Switched on Pop - 5 Rules of Great Songwriting Collabs, According to Teddy Geiger and Dan Wilson (On Air Fest 2021)

Episode Date: April 13, 2021

On Switched on Pop we talk to songwriters and artists about how they make great songs. Most songs are written with two or more people in the room. Something we've never done before is pair two of the best songwriters in the business to explain how they create a successful collaboration. Teddy Geiger is a Grammy nominated songwriter who's written countless number ones. You've likely heard her work with Sean Mendes, Leon Bridges, and Christina Aguilera, among many others. She’s also a critically acclaimed artist who's just released a single called “Love Somebody” written with Ricky Reed and Dan Wilson. Dan Wilson is the bandleader of Semisonic, famous for the song “Closing Time,” and the co-writer of Adele's “Someone Like You” and “Ready to Make Nice” by the Chicks. Wilson recently shared his top songwriting and collaboration tips published as a deck of cards called Words and Music in Six Seconds. He shared his ground rules for collaboration from the deck, through the case study of Teddy Geiger’s “Love Somebody” as part of On Air Fest 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm songwriter Charlie Harding, and I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. On Switched on Pop, we talk to songwriters and artists about how they make great songs, and most songs are written with two or more people in the room. And something we've never done before is pair two of the best songwriters in the business to break down how they create a successful collaboration. Dan Wilson is the band leader of Semi-Sonic Famous for his song Closing Time and his Grammy Award-winning songwriting on The Chicks, Not Ready to Make Nice, and Adele's Someone Like You. Dan's name frequently comes up as both a great co-writer and a bit of a musical philosopher. Recently, he shared his top songwriting and collaboration tips published as a deck of cards called Words and Music in Six Seconds. That's making its way around the songwriting community.

And we want to share five of his ground rules for collaboration using the case study of a song Dan co-wrote with Teddy Geiger. Teddy Geiger is a Grammy-nominated songwriter who's written countless number ones. You've likely heard her work with Sean Mendez, Leon Bridges, Christina Aguilera, among many others. She's also a critically acclaimed artist who's just released a single called Love Somebody,

which she wrote with her friend of the show, Ricky Reed, been on recently, and of course, Dan Wilson. Teddy and Dan, welcome to Switched on Pop. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us, yeah. Let's dive into some of these ground rules for collaboration, and maybe we can hear how they influenced the writing of Love Somebody.

So let's start with number one. Number one, try it. Don't say no to an idea until you've heard it. So songwriters usually collaborate in day-long, intimate, in-person co-writes, but this song, Love Somebody came together remotely at the beginning of the pandemic. So Teddy, would you previously have done remote sessions like this? And maybe did letting go of the ideal songwriting session change your creative process at all? Well, some of it, for me, it's hard because like especially being in a room with people like Dan and Ricky, it's like intimidating. So it was nice to be able to have like some space in between where I wouldn't be observed.

I could kind of like pop off for a second and do some singing and try some stuff and then like show it to them thinking about that idea that of trying it before saying no it kind of there was some space for me to try some stuff even for myself without kind of telling myself like oh no I don't know if that would be right or I don't know what they they would think of that and kind of being able to just be like well like in this moment I'm alone so let me just do what I'm thinking and then I can send it to them and then we can see where that whereas in the room I might be more timid or something. I don't know. Remote music is happening.

So, Dan, we're going to listen to something that we've kind of been going back and forth remotely on. We texted some lyrics today, et cetera. It is currently not really in a song form. Interesting. Yeah, you recorded this as part of Ricky Reed's nice live series that he ran for a number of months, bringing songwriters together. Yes.

And when you initially brought some vocals to Ricky. It was just kind of gobbly gook trying on some melodies, no real words coming together. I don't have real lyrics. The lyrics that I was playing around with was hearts breaking too. Something about saying sorry. That's what you do when you love somebody or something like when, but I don't know. And then you disappear. Yeah. He works on stuff. You pop back in. Teddy, you ready? Ready. And eventually a melody emerges.

I don't know what the melody is. Yeah. What people do. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's cool. What people do? When I love somebody. When I love somebody.

Yeah. Yeah, so there was like basically, I had some of the verse stuff that was goop. And then I'd been thinking about Dan and Ricky and basically how they are as fathers and what amazing fathers they are in their relationship with their kids and like how much love is expressed. And like I've cried on many occasions with that kind of thing coming up in me. And my own relationship with my dad is like very different. And I talked about my father with especially a lot with Ricky and a little bit with Dan. Okay. And here's a little bit of that conversation from. Ricky Reed's Nice Live session.

Is there a clear-cut storyline? What are you thinking, lyrically here? I pulled a lot from my relationship with my father. That's kind of the heart of the thing. Wow. I have no idea what to do with him. So I kind of felt comfortable bringing that stuff to the table and then start, began talking about that with them on the thing,

and then the love somebody chorus kind of, like, grew out of us just kind of discussing, like, what is that thing? where it's like, can you just like, just do what you do when you love somebody? Teddy. This is awesome. Just do it. Just try it. So that was the theme.

And after that chorus got on it, it was kind of like, for me, it just all kind of made sense. That was my sense of that chorus, too. It was like one of the great things about, one of the yes-filled things about the session was that it was somehow even more stream of consciousness in the vocals and the way that the track, you know, Ricky was putting the track together and you were putting the track together. And I was just kind of randomly sending guitar ideas that no one knew where the bar line was on the jams that I was making. Dan, are these in time with what we're doing here? Start on the downbeat, even if there's a rest.

Great. Let me see here. There we go. There was something about even the lyrics. or the way you were singing the various sections of the song, that once you sang that chorus, all of those dreamy adlibs like made sense suddenly and didn't need to be attended to in any way. They were just what they were. And that was really an inspiring aspect of it.

Yeah, totally. It kind of, yeah, unlocked it in this interesting way. Let's go to ground rule number two. Number two, propose alternate ideas. So, Dan, when we were speaking the other day, you told me that Teddy is one of those songwriters who can most profoundly and quickly change a song right in front of you in this really powerful way.

Yeah. Dan, why is Teddy's ability to provide new ideas so valuable as a collaborator? When Teddy and I collaborate, there is this thing that can happen where it looks like she's pushing like three keys on the computer and then press play.

And what comes out is this completely different sounding thing. the morphing can happen so fast. I guess when I think about the whole thing of proposed alternate ideas, if someone is fast and can get into that flow, it kind of spares you the experience of having to consider an alternate idea. If someone goes like, what if we tried this, then everyone's tempted to go, I don't know, you know, like everyone's tempted to worry about it,

but the way Teddy does it is just turn it upside down. And here, listen to that, like really fast. And you don't have time to like consider it. just happens and that that's amazing to me well i'm thinking about it from my perspective too a lot of the time it feels very i'm so confused like like something happens and it's like oh yeah that's good and then there's all these things hanging off it and then like and i was i'm thinking about like even when we were working with um on noise in the system which isn't even out yet it's something i'm finishing for another thing but it it was like blah blah blah and then you kind of had this thing that

you had written down where you were like, let's cut through the noise in the system. And all of a sudden, the whole thing was like, okay, makes sense. Like, even the mute, like, as soon as that statement was sung on it in the way we, it came, and then it was like, let's cut through the noise in the system. And then all of a sudden, like, all the rhythms just in that cadence and that lyric kind of like, and then it's easy to go like, okay, cool, like put everything where it should be supporting the thing. Yeah. So it does almost like, from my mind, I'm really confused a lot of times.

There's like a lot of pieces and they're a part of something. But until like there's a new idea, sometimes the new idea can clarify the whole thing in a way that like I'd never expect. You know, it's like all of a sudden it makes sense. Maybe keeping it like if you're working on a track and sort of the track is happening and the song is happening all at the same time, maybe keeping the track unsettled like off balance. ever slightly changing is a way to kind of give a path in for new ideas. Totally. In that case, the whole proposed alternate ideas is more like, don't get stuck on your conception of what you thought it was supposed to become.

Just let go of what it was supposed to become, you know. Yeah, exactly. Teddy, your description of that sort of feeling lost and finding that piece and it all coming together reminds me of this other card that Dan wrote that I really love that I just found, is writing a song is like creating a puzzle and then trying to solve it yourself. Not every puzzle has a solution, but that's okay. Trying to solve a puzzle is fun.

Right. Yeah. I agree with myself. Exactly. Right. So sometimes I guess the idea is sometimes you just, you don't complete the puzzle. You just arrange the pieces in like a new shape that's pleasing to you and say, oh, I did it. And sometimes the puzzle you're thinking, and this is Dan, I think what you were kind of saying, like the puzzle that's there, like might not be.

the puzzle you think it is. And like, if you just think about it, like, upside down, all of a sudden, it's like, oh, right. And, like, I didn't even know the puzzle I made. It's like, ooh, like, that's so pretty. Yeah, what happened? What just happened? How did we get there? I didn't, yeah.

Okay. Don't say no. Propose alternate ideas. Dan, can you lay some ground rule number three on us? All right. So I picked up the deck so I can pretend to be reading from the deck. Number three, find the good in it. Your partner isn't crazy.

Okay, Teddy, your lyrics on Love Somebody are ambiguous, but roughly it seems to be about someone like begging the object of their affection to learn to love more empathetically. And your inspiration for the song was unconventional. It's not your typical heartbreak song. Totally. I mean, it's about me and my dad, but then it's also just a more general statement. Like, there's so many situations where there's, like, opportunities for love and teaching

and, like, creating space for people to be, like, who they are. And then there's also this, like, impulse to control and the other side. I don't know. Some of these things that I wrote are probably kind of the same thing said in different ways, but I think Find the Good in it is more a way of saying, just because you have a skeptical thought about the latest suggestion, doesn't mean you're right. You might be behind the curve a little bit in the moment during the session.

You might be still a half hour ago. The other person suggests something that turns it upside down, like Teddy was saying, you know, the puzzle is now an upside-down puzzle. and you're still a half hour ago, you've got to just go, all right, I'm just going to bite my tongue and, like, see where this is going. It's always surprising. There's always surprise. Even a piece of music, you know, like, that you heard since you were, I don't know,

I'm thinking of, like, rock music I heard as a kid that, like, I wasn't into. And then all of a sudden it, like, makes sense. And you're like, oh, I love this music. It's like, and even the thing you're working on, like, just because that day, it's not necessarily for you. If the other people or the people you're working with are feeling something real, like, let's follow that. I know that you're on to something.

I'm trusting you. Also, we can all think of like songs that became really important to us. And the first time we heard them, we were like, eh. Yeah. You know, I don't like this news, you know, so-and-so's new single. And then like four times in and you can't get enough and it's completely skewering you, you know. Exactly.

You got to, it can be the same way in the session, you know, just because your first impression is like, nah, I don't know. Or the opposite. Almost like, or yeah, it doesn't mean anything. It's like, you've got to just like, oh. Sometimes it's like, this is the best thing I've ever done. And you play it to everybody. And they're like, oh, you.

Yeah, nice try. Yeah. Sounds like you had fun. Oh, yeah. You guys are great. I like this rule a lot. And it strikes me that it applies to perhaps more than songwriting, too. Like when Charlie and I are collaborating and we're, you know, designing a podcast,

I want this rule, like, stuck on top of my computer and being like, no, Charlie, he's not crazy. Find the good. Go with him. I really, I really dig that advice. I use that a lot in my, like, love relationships as well. Right. I think so. Like, that feeling is real.

Like, let's figure out where we can meet. Yeah. Yeah. Art in general as well, thinking that, like, Teddy, you're bringing this idea of, like, I'm feeling inspired by the way the, Dan, you are as a father and it makes me think of the struggles with my own father. It's like that sounds more

like a conversation for therapy and not maybe like good songwriting material because, you know, like I haven't heard many songs about relationships with fathers. Maybe like, I don't know, what comes to mind? There's some. Yeah, there's probably. Cats in the Grills.

That one. And then the other one, the other cat Stevens one. Oh yeah, that's right. Papa was a rolling stone. There you go. All right. I'm proven wrong. It's not that conventional, though, but it's like, you find the good in that idea,

and then it translates. And, you know, when I see the video of you performing this song, the fact that it's coming from such a real place, it's a very powerful image. There's real tears in there. Yeah. Which I didn't expect. I thought it would be, like, cool. But then, like, I kind of was like, whatever.

And I just did a couple takes in it, like, whoa. Just slow down a little. Try to like... Love somebody? Yeah, just for a second. Like before, yeah. Convierte your passion in a business with Shopify

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Move on to ground rule number four. Number four. Explanations are unhelpful. Resist the temptation. Sounds like there's a lot here. I like framing it as a temptation. I like framing it as like your desire to explain right now is just you wanting to have an experience.

You want to have the experience. I know. Dan, get into it. You know, on the one hand, we want to collaborate and share what's inspiring to us, but you say the explanations are unhelpful. What do you mean here? The test case I have in my mind is Teddy, Ricky, me.

In that setting, I don't really suspect that any of us are that tempted to explain, but it's sort of unfair because we know each other, and we've hung out a lot over time, and there's a lot of trust, you know. But I can even imagine, though, Ricky saying, okay, on the other hand, here's a home for this song, or here's where I think this could go. Like, here's what could happen with this song.

Not necessarily a commercial outcome, but more like, I could imagine it becoming this kind of groove or this kind of this style. But he's very quick about it. He doesn't belabor it and try to, like, convince you. he just quickly lays out it could be this style of dance beat I think that could really work with this

and then he just leaves it to us to go okay yeah very different than explaining at length he's offering you something you can hear even if it's only in your mind he's saying this rhythm and then you can go oh yeah

and then he makes it like in two seconds Teddy and I have both worked with a lot of artists who maybe maybe they're early in their sort of like arc of writing songs with other people or writing songs or being an artist or whatever it might be. There is a temptation at that point, I think, if you're not totally secure in yourself or you're not totally like, you haven't totally felt like you credentialed yourself maybe, there's a temptation to lobby for your idea. Instead of just getting it out into the airwaves and

like, you know, everyone hearing it, I think sometimes people are tempted to use argument to try to make their idea stick to the song. And I get that. I definitely empathize with that. But if I look back on my life, I kind of wish I'd spent every second I spent doing that just thinking of other licks or another line of lyrics or just keeping that flow going. So it's me almost like saying, I wish that I had made sure to explain minimally because it never really did help. Yeah, keeping the theoretical to a minimum. Exactly. Yeah. It's like in a in a week it's like even if some start being like and then there could be like this drop. It's like all of a sudden you're like running away from writing a song and this theoretical drop you may or may not stumble on. It's like well yeah. I think I'm going to

suggest that at the next session. We need you know what we need right now is a theoretical drop. Yeah, exactly. Just some blank space. I promise you if you all do that that, that We will spend an entire podcast analyzing your theoretical drop after the fact. So do it for us, please. Like a silence drop. Like the whole, it's like great verse, like great pre-chorus and then like a little tag and then just. Oh, man. Okay.

Don't say no. Propose alternate ideas. Find the good in it. Explanations are unhelpful. let's get one more ground rule for collaboration on the table. Dan? I'm going to have to use my fingers for the quotes. The Sounds Like Game is usually a waste of time.

So Teddy, love somebody sounds like very little else. It mashes up modern drum production with marimba, guitars, super intimate vocals. Why does comparing your song to others get in the way of the creative process? It's just kind of irrelevant in a certain sense. It just is going to cut down on your opportunity for... It always just bums me out. It's like... Really, it's like...

There it is. It's like, I don't want to just make another one of those. If you're working on a piece or a song and somebody in the session is worried that it's starting to sound like some familiar other song, you know, and they start to worry about that. It helps if you just sound like yourself a lot. If you sound like yourself a lot and you're pretty comfortable with that, then it's never going to be any worse than, oh, that song that sounds like me

and it also sounds like this other thing. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's not going to be just a cop, you know? Totally. I feel like just when somebody goes into, I think part of what we're like a theme we're sort of uncovering and all this is like what Teddy called the theoretical. If you're writing a melody and one of the people, working with goes, oh, that sounds just like

Les Miz, you know, some song from Le Miz. Like, well, my sense is like, sure, right now, maybe it does and maybe it doesn't, but an hour from now, like two of those notes are going to be different just by accident, and someone will have suggested a new series of words at the end and the melody's changed because you fit those words into the melody. And you meandered away from, you know,

ripping off Le Miz because the process just works like that. So just like, and, you know, Almost like just don't worry. Exactly. That one was really helpful to me because that would come up all the time in sessions. Oh, does it sound too much like that? And it's like you spend an hour of your day, like thinking about it or we could just change it like and trying to. But then nothing quite feels as good.

And then, yeah, exactly. If you don't worry about it, it's like the right mutation appears. Yes. And I completely relate to that thing about, okay, I guess do we change? a few notes kind of strategically and then like in your heart you're going well but but now it sucks it's not good anymore because it wants that arc it wants which is why the other thing has it's why it's good that's why the other thing has it because it's because it's in that it's a way yeah it's an expression of the thing and then it's like yeah right as we're having this conversation I'm I'm starting to realize

that these rules don't exist like in isolation they interact with one another and And they build momentum. Like, I want to write a song now. I'm feeling this. I'm like, it's unlocking something. It's very cool. And that's what we all do with each other. If one of us is having an unfree kind of day or a bad day or a self-critical day or

whatever and we get together and do a session, you can kind of count on someone else in the session overflowing with the sort of freedom that you wanted to have. You know, all these things we're talking about, I think, are almost like interpersonal rather than, you know, make sure that the second pre-chorus has a few notes from the first verse, you know, and make sure that your ex part of the song is higher or lower, you know. Yeah. None of that makes any sense to us, really, when we're working, you know. Yeah, the rules more pertain to the setting up like a little resonant creative organism with multiple minds attached. to it. Yeah.

And how can you, like, the rules apply to how does that stay alive and what is going to hurt that creative organism that we share in whatever space? Teddy, you said something last time we talked, similar to what you just said about, like, almost like, and you made this gesture, like, almost like preparing like a space. And I sort of imagine that within that space you're creating, that's the place where that sort of ad libby vocal at the beginning of love somebody comes from, you know, like that's the space where those kind of mash up, this doesn't necessarily belong with this, but here they are together and it's amazing. You know, that's like, it's like a space of like freedom and if you have to relax

yourself beforehand, if you have to like have, you know, some snacks ready, if you, if you, if you you have to know when it's time to like drive down the hill and get, you know, a burrito or, or, you, You know? Sure. Like an espresso or whatever it might be, you know, but that's all like keeping, keeping that space kind of sort of sacred or ready for you. Just ready. That's all we can really guarantee.

Which sometimes it takes time. Like sometimes I'll, you know, I don't feel like I have access to that until. I've been, like, building fires in the fireplace at the studio sometimes just because it's, like, fun to, like, build a little thing and have introduced some energy and then watch it, like, feedback. back and build into a fire and like that starts slowing down because I start thinking about that. I'm not thinking about like all the other. And that that's been helping. Yeah.

But if you can find little rituals, I feel like just for the personal kind of like get, get the mind off the and kind of get it a little more present with what's right in front. And then I don't know. That helps me. Yeah. Or sometimes I've, then especially if I'm alone, I'm like, what am I even doing? If I'm running off of just like thoughts of what I should be doing or thoughts of what, you know, needs, it's like I'm just don't, I like forget where I am. Is there a card about snacks, Dan?

There is. Yeah, snacks. Make sure to. Dan has some, the one you did at my house, you did one in my backyard that was like, go outside of me. Oh, yeah. That's right. Because I had been like locked in, I think, to. some degree and you needed to, you know, you probably felt this urge to go out and we're like,

it's okay to like take a break. And then I saw it on my Instagram later. I was like, oh, I'm so embarrassed. With your back, like with your back hillside. Well, the hillside really gave me the thought because I like walked out and I was like, okay, I'm just going to stand on the, on the porch. And then I just looked down the hills into the, you know, at your neighboring houses and stuff. and I just suddenly felt so good and that it looked so good, but I also felt like, oh, geez, everybody needs to do this. Totally.

Teddy, you said that you sometimes will apply some of Dan's songwriting wisdom into love relationships. And I think I personally relate to this one. We have a major part of a producer's job, making sure musicians get fed before things get ugly. That's more like family. I'm not there yet.

It's true all. Right. That's family for sure. That's real. Yeah. We should all have that tattooed somewhere where you won't forget it. We either all hate each other or we're really hungry. It's hard to tell. The fog.

The fog, exactly. I guess all I have to say is Teddy, Dan, thank you for sharing your work with us today. And thank you on Air Fest and everyone who tuned in. That was awesome. Thank you. Thank you. That was amazing. So fun.

Switched-on-pop is produced by Bridget Armstrong, Charlie Harding, and Nate Sloan. Today we're engineered by Bill Lance, illustrations by Iris Gottlie, and our community manager is Abby Barr. Our executive producers are Hannah Rosen and Nashat Kurwa. We're a production of the Vox Media Podcast Network and Vulture. Bonus material like playlists and articles pop up every week on our Twitter and Instagram at Switched-on-Pop, and we'll post the link to love somebody there in the show notes as well. We'll be back again next Tuesday, and until then, thanks for listening. Thanks for listening.