Recently, I was writing with a collaborator and pulled out a line I’d had sitting in my notes app for years. I’d never been able to figure out where it belonged or whether it even worked. My co-writers looked at it and said “no, that’s the line. Just like that.” I’d been so close to it for so long I couldn’t see it anymore, but this is the difference having another person in the room makes!
In another session, me and my co-writers were completely stuck. So we did what you do when you’re stuck and started messing around, taking inspiration from whatever was nearby. In this case, that was our cats! We ended up writing a tongue in cheek song about them, and how they can never quite understand what we’re saying to them. It was completely silly. But it became one of the most emotionally honest songs I’ve worked on, about two people failing to reach each other no matter how clearly they feel they’re speaking. You don’t always know where a song is going until you follow the silly idea far enough.
Then there was the first time I heard a talented session singer sing a song I’d co-written. My jaw hit the floor. I’d been so inside the writing process that I couldn’t hear it properly anymore. Hearing it in someone else’s voice for the first time, I understood what the song actually was.
That’s what happens when two musicians are genuinely in it together. If you’d like to find out what the co-writing process might look like for your songs, here’s how it often works – send me a playlist of songs you love so I can understand your world; and then we can have a remote writing session or two over video call, starting from whatever you’ve got to start from – whether thats a story, a chord, a line you’re not sure about. And from that, we can make a complete songwriter’s demo that you can take to a producer to make into your next single!
If that sounds good, get in touch. Even if you’re not sure yet!
Listen to my work
Here’s a selection of music I’ve worked with others on as a songwriter.