Debbie Gibson
Listen On
“I came home from school and sat down at the piano. The song poured out in real time. I wrote it in ten minutes and didn't change a note.” —Debbie Gibson, on writing her #1 song “Lost in Your Eyes”—at age 17.
After some research, I've discovered some uncredited songwriters on Debbie Gibson's albums.
The Song Fairies!
For the uninitiated: Debbie Gibson is still the youngest female to write, produce, and perform a #1 single, with "Foolish Beat" at age 17. I think I was just learning how to make toast at that age. She wrote all the songs on her debut album Out of the Blue—at age 16. The album had four singles in the US top five and sold more than five million albums. Gibson's second album Electric Youth was the #1 album in the US for five weeks. It contains three singles in the top 20, including the #1 song "Lost in Your Eyes."
Now back to The Song Fairies. The humble Gibson insists that while she may be the one writing down those melodies and lyrics, she is merely the vessel The Song Fairies use to get the songs to us. Take "Lost in Your Eyes," for example. Gibson came home from school, started playing the piano, and the song just poured out in real time. "I wrote it in ten minutes and never changed a note," she told me. "I have no idea where it came from."
The songwriting process behind "Lost in Your Eyes" reflects how songs develop for Gibson. She rarely sits down with the deliberate intent to write songs. There's no I'm gonna write a song today! goal. Instead, she waits. And eventually the songs drop in. "That's when I'm the most inspired. The songs drop in when I make myself open to receive and when I've cleared the chaos," Gibson told me. "You cannot force timing. I'm very zen about it. I trust that things will come." And it's the The Song Fairies that bring it.
(Lest you think that it's only The Song Fairies, Gibson cites a carousel horse, a gown, and Liberace as helping the process, but you'll have to watch the video for that.)
Debbie Gibson's new album The Body Remembers is her first original pop album in two decades.
