Song Writing

This is the second Songwriters Workshop, where Bruce Pollock shares excerpts from some of his interviews with notable songwriters. You might not think of Michael Bolton and Richard Marx as songwriters, but they excel at the craft, as does Desmond Child, whose hits include "Livin' La Vida Loca" and "Dude (Looks Like A Lady)."


“First you hear they're going to cut your song. Then you find out they never did cut it. The next level is that they cut it, but never put a vocal on it. Then they cut it, put a vocal on it, but it didn't make the record. Usually when I'm told the song is on hold, it winds up on the record. But I don't believe it until I hear it. Then they tell you it might be a single. When they tell you it's going to be a single, that's the only time I feel really confident that the song is going to make the record. I don't believe it's going to really be a single until I hear the version of it. Once I hear the version of it, I can start making noise myself and have whatever friends I have at that label go to see them every other day and say, 'Did you hear that track yet?' I don't hype my work actively, but if I think there's a single there, I don't want to lose it. If it's not good enough to be a single, then I hope it's bad enough to be the B-side of a single. If it looks like it may be a single, they'll never put it on the B-side. Then if it does get released as a single and it makes the charts that's like going to the races. And they're off.”


“I went through a period, especially during the time I worked with David Foster, where what was important to me as a songwriter was to come up with really hip, surprise changes. To me, "After the Love Is Gone" is one of the greatest songs ever written, musically, because it's got so many really cool changes, surprise changes. But you don't hear anybody walking down the street humming that. But you do hear people humming "Lady" and "Three Times A Lady" and songs that are straight-ahead melodically. So I finally started to figure that out, and I think that my melodies have gotten tremendously stronger because I'm not concerned with putting ninety chord changes in a song anymore. If there's only two or three, if they're good ones and they lead the melody to the right places, who's counting?”


“When I wrote "If You Were a Woman and I Was a Man" with Jim Steinman in 1985, Bonnie Tyler put it out and it was a bomb. In writing it, Jim had said, 'I want the bridge to be like Hall & Oates and I want the chorus to be like Bruce Springsteen.' So it was very funky, and then had an anthemic chorus, with "Because the Night" kind of chord changes, and the bass line was kind of R&B-ish, but it was played with a heavy guitar. When the song stiffed I was heartbroken, because I thought I'd stumbled upon a really important new style, so I brought that groove and the chorus to my first writing session with Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora. I also had the title, "You Give Love a Bad Name" and they had written a song on their previous album called "Shot Through the Heart" and so we started the song off with that line. If you listen to the music it's exactly like "If You Were a Woman and I Was a Man." All those elements came together and created something new. And from that point in 1987 on rock bands that had never been played on the radio before were able to be played on Top 40.”