Musycks Musings 17 Speaking in tongues A weekly column by Inside Songwriting contributor, Michael J Roberts.   A topic that turns up time and again, how much musicianship and musical knowledge is required to become a good songwriter? It’s the kind of question that mostly gets a how long is a piece of string? response, but in reality the answer may be a little...

Melt The Guns A weekly column by Inside Songwriting contributor, Michael J Roberts. Columbine, Colorado, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Chattanooga, Washington Navy, Charleston, Roanoke…. ??       Art and music helps us make sense of a complex and difficult world and the paradoxes of modern life. Songwriters have helped voice the concerns of generations...

Henry Mancini & Johnny Mercer – Moon River   This exquisite ballad was commissioned for the Paramount film Breakfast at Tiffany’s in 1961 (Click here to read Filmycks review), and was specifically written to accommodate the limited range of the star that was to sing it, the gorgeous Audrey Hepburn. Master lyricist Johnny Mercer, who had been...

Paul McCartney – Maybe I’m Amazed     In the midst of the turmoil of the then secretive splitting up of his band in late 1969, Paul McCartney retreated to a Scottish farm and avoided a nervous breakdown by the skin of his teeth. In his rustic reverie he reflected on his future and wrote this masterful, decidedly un-silly love song. The Beatles were...

Gillian Welch – Look At Miss Ohio Gillian Welch cracked the mainstream with the help of producer T-Bone Burnett and the filmmaking siblings Joel and Ethan Coen and their quirky Depression Era comedy O Brother, Where Art Thou? Gillian was hired as Associate Producer of the related album, to invest her authentic take on the roots music of the period and to...

John Fogerty – Long As I Can See the Light   John Fogerty was the brains and voice of Creedence Clearwater Revival, if not the heart and some of the personal foibles that have bedevilled him are evident in his music if one looks closely enough. Fogerty was a driven perfectionist; both he and his brother Tom survived an alcoholic father, after their...

Andrew Gold – Lonely Boy   Andrew Gold was born into a Los Angeles showbiz family, his father Ernest was a Hollywood composer who won an Academy Award for Exodus and his mother was a singer who provided the screen singing voices for Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, Deborah Kerr in The King and I and Natalie Wood in West Side Story. Gold was a precocious...

Elton John – I’ve Seen That Movie Too Elton John and his lyricist Bernie Taupin are one of the longest standing partnerships in all of popular song writing history, yet even they will admit their best stuff (like almost all songwriters) was produced in a condensed time frame during shorter, intense periods. One of those astonishingly productive periods centred...

Sting – I Hung My Head   Gordon Sumner wrote the main songs and played bass in The Police, under the moniker Sting, but left the band to become a solo act just as they’d become the biggest act on the planet. Sting was the writer of all the bands hits and of their enduring and distinctive sound via his oddly bleating tenor, so he was well placed to...

Guest post by Michael J Roberts, Author of “33 Great Songs 33 Great Songwriters”   How To Make Gravy – Paul Kelly Australia has produced some very fine songwriters and none better than Paul Kelly. If a measure of talent is to produce quality songs over the long haul, stepping up time and time again to provide authentic offerings in different genres with...