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Exerpts From 'The Secrets of Songwriting'
From Author Susan Tucker's Upcoming Book
My new book, The Secrets of Songwriting, is on the publisher’s desk and is due out late spring or early summer of next year. I'm very excited about the finished product and thought I might share a few bits and pieces with you.
This is from my interview with Chuck Cannon (“I Love The Way You Love Me,” John Michael Montgomery, “We Were In Love,” Toby Keith, Dream Walking, Toby Keith, “The Whisper of Your Heart,” Trisha Yearwood, “How Do You Like Me Now,” Toby Keith)
[Susan Tucker] Is quiet an important part of it for you?
Chuck Cannon “Yeah, quiet's important. I like to work at night. I get most of my ideas started then. Things that I take to other co-writers, I usually start those late at night. I really like to start writing around nine or ten o'clock, and things start get interesting around midnight. I always say that's when my editor falls asleep. It's that little guy sitting there going, "That sucks, what do you think, you've got something to say?" It's that guy. He gets tired and goes to sleep.
”But, I've written great songs at eight o'clock in the morning too. There's no secret, but there are patterns that I experience. One of my really interesting personal patterns is that, the more I pray and meditate, the more I write, and the better I write.
”Another odd thing that I just noticed about four years ago is that, I was writing in cycles. I started trying to figure out what was going on in those cycles. I woke up one morning and vividly remembered a dream. I'd been going through a dry-spell writing and that day, I wrote a song. Real fast, and a good one, I think it ended up getting cut. This went on for about a week. I'd remember my dreams, and I would write. Since that time, I've noticed that one of my personal indicators is that, if I start remembering my dreams, there's a high correlation between that time and actual output for me.”
Chuck Cannon On [Songwriting Great] Harlan Howard
The first time I ever met Harlan Howard, he asked me, "Kid, what gives you the right?" I said, "The right, what are you talking about?" "What gives you the right?" I said, "Harlan, I'm sorry, I don't understand."
"Well, you're hanging around all these high-fallooting songwriters. What gives you the right?" I laughed, I said, "Man, what do you mean?"
He goes, "What have you written?" I went, "Oh, Harlan, I don't like to talk about that. There's a lot of other stuff we can talk about."
He said, "I'm asking you. You ain't wrote as many hits as me, I know you ain't wrote as many songs. You might have wrote as many hits, I don't know, but you ain't wrote as many songs". I said, "Well, I ain't written as many hits, Harlan."
He said, "Well, I'm asking you, what did you write?" I said, "Well, you know, the one that brought me to the dance, was a song called, “I Love The Way You Love Me." He goes, "John Michael Montgomery, 1992."
He said, "That was real cute. Started a whole rash of that shit, didn't you?"
I said, "I guess."
He said, "What else did you write?" I said, "Man, really, I don't like talking about that."
He said, "Hell, what's the last thing you wrote? What was your last hit?" I said, "How Do You Like Me Now, Toby Keith."
Harlan reached across the table--his hand was kind of shaking--and he said; "Now I want to shake your hand, but be real gentle, I bruise easy." I grabbed his hand and said, "Harlan, thank you, but that song ain't all that. I've written a lot better than that."
He said, "I have too, but ain't neither one of us written anything that more people wanted to say."
Him saying that to me just pointed out, that I'm taking myself too damn serious. There's the second biggest copyright of my career, and I'm disparaging it. And Harlan, in his graceful and gentle way, let me know, "Don't take yourself so seriously. You said something that millions and millions of people want to say, wanted to say, and you said it for them, and that's what our job is."
Chuck Cannon On writing from the heart
When I first started writing in earnest, shortly after I was divorced, I went down to audition for the Sunday night writer's show at the Bluebird. The judge was Janis Ian, and she was really complimentary of the song that I played.
I ended up over at the table where she was sitting, and another young writer made the comment, "Janis, I always heard that if you want to write good songs, you write what you know about." And Janis said, "If you want to write great songs, then write about what you don't want people to know about you." And me, ever being the one that wants to get the last word in, I said, "Yeah, and if you want to write awesome songs, write what you don't want to even know about yourself."
Watch for Susan Tucker’s new book on her website, www.journeypublishing.com.
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