and around Quincy, so I’ve been just extremely fortunate every step of the way.
[RELATED: Behind the Song Lyrics of “Thriller” by Michael Jackson]
AS: It seems like it’s always been this natural progression for you, even connecting with Alanis later on, and now segueing into stage, TV, and film.
GB: My muse has always been my guide, quite honestly, I just have always felt that if I showed up and I wrote something every day the rest would take care of itself. Honestly, that’s kind of a naive approach, but I didn’t really have a grand strategy. I just felt like if you come in with something good, it has a very special currency. If it’s really good, then it opens every door, and even if you don’t know anybody, at least you’ve got something that’s sufficiently compelling.
In many ways, a song kind of can carbon date an emotional time for you. It can place you somewhere. When I write something, most of the time I don’t even remember writing it, because there’s too much going on, so thank God for recording. I’m just following the muse at that point. She’s leading me to a place, and I’m not trying. I start my tape, and I just play for about 20 minutes, and there’s always something in there. I’m looking for intervals, a phrase, and for me, that’s the most natural way to find the music—always.
When I first got to Hollywood, I used to do gigs and play at Shakey’s Pizza. I used to play at a place called Two Dollar Bills at happy hour where people would never even look at me—literally, not one person. You would play for two hours, and every now and then somebody would look and you would go, “Oh my god, I just need like a million more of you.” So, whatever it is that makes you look, I need some more of that.
AS: Why do you still love writing?
GB: It’s the way I make sense of life. The world is so fractured right now, and people are screaming and yelling and stuff. I don’t have any stamina for it, so it’s an escape for me to just try to put out something that I think makes sense to me. As long as I can do that, and people will like it, if I have one person who will listen to it, I feel like I’ve accomplished something.
Photo: Andy Henderson / Courtesy of Chasen PR
