Switched on Pop - Why pop songwriters break the rules (ft. Amy Allen)

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

Grammy-winning songwriter Amy Allen joins NYU Steinhardt students live to trace her path from early pitch songs to co-writing some of the decade's defining hits. She explains why Halsey's "Without Me" needed an extended chorus but no pre-made chord loops, how Harry Styles' "Matilda" required character-driven writing for emotional safety, and what made the hypnotic groove of Tate McRae's "Greedy" demand a rare third verse. Allen also unpacks the spoken hook in Rosé and Bruno Mars' "APT" and the three-step key change powering Sabrina Carpenter's recent work. The result is a masterclass in why songs work—and why the rules worth breaking are the ones you've already learned. SONGS DISCUSSED Halsey "Without Me" Harry Styles "Adore You" Harry Styles "Matilda" Tate McRae "greedy" Rosé and Bruno Mars "ATA" Sabrina Carpenter "Please, please, please" Selena Gomez "Back to You" Justin Timberlake "Cry Me A River" (Interpolated in "Without Me") Olivia Rodrigo "Driver's License" Sabrina Carpenter "Espresso" Sabrina Carpenter Short and Sweet (Album) Sabrina Carpenter Man's Best Friend (Album) Beyoncé "Love on Top" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. Tonight. We are joined by the great songwriter Amy Allen. Amy grew up in Maine. I grew up in Maine, so that means a lot to me. She grew up playing folk and bluegrass and local venues from a young age. And after two years of nursing school at Boston College, she transferred to Berkeley College of Music, graduating with a focus in songwriting.

She went on to front her band Amy in the engine, but eventually disbanded the group in order to focus on honing her songwriting craft. After a year working in New York City, she landed her first major cut, a pitch song for Selena Gomez called Back to You. She then moved to Los Angeles, writing almost daily, often doing double sessions, and her tireless work ethic has resulted in a run of hits that have helped define modern pop. We're talking Halsey's Without Me, Harry Styles adore you and Matilda, Tate McCrae's Greedy, Rosey and Bruno Mars A Aopata, and Sabrina Carpenter's Please, Please. In 2025, she became the first woman to win the Grammy Award for Songwriter of the Year non-classical. Tonight, live in front of NYU Steinhardt's songwriting students, will trace

Amy's evolution as a songwriter through five of her most impactful songs on packing the craft, collaboration, and creative risks behind each one. Please join me in welcoming Amy Allen. Wow. I was behind the door the whole time. I have no fucking idea what you just said. I said a lot of really nice things about all the great things that you've done. Keep going. And that's what we're going to do this evening. I want to start with Halsey's without me from 2018. We're going to take a listen and then we're going to talk about it. Okay. How does it feel to go back to 2018? So crazy.

You tell me about the first thing that you remember writing on without me. Yeah. I was with my friend DeLacey, who's a phenomenal songwriter, and my friend Louis Bell, who's, I think, one of the best pop producers, like, of all time. He's phenomenal. He's a ton of post-Malone. He's fucking great. And it was just the three of us in the room that day.

And we were just kind of, like, talking about heartbreak. And I think we were all similarly going through something. you know, very like, it resonated a lot with us, this idea. And I had sent something to Delacey the night before, this, like, little, like, tiny snippet of poetry that I had thought of, and Delacey immediately resonated with it. And her and I just, like, fully caught on him. We had never met. And it was, like, a beginning of a sisterhood because we couldn't have, like, complimented each other any better that day in the room and, and Lou's so phenomenal. So it was just, like, one of those songwriter dream days where it just happened really quickly. And I had never had, like,

I don't know, that song changed the trajectory of my career in a big way. I had had one song before it called Back to You with Selena Gomez, which was when I was still living in New York. And that changed, like, that allowed me to sign a publishing deal and, like, find my manager who I'm with now, who's here today. But this was the song that kind of, like, solidified my songwriting career, I feel like, because it's, it's kind of like, sometimes your first one feels like a little bit lucky. You're like, how did I, I don't know if I'm, like, good at this yet, but maybe that just

happened and that was a lucky thing. And so this song was like the moment I had confidence, I feel like in songwriting where I was like, okay, I have done this a second time where I love this song and then it had a whole life of its own, which was great. Do you remember what that line of poetry was? It was something about putting men on a pedestal that they forget how high they are

and they don't notice until they look down. Something like that. It was like, you know, classic woman rage. My favorite thing. I mean, it makes it into the song. Yeah, it does. So is that the pre-chorus, perhaps? It's kind of the whole chorus of like, how does it feel like sitting up there?

I'm about to say the old lyric just that much I'm not going to do. Which is like just like being up so high and like two, you know, whatever. You losing track of like who actually helps you get the fuck all the way up there. Like how does it feel to live without me? You must be really fucking lonely type of thing. Let's hear it again. Oh no. This is a gutting line.

I get you off your knees, put you back on your feet just so you could take advantage of me. It's so dark. And then we move into the chorus. So dark. It's really dark. It's my mom. Every time she listens to a song I write, she's like, are you okay? Sorry, Mom.

We don't write songs usually for our moms. It's unfortunate. We should write more of them. I appreciate them. But then we go into this chorus and like everything falls out. Tell me about this moment where everything, this is, you know, in some ways, the antithesis of what we teach about a chorus that needs to be the biggest moment in the song where everything ascends and everything is way up high,

except only this person of previous affection is up high and the rest of the song kind of drops out. This course is interesting because I listened back to it and it was like a moment where I clicked with like, there's certain notes that emote a lot more than other notes. And so this course, I remember like I don't usually write from a place of like thinking ahead of what's happening at the time, but I vividly remember in this moment being like,

DeLaci and I talking about like that note the dunna na na na like that's such a good tension note and it's like any singer that sings that it like feels like very emotive that note just like hanging on it like really pushing on it and I remember feeling like every time we tried to change it or like make it a little bit more dynamic at the beginning of the course it felt less emotional and like actually just like hammering on that one note made it feel so much more like painful and so I really remember that moment and then I remember one of us. us saying after we'd written the chorus, like, I think the chorus feels too long.

It feels really long. Because then it goes into that thing. And it goes for a long time. It's like, to me, my pop brain was like registering like too long, too long, too long, cut it down. And then we decided not to. We went through a bunch of iterations of it. And I think now, I think that's actually what made that song hooky to a lot of people and catchy is that like it just keeps evolving.

And now I hear songs like driver's license or something. And I'm like, that chorus just like keeps fucking going. And I end up loving songs like that. And I didn't realize we were necessarily doing that in the moment. Or I was trying to fight against it, feeling like it was too long. But I think now when I'm not listening back, I'm like, sometimes choruses that do that, they just like, a lot of Ed Sheeran songs do that too, where they like, you're like, oh, I thought that was the course, but like it's still going.

There's like this other section now. It's like really exciting to the listener. So I hear that when I listen to that song. I wonder if some of it is that in this period, late 2010's into the, the early 2020s, I feel like there is a major trend. What year is that? Is that 2018? 2018 released. There's a big trend. A lot has happened since then.

But there was this trend of writing to loops that the chords, the harmony would generally stay the same throughout much the song. How do you go about writing towards something where the harmony is going to stay the same? You have to build this whole long chorus narrative. Do you think about writing to a static progression? differently? I'm notoriously bad at like if somebody brings in a track that they've like made pre-exist. I don't like writing to loops.

Straight up. I don't. I usually shut it down. If a producer brings it, there's nothing wrong with it. I know a lot of writers that are phenomenal at it. It's just not, I feel really boxed in when that happens.

This song in particular is just, I don't know. I didn't get sidetracked by it. I think because I was like so, I saw the through line of the emotion so like distinctly and I understood it that I just was like, it was easy for us to follow it that day. But I think if Lou had brought in that track, that song would have never been written.

What did it come in as? Nothing. Fully from scratch. Like, he, I think he played da-na-da-da-da-dun. And then we just wrote the entire thing over that. And yeah, like I said, it was just one of those easy days, which is like a dream. Are there things that you think about in terms of building out clear sectional identities between these sections if they're going to have? Because even if it isn't a single loop from a sample library, when we do have the same chords playing throughout a song.

Yeah. Are there certain approaches you have to take? Like, I remember this being like, okay, well, if the top note of the chorus, we wrote the chorus first is like, da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na- like you don't want to walk all over that note in the pre-course or the verse. So I remember making like, you know, being intentional to like make sure the chorus or the pre is like dancing close to it, but like not ever getting to that moment so that when it does hit, it feels like a release. But no, there's a few songs in my career that I listen back to. And I'm like, I remember vividly like each part just like, we didn't have versions of the verse or versions of the pre or versions of the course.

It was pretty much like the first verse we wrote was like the verse the pre was the pre and then the course We tried to shorten like I said or changed some notes, but it was just one of those fucking good days I'm not gonna lie I wish there was more I could say about it and a transformative day for you I mean very transformative you're the first transformative song is with Selena Gomez and it's a pitch song This is also a pitch song this is sort of more of a rarity today for artists be taking songs Yeah pitch was way more common back in the day when I started I'm not gonna lie like I didn't I don't think I got really a

my first song getting a song that came out with the artist in the room that was like a good transformative song for me was with Harry which I'm sure we'll get to one of those songs but like I did so much pitch so much to the point where I was like I actually don't want to be in the room with an artist

because I've gotten so used to doing it without the artist in the room that I was like I don't want to like bring in this new variable that I have to fucking figure out and like move with but my phenomenal manager gaps who's here today was like obviously that is a tool that you need in your toolkit. So then I started doing it, but I got really used to doing pitch songs.

And now there's a lot less of that because of so many reasons, which we can talk about at some point, I'm sure too. How did it get to the next stage? How did this thing actually get made? Without me. Yeah. Honestly, if I played you the demo, you'd be like, that's exactly what the song sounds like right now.

Like Lou is so prolific as a producer. And the day of bounce that I have, besides the fact that I'm singing it, not Halsey, is like the production is like exactly the same. And then Halsey wrote the bridge, which is a crimey river interpolation. I want to listen to that. Every songwriter's dream. You don't have to say just what you did. I already know.

I had to go and find out from there. I have to be honest when I saw that this was an interpolation. Is that along the bridges? Well, no, it keeps going. But that is the interpolation. It's just that moment. Yeah. And that added like, yeah.

And I added a lot of people all into the credits. Justin's, Scott Storch, Timbalin, they're all songwriters on this song. By the way, though, I'm actually grateful for that because that was like a very good lesson for me where it was like that shit just happens. That just happens. It does. And at first I was kind of like, where did this come from? Then I was like, oh no, like that made the song better. It doesn't matter.

Like grateful for whatever it needed to happen to get across the line. And Halsie's a phenomenal artist. And, like, she knew what she wanted. And I'm, as a songwriter, I'm always grateful when the songwriter, or when the artist knows what they want to do. Oh, it's a miracle that any song gets made. So if part of it is having to get some credit to Justin Timberlake who you later go and also work right.

Now is like my big brother and I love him. Yeah. Like, it's amazing. Let's listen to Crimy River for a second. Phenomenal song. Because honestly, when I heard it, I was like, there's an interpolation there? No. Back to the bridge.

Yeah. take me to the bridge. Isn't that what Timbalin says? Yeah, pretty much. Almost. It's not like super obvious. No, it's a different melody. Yeah.

Yeah. It is, I guess, an interpretation, yeah. This song, started as a pitch. Pitch songs have become increasingly rare. Artists are more frequently in the room. You're in the room with them. I want to get to know better how you work in the studio. And I'm not the only one who wants to know.

I am so thrilled for your success. I like the rest of the world find myself jamming out to your songs. I mean, I just love them all. They're all so just well done and interesting and unique, all the things that we used to speak about back in class. And I guess if I had a question for you, I would say, how do you approach each session, whether it's with a songwriter, another songwriter or a producer, or maybe with an artist, you know, are you bringing in a lyric? Are you coming with them a line? Are you coming with them a lot? idea? Are you sitting in the room just kind of talking and the song comes out of that? You know, how do you prepare? I would really love to know a little bit about your process

if I was a songwriter coming up right now. So yeah, just to be correct, you're former teacher. So those dreams where you forgot to take the exam, that is happening to you right now. Like, you didn't study. I got my ass kicked in that class. Bad. She's an amazing teacher. I was not prepared for that class when I took it. I went to Berkeley and I didn't know any means. music theory going in, which is horrible. And I was failing everything. And then I was like, I think I'll apply for this class. And I somehow got in.

And I, oh my God. There was like eight of us in every, she would put us in pairs of like six to eight to write a song, which was like now I'm like that's kind of the best boot camp of all time because that's like worst case scenario, like eight people having to agree, which is smart by her to be like this is as bad as it's going to get. And I made so many good friends that I still write songs all the time now. But, okay, to answer her question, the process. How do you prepare going into a session?

I've kind of tried it always, you know? I think when I was doing a lot more pitch, I was much more in the mindset to, like, have a long running list on my phone of lines, rarely words. I'm not a good word writer. I'm not like a, I don't like when somebody comes in with, like, corkscrew and I'm like figuring out how to write corkscrew. I don't like that. But oftentimes I'll have like a one liner where I'm like, I understand the emotion of that one line. Like that's my through line and I can like follow that. I understand it.

Sometimes I'll come in with like what sounds like a whole chorus lyric and then at least find a way to repurpose that. But now that I go in mostly with artists, like I rarely do a pitch day, I don't go in with anything. I don't. I find that it's been better for me to just be there with like complete clear head. Sometimes we'll have ideas if like it's really like, you know, dried. We're like neither of us.

Like, there's not a lot of ideas coming from the artist, so they don't have a lot that they're going through right now to talk about. But I usually just go in just being like, play me songs that you love right now. Play me a song if you were to go do karaoke. Like, what song would you sing it? I found that has been a really helpful thing, especially with an artist I've never worked with. I'm like, if you were to, like, cover a song, what are you going to cover? Because then that tells me, like, melodies that they feel comfortable. I know their range, like, immediately.

I also know, like, the genre and the vibe that they like to do. and I like, it's like kind of usually like your guilty pleasure that like your soul is like screaming is usually that song. So that has become one of my like go-toes. I'm giving all my secrets away. But I just like to be a listener. Honestly, I try to like, I have like a reputation of being pretty like militant in sessions because I just like to keep the song fucking rolling. I don't like to dwell. But I try really hard to give like at least 45 minutes to an hour of like just listening and like shooting the shit. I've found that that has helped me a lot. And it's rare that within an hour of talking, like, at least the subject of the song doesn't just, like, come out.

Maybe not like the line, but like usually the overarching, like, okay, this is what the person is going through usually like falls out within that time. I have found. So moving from pitch to all this preparation that you would do in this period of your life where your first year in L.A., you've previously said that there was one point where you did 90 sessions, 90 days of sessions in a row, like no break. My manager might fact check me on that, but it was something crazy. You were doing doubles.

It was something really, yeah, too much. How many songs were you writing that year? I'm really bad at math. That's why I got into songwriting. But I don't know, like, so too many. Like, I was doing seven days a week for many months on end, and I would be doing, because I didn't have a ton of friends yet. I, like, didn't, I wasn't making, you know,

I signed my first publishing deal, which was not like a life-changing fucking amount of money, you know. It was like, I really needed to prove myself. And I was just like, I'm here. I'm far away from home. What the hell else am I going to do? I might as well just be in the studio and like rolling the dice every day.

So that's what I did. And I'm grateful that I did that just because at least in L.A., I'm sure you guys, I don't want to like woman's plain. But like there's so many people to be working with in L.A. And in New York too. And in New York, of course. I can't speak as much to New York because I was only here for so briefly. But like there's so many writers and producers to work with there

that I'm really grateful that I did like whatever it was 90 days in a row without fucking taking a break because it allowed me to find my people and allowing to at least my people for that time. And then allowing me to find those people allowed me to like get a lot better at songwriting because then I at least had people I was comfortable going in with and just like shedding the fucking songs and going like we just wrote a lot. Yeah. Whereas if I had been doing like four sessions a week for a year and a half, it would have taken

me so much longer to like get my squad together that I loved that I knew I could execute with. So I'm glad I did it. But like, you know, burnout is a thing. I had to take a few weeks off and recoup. It's called vacation. That's pretty normal. Yeah. So you go from having this pitch song transforms your life.

You then get to get into the room with the artists more frequently. And so let's last forward a few years. You work with Harry Styles on a huge song called Adore You. But my particular favorite of your collaboration is the song Matilda off of Harry's house. Oh, that was a long. You can let it go. You can throw a party full of everyone you know And I'd invite your family

Because they never showed you love Don't have to be sorry For leafing and growing up So this sound is a real departure From where we just were Can you take me into the room that day? So the first song we did Taylor was adore you Which is like my mom's dream

Because she's like finally you did a happy song Like thank fucking God Which was really fun And my dream always with Harry was to like write a really even a Dory's like I love that song that song that song changed my life again but this song was a song I always wanted to write with Harry because it's so emotional he's I think he's one of the best songwriters I've ever been in the room with he's just so he's like a songwriter's dream as an artist because

he knows his taste is so specific and he's everything he says I'm like oh that's like you know he knows so much who he is and he speaks in my opinion he like speaks in lyrics and that day he came in with like a very specific like i want to do this i think we'd maybe written one or one or two things that day already and the ador you day i think we wrote like four songs that day like we he's the first artist i had chemistry with like in a real way where i was like oh working with an artist can make music like 10x what it's ever been for me like working with somebody that you actually bounce off with and like they can execute like singing the song like blowing your mind it makes the song so much better

But that day, yeah, I think we had written something else. And then it was me, Harry, Tom and Tyler, who do all of production with Harry and they're two really good friends of mine and phenomenal. We got to that point in the day and he just was like talking about a story that he wanted to write about. And then I think Tom maybe played that guitar riff. I don't remember. But yeah, same thing.

So many of my songs that have done well have, have the same. Like, it was just like one of those dream days where I really resonated with the story he was telling with just like growing up in Maine and you know everybody has like a family thing where they're like you know that I need to get a like move past that a little bit or let go of it or whatever it is and yeah it was it was just one of those days again I'm not gonna lie the first so we we heard without me heartbreak song yeah adore you fun romance song yes this is a really different kind of song this is like a character song totally a character We're not first person.

We're singing to somebody else. Invoking a famous story, the role doll book, Matilda. Yep. Which is about a girl who grows up in a very troubled family. In order to claim power in her life, she's able to use special powers. Telekinesis. Such a good movie. Oh, I love that movie so much.

But he, yeah, I don't know. It's just one of those days where like the artist, I had never had a moment where the artist was like, this is exactly who I am. This is the story I want to tell. and like, let's figure out how to tell this together. I had never been, like, given that direct of, like, a brief of what the song is, like, such a narrative. Harry has talked about the song about how he said that the person who is listening to

the song knows who it's about, but he's not saying who it's about. And so part of what we do when we need to write something intimate like that is put another person there, invent a character. How is it writing from the perspective of there's a little bit of removal? There's a little bit of safety, perhaps, to rewriting Matilda's story. It's not Harry's story. It's not the person that he's talking to. It's Matilda.

Right. What does that do? How does that change the writing room? I think for me, at least, like, leaning on him of what feels honest to him without, like, there's certain artists where, like, I can really like pry, pry, pry with about, like, what the story is. Or artists that I know well enough for, like, when Sabrina and I are writing, like, I know exactly what we're talking about, who we're talking about, what the thing is. With this story in particular, that's not really something I would, like,

pride to be like, well, who is it? You know, it's just like, okay, there's like a story here that we're telling and leaning on him if like there's a lyric that I say that maybe doesn't fit exactly the thing, then like we just, you know, we tweak it, whatever, refine it. But I think this was a really good moment in my career where I was like, the biggest trap is to try to write what you think the artist wants you to write or what like radio wants you to write or like what anybody wants you to write. It's so much more about like, instead of getting into their head, being like, okay, I'm hearing the story you're telling me.

What is the story in my life that is the most, like, congruent with what you're saying? That I can, like, write in, like, a parallel line with you instead of trying to, like, get into your brain and write what you, I think you're thinking. And then it usually, I have a lot less, like, points where I'm missing the mark because I'm writing from something that is, I feel like I'm, you know, I'm resonating and I'm, like, speaking from my own. story. And then it's a lot easier to write. I guess I don't know if that's clear. I mean, everybody has a Thanksgiving experience of a family member who maybe they wish they didn't have to invite to the party.

It's a gutting lyric, you know, you can throw a party full of everyone you know and not invite your family because they never showed you love. It's another one of those just like, well, punches you in the gut. Yeah. I want to listen to the second chorus, which does something unusual. There's a double chorus with some new material. You can let it go. You can throw a part.

full of everyone you know not invite your family because they never showed you love you don't have to be sorry for leaving and growing up you can see the world following the seasons anywhere you go you don't need a reason because they never showed you love you don't have to be sorry for doing it on your own So tell me about this. Why do we need a second chorus? What is it doing for the song?

I think there's songs like that. And I feel like as songwriters, you usually know what the type of songs are where it lends itself to like further explaining the lyric if it. I don't like doing that unless I feel like there's like really a reason to do that. I feel another learning thing I've realized is sometimes it feels like you're writing lyric for the sake of writing lyric and you're not supposed to. Like sometimes I'm like, oh, but the pre-course is supposed to go here. so now we need to find new lyrics for like the pre-course when actually I'm like maybe

just cut the second pre and just like go straight to the chorus because like we don't need to keep fucking talking about what we're talking about but for certain songs there's like oh there's so much story here and if you're resonating with this you're like really resonating with it and like it could be a little bit like elaborated on and this is one of those moments where like there was just I don't know they just felt like there was more to say and then the bridge goes somewhere amazing too where I love I love the bridge of that song that's an amazing brightness Let's listen for a second. You're just in time, make your tea and your toast.

And all your posters and that you're close, all this alone. It keeps going. It's long. It keeps going. I mean, it goes into the outro when the chords keep evolving. So the guitar drops out. The bright piano jumps in. Harry is in this very quiet falsetto.

It's very vulnerable. Like, it's about to break. Yeah. And then the chords sort of leave this, they've been sort of shuffling. It's just sort of between the one and the four and the one and the four and we go into some new territory. So tell me about this transformation that's happening throughout the rest of the song. I think that, when I listen back to that now, I think that was, because I knew that wasn't

going to be like a single that song, which oddly in saying that I get hit up more about that song than I do about a lot of songs that I've had that were like huge radio successes because people write to me all the time being like, I resonate so hard with that song like that has gotten me through so much shit, which means so much to me. But when I listen back to it, I think in my brain, like, Harry was just so down to be explorative and, like, keep going. It kept, like, moving different places, which is really fun to write to. And in my head, I was like, we can do this because this isn't, like, it's not going to be, like, the big single. So we can take a lot of, like, chances and, like, keep moving and, like, exploring. But now I listen to that, and I'm

I'm like, I've taken that lesson of that Harry has taught me about like, let's just keep falling, whatever, because I had the leeway of being like, okay, this isn't going to be like a big single that they push. Let's keep following it. But now when I'm writing, I just follow that. I really do. I have found that the songs that I take the most with the artist that I'm writing with, co-writing it, with them, like, taking the most weird turns and, like, key changes and

following weird things five years ago I would have been like I can't do that you've got number one hits that do that now yeah tons of I mean the last man's best friend and short and sweet like there's so many I really recommend anybody that like plays guitar piano whatever just like play through both of those albums because the key changes are crazy and it's so much more musical than I think the common listener picks up on yeah and five years ago I would have never felt comfortable being a part of one of those because I would have just been like the listener at least when I was growing like learning pop music. It's like right to the lowest common denominator,

which I have debunked like 10,000 times over in my music career, which is like the common listener is like so down and so much smarter than we give them credit for of like exciting new twists and turns. And I feel like that was the first time my career where I was like able to be like, oh, we can keep doing different melodies and different melodies and like follow this bridge if it wants to be like 45 bars long, like, okay, you know, it doesn't matter. and now I write from a place of that all the time, which is I'm really grateful for.

So part of what I'm hearing is it's like, you're following whatever the song needs. Yeah. And like actually trying, like, not just following, but also like pushing the boundaries to do that. Because if it feels like something's a little bit uncomfortable or new to me,

it's usually like an exciting thing for the listener. That's what I've found at least. We're going to hear some of those in a little bit. Okay. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Wow, you have to ask a lot of. Lots of questions.

I'm Maria Sharpova and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay. Ready? Ready. Do not sugarcoat something for me. No.

No. No. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs and other individuals who have. have inspired me so much in my own journey. Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app.

Let's listen to something really fun. Tate McCraise, greedy. I'm still in you side trial, but I can figure out. I've been next to you all night and still don't know what you. I keep talking, but not much coming at your mouth. Can you tell that I want you, I say it? So fun. Okay.

What a change in genre, emotion, feel. You have got range. Trying every day. Really trying. Tell me about the concept for greedy. How'd this come into the world? This was also a good learning experience because I've had a really bad habit in my entire career that if I write a song in the artist or my publisher or somebody is like,

we love it, but the chorus needs a rewrite. I'm like, nah, sorry. Like, I'm just going to write a new song. I'm not going to edit the chorus. That's crazy. But we did that song. And Tate and I both give a ton of props to Ryan Teter on that because Tate and I have written so many songs together. And I'm notoriously bad at identifying what the ones are.

I'm just like, let's just write another one. Let's write another one. I'm not great at like being like, that's the single. Which is a songwriter, I don't like doing that anyways, because I get the ick when people are like, songwriters or producers on the song being like, that's a single. Go with that. I'm like, just let the artist decide. It's weird.

But anyways. was always just like, regardless of it's a single, this song's great. We need to finish the song. I love this song. And Tate kept being like the lyric of the chorus doesn't feel right to me. And the chorus lyric was a completely different chorus originally. We scrapped pretty much the entire thing. And I give so much props to Tate on that. And that's why she's so great at what she does because I feel like I'm a perfectionist, but I probably would have rolled with the OG. And she was like, it doesn't feel like the thing to me. And so we went in and we did a ton of rewrite on it, like a ton, which I never do because I hate rewriting choruses.

Was this a song where the chorus came first? The chorus that you've thrown out, was that the first thing you wrote? Yes, yes. And she was telling a really story, like a story that I resonated with me. And we still kept that same story, but we wrote it from like a completely different place. And I'm not notoriously good at writing like sexy, confident songs. It's not like really my bag.

But Tate, Tate just had this story. And she's obviously such a phenomenal dance. answer and like it felt like this was like the change in her career too where she was like, wait, I think I can be really confident. She had obviously like you broke me first, which I had no part of. It's an amazing song. But a lot of her songs before Greedy were like very emotional, very heartbreaking, very like internal.

And I feel like this was the moment where she was like, wait, I think I can be really fucking confident because like she is phenomenal. And it's like this like woman power song that it turned into. And another reason why it's so fun to write with artists because I would have never gotten there on my own. Like that totally came from her. And I was following her lead. And I'd also never written for like movement before, which is a new thing for me.

Like I'd never really thought about like writing for somebody that was like a dancer. Even though I like obviously grew up on like Britney and Christina and like all these phenomenal pussycat dolls. Like all these dance. But I never had written anything where like movement had crossed my mind. So I've learned a ton from Tate. And that song was like so fun to do together. In elementary school, did you also have to do line dancing? That was a thing in Maine for me.

What? No, okay. Did you visit the Amish? Because I did that. No. Did you not? We have to talk more later. I'm talking about later.

Line dancing? Well, I was wondering. When you were growing up, you were playing like bluegrass, yeah. No, I wish we learned line dancing. That's sick. Dolly, John Prime. Like, you know, song songs. Song songs.

And, you know, in bluegrass, like, we can move a little bit. We can move like this a little bit. Yeah. But line dancing is sick. I wish we had that. So, okay, so you found a new kind of confidence through a song about pure confidence. And I just want to go a little bit further

to that question of the chorus coming first. Does the chorus usually come first for you? And if so, how come? When I'm writing for myself, never. But I do that intentionally because I, when I'm writing just by myself at home, I'm like, I'm not writing to make it hooky. I'm not writing to, like, appeal to anybody

but just my own, like, I'm just doing this because it feels like fulfilling in a way where I'm just like, I just need to, like, be alone sometimes and just like do go back to basics of what I fell in love doing. So I always start from the beginning in that. But when I'm writing with an artist or for pitch, I'm still like a pop girlie at heart.

And I'm like if you don't have a great chorus, like I don't know what we're doing if we aren't writing like if the chorus isn't like concrete, you know? That's how I feel. Especially for a dance song. I mean, especially for dance song. I definitely have friends that don't do that.

But I don't know. The songs that I love, and I've said this in interviews before, where I'm like, there's so many dolly songs, so many Tom Petty songs, where I'm like, if any lyric was pulled out, the whole song falls apart. Like, each thing is writing to build. And I just feel like having a chorus that's so bulletproof and the sentiment is so strong, there's nowhere else I would want to start in the song. I get the concept of like starting from the beginning and moving through it. But I just feel so much better if there's like two hours I've gone by. And I'm

like, okay, we have the chorus. Like, the chorus is set. Now we just like can have fun building around it. That's how I like to go. For a dance song, I think there's a lot of sophistication going on here. I love the phrasing of the first verse. Can we listen to that? And can you describe to me what is going on? No pre-chorus. No pre-course. Right to the chase. I mean, on one level, it's, very simple. Just sort of rolling eighth notes, simple pentatonic melody. Oh, no,

we're getting into math. Oh, sorry. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. But the phrasing, like, it keeps accenting in places

you don't expect it to. Yeah. Like, she's hitting the, the phrase ends on the one of the next bar. Yeah. It's a lot of rolling over into the next thing.

It's always rolling on the next thing. And then it's like running on in a place where you don't expect it to run onto. Yeah. What is this style of writing? How do you think

about this kind of phrasing? It feels intuitive. I think so. And I think the fun about writing with somebody like Tate who, you know, hasn't gone to like pop music schooling is that sometimes we'll be writing and like she'll do something that in my brain, I'm like, mathematically not computing, but it just feels natural to her. And that's a learning experience for me where I'm like, I actually don't remember how that verse came about, but I know many times I've been working with Tate. Actually, the end melody of this chorus, I'm pretty sure it's the very last bit of this chorus is also something that I would

would have never put it on that beat. And when she was doing the take, she did it. And then Ryan and I both looked at each other like, that was weird, but I think that's good. But it was like nothing I would have ever done. I think it's the very end of the course. Yeah, I wouldn't have pushed it like that. I wouldn't have pushed it.

That's not my instinct to do that. But it makes it really hooky. I don't know. Another thing that this song kind of surprised me with is, okay, we'll jump into the second verse for a second, just so it's in her ear. We're gonna go into the bridge. Did you write a third verse?

Yes. You can't do that in pop music. You're not allowed, are you? Breaking rules. Wow. How does that feel in the room though where it's like, what was the last time you heard a third verse? I know, it's not common, is it?

I think that's another one of those moments where I was like, I guess it's a bit of the inverse where I was saying earlier was like sometimes if you don't feel like you have more lyric to say, just like don't say it, just like go to the next section or I don't know, whatever, but that didn't feel like it needed another melody. It felt like so much of this song with the dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun like the whole line going through the whole song. It's so hypnotic. And I feel like usually my brain would be like maximalist and like do a different thing,

do this, do that. But it felt like so much of the charm of this song from the jump was like the hypnotic vibe of it. So it felt like the right thing to do to just like carry on that melody because it's just so like robotic in a hypnotic way that it feels like just the right thing to do. instead of going to some big belty fucking thing. Like the chorus is already hitting the belty notes. Right.

You know, so like there's not really a need to like redo what we've already done. So that's, I think that's where that came from. It's a dance song that's supposed to hypnotize you. So like just keep doing the thing. Yeah. Okay. Let's go to another really fun song. This is so fun.

Thanks. I have no idea what song is coming next. It's cute. Let's just play it. Uh, uh, uh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Kissy face. Kissy face sent to your phone, but I'm trying to kiss your lips for real. So if you've been living in a cave for the last couple of years,

Apata by Rose and Bruno Mars, one of the biggest songs the last year. How do you write a hook out of a spoken moment? Love Rosie, so, so, so much. That was a big room that day. That's a room that I was like, a lot of us in there that day. It was like five of us, I think. basically I came into the room Rosie was teaching this drinking game

this Korean drinking game and called Apata yes and this was also another really good learning experience for me because I went through I feel like so much of my career being like if the song isn't going to make me like cry and like right fuck me up

then like we're not writing it but Tehran you have a really good album which is your debut album which does a lot of that. I love deeply. I'm like, really I'm learning nothing. I still just do that.

But Tehran came in and heard Rosie teaching this game and was like, that's the song today. Sorry, that's what we're writing today. And I was, I think Rosie and I are both like, what? Like, what do you mean? Like, it's a one-noder like, fuck, like what? And he was like, no, that's so hooky. We have to just make a song out of that. So a lot of that, a big lesson, I guess, is like trusting your co-writers.

Because I, my gut was like, no. And he's just so good that I was like, okay, let's go. And she was the same way. And I mean, the chorus is kind of already written, as you can imagine. It's like the thing. And then my gut and Rosie's as well was like, okay, if we have like something that's like super monotone in the chorus, like, of course the pre should be like as melot. The most melodic part of the whole song. So that there's like a distinction between like when we drop into the chorus, that's very just like da, da, da, da.

It's like we it feels like a release because we've just come out of out of something that's very dynamic So the pre happened that way I don't really honestly remember a lot like I don't remember how we got to the verse I don't even I almost think we wrote the pre second I think we wrote the chorus first because I was kind of done and we wrote the pre just to make sure that we like knew how we were setting it up and then the verse was almost like the third part of the puzzle Is songwriting a puzzle for you honestly sometimes but in a way that is really exciting because some days it's really nice to just have it be like such an emotional like cathartic just like release and then other days when you're figuring out for me at least i like those days just as much where i'm like okay like the chorus is written now how do we like puzzle piece the rest of it together so the chorus like shines as much as it possibly could or like when i'm writing for film and tv and i get like a very specific brief

i love that too because it feels a bit like i'm puzzle piecing to like make sure i'm saying exactly what the producer wants, but also making it feel like honest and trying to, you know, fit all the pieces together. But perhaps the puzzle metaphor fails and some of the other things you've shared earlier. It's almost like game design. And what's interesting is you seem to set up new rules each time you write. When you're writing for yourself, you're like, I'm not doing the chorus first. Yeah.

When you, you know, when you learned that you could with Harry write these long extended outtros that don't seem to fit a normal convention. Yeah. You're just designing the rules of the game. Yeah. Each time. Girls in STEM. I, I, I can't code at all.

I think also the genius of that song when I listen back to it now that I'm so excited by is Henry, who goes by Circuit, who's an amazing producer. There were three amazing producers in the room that day, and Rosie Taron and I. So maybe there's six of us in the room, I think six. He, the first time you hear the chorus, there's like not really any chordal information. And then the second time you hear the chorus, he's re-harmed it with like, not re-harmed it. He's harmed it for the first time. He's put chords under it.

Which are in a minor key. Yeah. And like, it just makes it feel emotional in a weird way. I don't know, he's such a genius with that because it makes you, the chorus hits different every single time. And it like comes, I think if it just drop down into like no chordal information every time you heard the chorus, it would not be half the song that it is. I think that like hearing it with corns underneath it the second time, then the third time

is just phenomenal production. That's a production that excites me. I'm like hard on production sometimes because I'm such like a long live the songwriter that I'm like, there's nothing to produce if we don't write the song. Like whatever. But that is, that's like songwriting. to me. How do you go? So I hope people are recognizing here the enormous range of things that we've heard so far today. How do you go about writing a like crossover K-pop pop soul song with mega producers

like circuit? How are you going to, how you approach this new kind of session any differently than what you might have done writing Matilda? Honestly, I think it's just that I love writing songs so much and I listened to so many different types of music and I feel like especially that day it was really interesting because like Tehran is from the Caribbean. Rosie's obviously from Korea. I'm from the United States of America. And the other producer is from Israel. Like we're all from really different. Henry's from Canada. Like there were so many different cultural backgrounds and like instincts of how you write music and how you produce in the room that day that like it's hard to not be inspired by that and it's hard to not jump on that wave when it's happening

because there was just a lot going on. And now I'm like, I look back, we just had this whole conversation, me, Rosie and Omer, who's one of the producers on it, talking about how that's the first time in my career where I'm like people always are talking about like music as a universal language and I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm like, that to me, I'm like the whole world is singing that song and a lot of the world has no idea what that chorus is saying. And everybody's still just like super hooked by it, which to me that's the first time in

my career, I'm like, oh, I've done like, been a part of like a cultural thing. You all got Bruno Mars singing in Korean. Totally. Big win. Big W. I mean, also when he got added to the song, that was so exciting. Yeah. So we've listened to four wonderful songs.

That means we have one left. There's a song we must listen to. Our fifth and final song of the evening. Please, please, please. By Sabrina Carpenter. Let's take a listen. This song is so anti-trend. How do you think about following popular music versus working on breaking new sounds?

This is not good advice for everybody. But for me, I try really hard. Obviously, like, as a person of the world, it's hard to not hear pop music when it's, like, out because you can just be walking on the street and it's everywhere. But I, in my spare time, try really hard not to listen to what is trending right now because I just find I can like fall into these pit holes of like writing. what is like trying to like I don't know when I hear something I'm like oh it like starts to inform my brain in ways of like what's happening right now and by the time I write a song that

sounds like what's happening right now like you're so behind the ball by the time that song it's released two years later anyway at least so and Sabrina's the same way her and I are always like sending songs back and forth and we're always inspired by like very old things that we grew up listening to or things that we find just like digging around that are you know minimum like 30 to 40 years old. So I think that allows us to create from a place that's like really not confined by what is happening on pop radio right now, which I think is exciting and it makes things sound new. And same with the hairy song, I guess. Like when I like broke down that thing in my brain where I was like, okay, I don't have to be like writing to an equation of like what a pop song sounds like with

Sabrina. She's like whether it's lyrically, whether it's melodically or whether it's like quarterly, there is no blueprint of what is possible. Even genre-wise with her, I mean, she can cross like country, pop, R&B, like, she can span anything, which is a dream as a songwriter because there is like kind of no song we can't write, you know, like between what we love to listen to, which is across the whole, you know, smorgashboard of music, like, and then what she's capable of of singing and like really selling because she's such a phenomenal artist and songwriter. It's kind of like the world is our oyster with that.

And that day, and pretty much every day with her, which is why I love her so much, is that I can't think of one day wherever was like we were writing from a place of like, okay, we've like written the deep cuts of the album, and now we've got to write the singles. Like, I've never written a song with her from a place like that. And I have written songs, many songs from that place where it's like, okay, I feel like with this artist or for this project, like we've gotten like the slow songs, we've gotten the weird songs. Now we got to write like the hits. And I've just never, her and I've never had that conversation ever.

There was never a moment we were like, no. Espresso, that's the thing. No, because espresso didn't feel like that either because there's so many wild lyrics in that song. So it felt like that was even pushing a boundary. We were like, I don't know. Like, I don't know what's going to come of that. But no, this song was just like, and also why I love Jack is because he approaches music from such like a childlike, like playful place where he's not like tethered by like, like, like what the chord structure should be or like what should happen like I remember when he did that

key change and we were like yeah cool like it just was not we weren't like whoa it just felt like that's like the natural progression and none of us were afraid of it and Sabrina and I are both like capable to write over key changes like it's fun it makes and then when it sits back again in it's just like it just felt really natural that day and it just was writing fully from instinct and I don't know I found that that is my most exciting. Like that's one of my most exciting moments in music because I look back on that and I'm like, oh, we were doing so many weird things, like taking so many chances. But in the room I was just with collaborators that I love working with,

that none of that felt wild to us. It felt just fun. So you're working with Sabrina Carpenter and Jack Hansonoff and the three of you have formed a really intimate team. You've worked extensively on short and sweet and man's best friend. Yeah. And clearly, as I'm hearing, you're able to take risks that you, maybe aren't able to if you're writing pitch songs that are going to go one song to one artist

you're doing something it's a larger project let's listen to one of those risks which uh pops up right after that chorus yeah babe maybe just stay inside i know you're craving some fresher but the ceiling fan is so nice and we could live so happily if no one knows they're with me i'm just kidding but really there's so much that we could talk about in this moment the immediate thing that obviously out is we modulate three steps up. Yeah. I have a fun idea. Let's do something absolutely ridiculous.

I also love how the lyric says that. I love how the lyric is being like, I have a fun idea and we've like just modulated a crazy thing. We call that text painting. We love prosody. Yeah. I don't know. What was your question? Sorry.

I don't, what's going on in your mind? How does this happen? I mean, the modulation was fully jack. I don't even know if he was intentionally trying to be like, let's do something crazy. I think he was just like, this feels fun and we didn't even second guess. it and just went with it. And that's also like, I feel like that like bust down this other wall now we're like in so many Sabrina songs we've done key changes because we grew up listening

to so many songs that do key changes. And then for some reason we've gone through like the dark ages of music where like nobody was allowed to like key change anymore. It's so weird. Like why did we all follow that rule? It's bizarre except for love on top. But mostly I'm like there's no key changes. There's 14 key changes.

I think that's a lot. But it's a great song. It's the best. Yeah, I don't know. It just felt, really it felt instinctual. And I feel like, I know we've talked about writing is like, can be like a puzzle sometimes, but there's some songs that you just listen to and you're like, that's just instinct. Like no.

Yeah. There wasn't like a mathy person in the room that day being like, we could do this. It was just like that feels like what should happen. In avoiding trends, you might have been creating them earlier. I often find that's what happens when you avoid them. Yeah. So back in 2018, we're hearing more chord loops. Now we're hearing a lot of more harmonic progression, a lot more sort of curiosity.

seems like that opens up new ways of writing for you. Yeah. I'm curious, I mean, perhaps some of that also draws from country. You have written in country. You've written with Coetzel, Luke Holmes, Kismasgraves. What does country taught you? Everything. Everything.

I mean, storytelling. You said earlier that every lyric must respond to the next to the story. Yeah, I mean, if I ever feel like I'm, like, losing my love of music, I just have, like, a day of walking around whatever. city I'm in that day and listening to like country from like 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. And I'm like, oh, I love it. Yeah. I love music. Like the concepts are so good.

I was, oh, I, yeah, I don't know. I saved like 15 the other day just walking around New York, just like aimlessly like going into albums I've never listened to and being like, the fuck, the concepts are insane and melodically just like so interesting. Country's always what makes me like fall back in love with music, even though I, I grew up listening to Dolly and John Prime, but besides that, like, not a ton of country. And you summon Dolly Parton. She does a feature on this song.

I know. On a follow-up, I imagine that was quite a bit of fun. I want to ask you about the joy and humor that you all created. That seemed to be something that was really special about those two albums with Sabrina. That it brought humor into pop music in a way that I had in a minute. Like a self-awareness of a pop star is so crazy. It's so exciting to me. Also, I feel like that has been.

and the dark ages where like every pop star just takes themselves so seriously. And I'm like, Sabrina just like has fun and she's so just like shamelessly herself. And I think that has like shepherded this new like generation of pop artists that I work with so many now that are like, let's be funny today. I'm like, that's okay, okay. And like it's just, I feel like it's bust down this wall where people are like, oh, we can like not have to be like this perfect specimen of like I've, you know, I've never done anything wrong and I'm phenomenal.

and like the confidence song all the time. Like obviously with greedy once in a while, like you want a confident songs. Like it's fun to have that. But it's also fun to have a song as a massive pop star that everybody looks up to to be like, yeah, I fucked up. I did something dumb. You know, like I trusted this guy when I absolutely should have like kicked him out a million years ago.

Like I think that has created this like whole new wave of pop music. And I think a lot of it is because of Sabrina and her sense of humor in the songs that, you know, she put out. So grateful to be a part of it because I think it's really, exciting. So you're invoking so much joy in the world by being very honest. Thank you for being open and honest with us tonight and sharing your experience. It's an absolute joy. Thank you for having me.