“Serendipity & Song Writing”
I recently got to meet Mike
Reid, at the Blair School of Music. Mike co-wrote numerous hits,
including "I Can't Make You Love Me"... which was a huge hit for Bonnie
Raitt. It was an incredible evening, and he talked about how this song
came into being.
In a word: Serendipity.
It started when Mike read a news story. Some guy got drunk, then got angry at his ex-wife. So the man went to his ex-wife's house with a rifle, sat in her front yard, and shot holes in her car. (Apparently, she was safe inside the house.)
Mike told a friend of his, Allen Shamblin, "Now that's a Country song!"
They laughed, and started working on an up-tempo tongue-in-cheek song, based on their reactions to the news story, but they never got past the first two lines. They tried numerous possibilities, but they just didn't seem to work.
And they kept trying to write that song for the next 6 months.
Then, one morning, Mike was just playing his piano. He had a bluesy groove going, and he just started mumbling and singing lines... "Turn down the lights, turn down the bed..."
When he got to the chorus-lift, the two lines from that other song just came out of his mouth: "Cause I can't make you love me if you don't. You can't make your heart feel something it won't."
After six months of struggling, it happened without an effort.
After Mike and Allen finished the song, Mike sat down and started putting it together on his MIDI keyboard and an Apple computer. Mike started in the key of G, but realized that it was too low for him to sing it, so he selected all of the notes, and transposed the song up to the key of C. That worked better for him, but still didn't sound quite right. He re-selected all of the notes, and dropped it to the key of B.
Well, he thought he had selected all of the notes.
He sang along to part of the latest version, decided that he liked it, and started recording. He made it to the end of the song, and felt like it was a great take... then this strange chord came emanating from his computer. That's when he realized that he had selected and transposed all of the notes EXCEPT for the very last chord. He listened back to it, and thought "That doesn't sound bad. I'll leave it for now." The next morning, he listened to it again, and decided to leave it like that.
It's a mistake that has been copied every time the song has been recorded.
Serendipity can be cool.
© 2004 Douglas Shaw.In a word: Serendipity.
It started when Mike read a news story. Some guy got drunk, then got angry at his ex-wife. So the man went to his ex-wife's house with a rifle, sat in her front yard, and shot holes in her car. (Apparently, she was safe inside the house.)
Mike told a friend of his, Allen Shamblin, "Now that's a Country song!"
They laughed, and started working on an up-tempo tongue-in-cheek song, based on their reactions to the news story, but they never got past the first two lines. They tried numerous possibilities, but they just didn't seem to work.
And they kept trying to write that song for the next 6 months.
Then, one morning, Mike was just playing his piano. He had a bluesy groove going, and he just started mumbling and singing lines... "Turn down the lights, turn down the bed..."
When he got to the chorus-lift, the two lines from that other song just came out of his mouth: "Cause I can't make you love me if you don't. You can't make your heart feel something it won't."
After six months of struggling, it happened without an effort.
After Mike and Allen finished the song, Mike sat down and started putting it together on his MIDI keyboard and an Apple computer. Mike started in the key of G, but realized that it was too low for him to sing it, so he selected all of the notes, and transposed the song up to the key of C. That worked better for him, but still didn't sound quite right. He re-selected all of the notes, and dropped it to the key of B.
Well, he thought he had selected all of the notes.
He sang along to part of the latest version, decided that he liked it, and started recording. He made it to the end of the song, and felt like it was a great take... then this strange chord came emanating from his computer. That's when he realized that he had selected and transposed all of the notes EXCEPT for the very last chord. He listened back to it, and thought "That doesn't sound bad. I'll leave it for now." The next morning, he listened to it again, and decided to leave it like that.
It's a mistake that has been copied every time the song has been recorded.
Serendipity can be cool.
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