Deep Talk About the Songwriting Process.
In-depth interviews with songwriters about their songwriting process. That's All. No talk of band drama, band names, or tour stories. Treating songwriters as writers, plain and simple. By Ben Opipari, English Lit Ph.D.
Recent Episodes
June 4, 2026
Greg Mendez
Greg Mendez has a shelved album concept that he says you can have if you're a songwriter. The plan was to center each song around the rhythm of a different car's turn signal, and the title of the song would simply be the car'...
May 31, 2026
Euan Manning (Cardinals)
The formula is simple. Step one, read great Irish literature. Step two, write killer songs. It's worked pretty well for Euan Manning of Cardinals so far. The Irish songwriter for the Cork-based band rattles off writers who ha...
May 24, 2026
Rostam
"A great way to write is to overwrite. Write more verses than could be contained in a song. Then take the best of what's there," says Rostam Batmanglij . I cannot agree more: good writers know that the first pass is never the...
May 17, 2026
Emma Jansson (Girl Scout)
"When I'm not self-conscious, I tend to write better stuff. I need the dud sessions before I make progress," says Emma Jansson of Girl Scout . Good writing in the initial stages is indeed all about getting out of your own way...
May 14, 2026
Kevin Drew (Broken Social Scene)
"We should see how many disco records were made in the winter," Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene said. And with that, we ventured into the intersection of songwriting and meteorology: how weather patterns and temperature aff...
May 6, 2026
Jena Malone
Jena Malone had me at the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. When the actor/songwriter started our discussion talking about Millay and the profound effect poetry has on her songwriting process, I swooned. There’s a theme here: I’v...
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