Episodes

"If I could sum up my process, it would be this: finish everything," says Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie . "I finish every song I start even if I know in the first verse that it’s a complete pile of shit. I finish it beca...

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'...

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...

"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...

"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...

"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...

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...

All you need to know about Maya Hawke's dedication to wordcraft is summed up in this memory: "The day I fell in love with my husband was the day we got into a fight about free verse poetry versus formal poetry." (Hawke's husb...

As a bilingual artist, Lolo Zouaï uses both English and French on her new album Reverie . Sometimes it's because the meaning of a word in one language is more precise for the song, while other times the sound of the word fits...

Donovan Woods is the master of the pull quote when it comes to the songwriting process. His words are wise counsel for any songwriter. To wit: "A good song asks questions rather than provides wisdom," and "When I have writer'...

I wasn't surprised when Sasha Spielberg--an actor, visual artist, and musician who records as Buzzy Lee --told me that she once cried listening to the score to E.T. , one of her father's most famous movies. I was surprised, h...

Morgan Nagler has co-written with HAIM, Phoebe Bridgers, Kim Deal, Madi Diaz, and Margo Price among others. And now comes her fantastic debut solo album I've Got Nothing to Lose, and I'm Losing It . We go deep into her songwr...

My New Band Believe is Cameron Picton's new band after his time as the bassist and sometimes frontman for black midi . We go deep into his songwriting process, including a discussion of how sounds outside the studio affect hi...

It's the return of Carl Newman of The New Pornographers ! We were just kids back in 2015 when I first interviewed Newman and we discussed his love of the 10cc song "Dreadlock Holiday." We return to that song in this episode, ...

"I'm a jacket man," King Tuff (aka Kyle Thomas) told me as we discussed why feeling good is important to the songwriting process. I had mentioned a writer who told me that he must wear a winter coat when he writes--even durin...

"I very much consider myself a writer," Lindsey Jordan ( Snail Mail ) says. And any good writer has a ritual. Part of Jordan's ritual involves the balance between keeping the writing process precious and recognizing that too ...

Nate Ruess's songwriting catalog includes his Grammy winning band Fun ; his co-write and co-performance with P!nk on "Just Give Me a Reason"; and songs for Hayley Williams, Kesha, and Young Thug. After feeling no urge to writ...

Procrastinators unite! Thank you, Tyler Ballgame , you are a kindred spirit. Finally someone who admits that procrastination is a great tool for writing. So much has been written on the evils of procrastination, yet some peop...

“When I go to the grocery store, that’s part of the songwriting process. When I work on my truck, that’s part of my songwriting process. Every aspect of our life feeds into our creativity. The more present I can be, the bette...

Jade Long and Jess Thompson of Athens, Georgia based Hotel Fiction have a simple routine for their songwriting sessions: make some brownies, pour some wine. And they like to be outside. It's not complicated. But while food, d...

Nat and Alex Wolff had me at Sam Shepard . The playwright/writer/actor was one of my dissertation topics and the brothers acted in his plays, so we agreed early on that he's one of our favorite writers. (After you listen, pl...

Patton Magee of The Nude Party has the best reason why reading makes you a better songwriter: it gives you a stronger and more wide-ranging vocabulary, which in turn gives you more ways to express yourself. "Words that you ra...

"I am a taskmaster," Courtney Marie Andrews told me. When we talked back in 2018 , I marveled at Andrews' discipline. She calls it "chunk writing": Andrews doesn't write on tour but instead collects notes and ideas while she'...

"To write about something sad and dark, I need to feel content, to feel a sense of well being. I can't write when I'm depressed," Lucinda Williams told me. Much of my discussion with Williams focused on how we prepare to writ...