Eric Edstrom Songwriter

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noreply@blogger.com (Eric Edstrom) — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 16:24:00 +0000

Check out the mp3 of this song here.

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E. Edstrom - ASCAP

I get up at dawn, kiss your cheek

Grab a cuppa coffee and hit the door

Working these double shifts all week

We barely get to talk anymore

Me and you are overdue for some time alone

Girl let's spend all of this weekend at home

I wanna get close

Let's get reacquainted

It's been too long, ain't it?

I wanna get close

So close there ain't nothing

But you and me touching

Heart, body and soul

I wanna get close

Let's have a long night of love

Holding each other and sharing everything

All that I need when life gets rough

Is to hear your breathless whispering

Me and you have something beautiful going on

Girl let's find a little time to keep it strong

CHORUS

Let's take a little vacation

At home in bed

We'll make up the time we've been wasting

And reconnect and get

CHORUS

I get up at dawn, kiss your cheek

Grab a cuppa coffee and hit the door

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Edstrom) — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 00:09:00 +0000

A few more episodes of the Hit Hackers are up. Check out are latest episode. We analyze Luke Bryan's #1 from last year, Rain Is A Good Thing.

Hit Hackers is in full effect

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Edstrom) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 22:38:00 +0000

The good news is that we've posted a bunch of new podcast episodes since early July. The most recent one is an analysis of Katy Perry's 5th straight #1 off her Teenage Dream album: Last Friday Night.

You can listen to the podcast here: www.hithackers.com or search iTunes for Hit Hackers.

Might be a good idea to follow the Hit Hackers on Facebook too!

New Hit Hackers episodes available

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Edstrom) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 14:16:00 +0000

I'm the host of the Hit Hackers podcast. www.hithackers.com

We've posted a number of great shows recently.

Check out our latest: Analysis of Adele's #1 hit, Rolling In the Deep.

Well . . .

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Edstrom) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 12:37:00 +0000

Not going to make that songwriting goal this year. Decided I can't write fast. Besides, I'm changing my focus away from Nashville for the time being. I wrote so many songs, so fast I think I used up my reserves.

Focussing now on recording fun stuff in my new studio. I might post a song in a few weeks, I might not.

Ira Glass on Getting Good

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Edstrom) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 13:16:00 +0000

I want to thank John Gruber for posting this Ira Glass youtube. In it Ira talks about getting good at storytelling, or anything creative.

Key point: "it's going to take a while."

http://youtu.be/BI23U7U2aUY

Perhaps the fundamental premise here is that creative people are passionate about the kind of art they want to create. Filmmakers love films. Have you ever seen Steven Spielberg talk about film? He's obsessed. Tom Cruise is the same way. Ira says that it's that passion which gives you excellent taste.

How does passion --> taste? Ira doesn't say, he asserts that it's true. But I have some thoughts on this.
When you are passionate about some domain of art, you can't help but take in huge amounts of that art. When I was in high school, I was obsessed with flashy guitar playing. I consumed it obsessively. But sometimes great technical facility did not yield any satisfaction. It was as if a robot was playing the guitar (ahem, Steve Vai).

So it's not entirely about technical proficiency. Taste is called taste because we understand that flavor in food is greater than the sum of the ingredients. An unrefined palate, like mine, doesn't analyze a dish very much. I like it or not.

But with songs, I listen with a great deal of discernment. I hear far more than the casual listener ever does. I think about the rhymes, the structure, the contrast between sections, the production, the singer's performance, the guitar sound, the groove.

And here's something else: that huge volume of art you consume creates a mental landscape of what has been done. This is an essential component of taste, because if you are copying, or imitating, you're not really creating art. Taste tells you if you are creating something fresh or not.

So you build up this level of taste, but when you begin to create you don't necessarily have the tools to deliver something to that standard. Which is what Ira says in the video. When you start out, your output doesn't live up to your level of taste.

And you know it. This is so important. And you know it.

Why is this important? Because when a passionate, creative person with excellent taste produces crappy work, they get discouraged. And this is when resistance builds. Time goes by and nothing is created.

So Ira's mentorship is really needed. "It's going to take a while," he says. "The answer is to do a lot of work."

Funny how the universe aligns to deliver the similar messages from different sources. I've been reading Steve Pressfield's Do the Work, which is about how the necessity to break through the resistance that faces anyone who's trying to do creative work. The answer is to do the work.

Writing Workout

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Edstrom) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 19:18:00 +0000

I've been in Nashville the past few days writing songs. It's weird to look at my schedule and then remember how impossible getting co-writes had seemed just months ago.

I'm not sure how the die hard pros do it, writing twice a day everyday. I've written three times in the past two days and I'm happy to have the afternoon free. I need a break. It must be like exercise, the more you do it, the more you can do.

It's been productive few days, though. The songs are good and it's interesting to see how other writers approach the craft.

One important tidbit I've learned is that a song is not a big deal when you written many hundreds or perhaps thousands of songs. Each additional song represents a smaller percentage of your total catalog. I've felt this phenomenon recently, but not to the degree that these people have.

I've bumped the progress bar to 26%. I need to get busy writing some more starters in preparation for my next trip!

Recommendation: Jessie J

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Edstrom) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 12:39:00 +0000

Jessie J was on SNL recently, though I missed that performance.

Here's an acoustic version of her current single, Price Tag:

Here are affiliate links to the CD and digital download on Amazon:

Quiet

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Edstrom) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 12:30:00 +0000

Not much production on the songwriting front for a while now. I do have one little ditty in the works, but I've been focussing on the fiction writing recently. Very difficult to balance doing both at the moment, so it may be like this for a while where I switch off every so often.

I did fix a piano/vocal demo on one song in order to pitch it. Turned out great, I think.

I also planned and scheduled my next trip to Nashville, which is coming up next week! Very exciting, lots of co-writes, and hopefully better weather than here. Ugh.

Nashville and a Bit of Keats

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Edstrom) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 15:18:00 +0000

I've got my entire schedule filled for my next Nashville trip. This will be the most jam-packed trip yet. It's taken a long time to get to the point where I actually CAN fill the schedule. And it's all co-writes. That should really help bump up the progress bar.

Today I have another business meeting, so I probably won't get a legitimate song done. No worries, I'll continue to riff to the voice recorder and see what comes up. Sometimes it seems I can't write fast enough to get all the ideas out. Other times, not so much.

Romantic poet John Keats wrote this great sonnet that I had to memorize in college. I think of this poem often for some reason. I really don't have his problem, not having died of consumption at age 25.

The first stanza, from memory:

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain
Before high piled books in charactery
Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain

Translation:
When I think I'm going to die
Before I've written all the good ideas in my head
before books full of words
Like grain bins hold the metaphorical ripened grain of my creativity

He goes on to talk about this problem that he might perish before he's famous or experiences love or whatever. So what does he do when these thoughts occur?

. . . then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Til Love and Fame to nothingness do sink

My non-expert interpretation is this:
I meditate (or maybe take a hit of laudanum), and chill until the concepts of love and fame disappear from my head.

I wonder if he really could do that. I can't.

Novelty Songs

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Edstrom) — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 14:31:00 +0000

I often come up with ideas for funny songs, but I usually ignore them because they are hard to market. Also, I have a somewhat perverse sense of humor and people don't always "get" the joke. Even in mainstream songs that include humor, I often miss the mark because the joke is too subtle, too absurd or only makes sense to me. In my song You'll Get Me, there's the whole bit with beer cans the good book and Old Glory, which on the surface seems like a straight faced line. For me it's very ironic and hilarious. You'd never know that unless you'd had a conversation with me about "country cred" songs and "lowest common denominator" songs. That was me intentionally aiming low. I think only my brothers would get the joke. It's great because it's so bad.

This morning I came up with a song idea I think is hilarious because it's so sad. I know, that's kind of sick. Anyway, sometimes I get this mental itch with a song title or concept that makes me have to scratch it. I know the song is going to be cool, if only from my perspective. If I ignore it, the itch will get worse and worse and I'll eventually give into it anyway. I think it's best to scratch it immediately and get it out of the way.

The creative compulsion, the itch, is a gift. It's where anything good I've ever created starts. I don't see any point in denying it, unless it's going to hurt me in some way.

The song progress bar has been stuck at 22% for a bit too long. I hope to get that moving a couple points this week, but I've got a lot of meetings and driving around to do. Fortunately, I can use some of that windshield time for "free singing" and get some concepts in the works.

Melancholy Songs

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Edstrom) — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 18:28:00 +0000

So I've hatched two of these in the past couple weeks. I don't know what's come over me. I generally write uptempo, happy songs. Must be my subconscious mind telling me something. Whatever it is, I don't want to hear it.

You know what a good sign you've been writing a lot of songs is? When your brother says "I listened to your new song," and you look at him wondering what song in might have been. The progress bar has crept up due to additions from Nashville and this week.

So this morning I was driving home from dropping the bean off at school and thinking. "What the heck am I going to write about today?" As usual I pulled out the voice recorder and started "free singing" random ideas. If you heard any of those recordings, you'd know what a fraud I am. My best ideas are mistakes that come straight from the subconscious and out my mouth. I have to pay close attention or cool ideas will float off into the wind without notice.

I wish my conscious, rational brain could come up with these things, but it's an idiot. It thinks about breakfast, lunch and dinner and maybe that it's been five minutes since I checked email. It's five years old on a good day. Which reminds me. JJ made some excellent "health" brownies. By "health" I mean they taste pretty good (once you spread peanut butter on the top) and they go down great with milk. No, that's not what I mean. I mean they trade carbs for fat.

Nashville Wrap-up

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Edstrom) — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 19:10:00 +0000

Saw a great writer round last night, followed by a Jeffrey Steele Band set. My left ear is still ringing from that.

I had two publisher meetings, which were productive and encouraging. Two co-writes which produced some cool songs. One is finished, the other is solid start. I met a bunch of people, including a random publisher standing next to me in the crowd last night. Cards get exchanged in the oddest places in Nashville. Never go anywhere, not even to the bathroom, without at least one business card on your person. Well, maybe the shower, but nowhere else.

I never want to see a writer's round. I don't know why. I feel a lot of resistance to it, but once they start, I can't get enough.

Next trip is already on the books. See you in a few weeks, Nashville.

Nashville Philosophy

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Edstrom) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 19:14:00 +0000

"It's a crazy town full of neon dreams,

Everybody plays, everybody sings,

Hollywood with a touch of twang,

To be a star you gotta bang bang bang" -- Jason Aldean, Crazy Town

I've lost count of how many times I've come to Nashville over the past few years. It's been alot. Each trip is a rollercoaster ride, anxiety turns to thrill turns to nausea. Rinse and repeat.

My songs now are so much better than the first ones I brought here, so it's way more fun. That doesn't mean it I don't encounter moments when I questions what I'm doing. Even the most successful writers are rejected all the time, so it's not a surprise when someone doesn't like my songs. What is a surprise is when professionals -- people who make their living in the business -- who have opposite opinions about one of my songs. What do you do when the thing one person loves about a song is the very thing another hates?

Keep Calm and Carry On

Inspired Crap

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Edstrom) — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 15:07:00 +0000

Yesterday was all about writing on an empty tank. You know, those days when the muse has abandoned you and you'd rather have some dental work done than write a song.

So today I woke up itching to grab a guitar and write something. I didn't have any ideas about what it would be, just a little bit of compulsion to do it. So I did.

The result?

Crap.

Lousy song. Trite, silly, shallow. The good news is this: the guitar part is pretty cool, so I'll probably steal it for another song some other day.

Like Pulling Teeth

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Edstrom) — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 15:16:00 +0000

Having a pretty aggressive goal for 2011 songwriting, I often end up sitting down to write when there is no inspiration in me. Not in the house, not the surrounding area, the state, or anywhere in the country, planet, solar system, galaxy or universe.

Writing in times like that, is like forcing yourself to eat something nasty - like liver - when you're already full and maybe a bit nauseous. Good times!

So it's amazing what came out. I spent a couple hours today working on a song idea I didn't care about and thought about giving up on pretty much every other minute. When I finally got fed up, I had a verse and most of a chorus.

The song is an oddball, and not terrible. At first it was very generic, but then I found a cool groove for the chorus. I recorded a demo and realized the chorus is in 6/8. No wonder it didn't fit with the verse which is in 4. I thought I'd blown my rhythm gasket or something. Turns out I was putting a square peg in a triangular hole! That's actually a great metaphor if you think about it.

Seven days left of March and I need 6 songs to catch up to the pace I need to hit my goal for the year. I may not succeed, but we shall see. The good news is that for the 2nd quarter, I'll have lots of time to catch up and get ahead of schedule. In fact, I could be more than half way to the goal by mid-year if I'm disciplined.

Sentimental vs. Sappy

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Edstrom) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 01:14:00 +0000

So today is Monday. For me that's caffeinated coffee day, a once per week (usually) dose of the good stuff to jump start the week. It's a great strategy because the caffeine has more effect. It gives me energy and boosts my mood. What better way to start the week.

So I needed to write a song today, since I'd been away from it for a couple days. Dropped my daughter at school and started making up random lyrics in the car on the way home. The idea was the usual daughter has Daddy wrapped around her finger thing. It was even going to have the word "heart" in the title. Sappy.

For some reason I decided to work on piano rather than guitar, and what came out was sentimental, but not sappy. Not at all. I'm really proud of this song, though I doubt it will be very marketable. It made three people tear up today, so I count that as a win!

Planning a Nashville Trip

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Edstrom) — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 00:08:00 +0000

I'm currently in planning for my next Nashville trip, co-writes, publisher meetings, and hopefully . . . seeing some great live music during Tinpan South.

I've been so many times, I've lost count. Each time is exciting and inspiring.

For songwriter's making their first visit, here's what I recommend.

1) Attend one of NSAI's events like songcamp, spring training, or songposium. This will put you in the room with other songwriters and professionals. You'll learn about the craft and you'll hopefully begin you all-important networking.
2) Go during Tinpan south and see night after night of songwriters performing their hits. My favorite venues include the Listening Room, Bluebird Cafe, the Rutledge, Mercy Lounge, and I the list goes on. If you want to go to the Bluebird Cafe, you'll want to make reservations well in advance.
3) Visit ASCAP and BMI. I can't speak to what BMI offers non-members, but on some Wednesdays ASCAP has an meeting where you learn about the organization and ask questions about the business.
4) Grand Ole Opry -- enough said. It doesn't matter who's playing, you'll enjoy it.
5) Walk along Broadway and take in the honky tonks.
6) Take your guitar alone and write a song, even if you have to write alone.
7) Play an open mic

"Wire" Sparks a Song Idea

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Edstrom) — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:31:00 +0000

Another song this morning. Got the idea from a line in a The Band Perry song. Actually, it was from one word': "wire." That's not the title I used, though. Came up with a couple lines right away and that lead me to the core idea. I got a couple verses and choruses out of it. Needs a lot of polish, but I left off before I killed it. Anyway, this is the first time in long time that I've had the idea before going into the writing room.

This evening I listened to a bunch of the songs I've written the past few weeks. They're simple, and very rough, guitar/vocal demos, but some of the songs I thought would suck, aren't to shabby. Some that I thought were good. . . pretty good.

How To Get the Big Cut

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Edstrom) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 21:04:00 +0000

Not much happening on the songwriting front the past few days. I made a one day stop in Nashville for some business type stuff, but I didn't even take my guitar. It was a quick trip.

I find the whole biz side quite interesting, if perplexing. If you want to get your songs cut:

The short answer is be the artist.
The slightly longer answer is write with the artist.
The longer answer is co-write with other writers who have publishing deals and access to pitching opportunities.
The even longer answer is co-write with writers who have some kind non-formal relationship with a publisher who might be willing to pitch your song OR pitch your song to the artist's bus driver, drummer, sister-in-law, hair stylist, etc.
The even longer, longer answer is write by yourself and pot shot submit through Taxi, SongU and unsolicited submissions to opps listed on tip sheets.

There might be some variations on those themes, but that's pretty much it. Here's my sense of the probability of getting the cut following those scenarios: 90%, 9.9%, .09%, .0099%, .0001%

That's pretty optimistic for the last two, but if your songs are great, not impossible!

Chord Changes

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Edstrom) — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 00:28:00 +0000

In country and pop, you really only have about six chords to work with. You can change keys, but it can be tricky. What you really can't do is go crazy with a bunch of 9th, 11th and 13th chords.

The limitation is not a bad thing, but when you're writing every day it's easy to fall into habitual patterns. This is true of chord order and rhythmic figures. So what I try to do is find something uncomfortable. I try to put melody over chords that feel wrong or unfamiliar. This often get's me out of the old pattern and into something new, even if I end up changing my mind and using the more satisfying chord in the end.

I try to let the lyric suggests how nicely the melody fits over the chords. If it's an unresolved idea, or discomforting concept, a little tension is good.

Finally, I try to save the 1 chord for the chorus. Using that limitation makes the hook more satisfying when it hits.

One more thing…

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Edstrom) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 04:29:00 +0000

Today turned out to be more productive than I thought. This evening I picked up a guitar, started thinking about the song I started this morning, and the next thing I knew—I had a verse and a chorus.

I will never understand the Muse.

Painful Progress

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Edstrom) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 21:43:00 +0000

The progress bar on my goal has crept up to 15% now. I actually got a song started the other day that I think might be good. It's funny how that works. I was going through a list of old titles I'd collected and ran across one that I've tried to write many times before. Each time it seemed just a little too . . . familiar, as if I'd heard that song before.

But this time I came up with a new angle, and angle is everything. That's why you hear songs on the radio sometimes and go, “this seems like such an obvious title. Why didn't I think of that?” It's because you didn't think up the angle.

All that said, I'm really struggling to write the song. I have an okay verse one. The melody I've got going is hooky. The chorus is serviceable but not great. But the concept is really cool. No worries, this will either make a great starter for a cowriting session, or I'll come back to it some day with new perspective and go, “Oh! I see what to do now.” At least I hope that's the case.

So this morning I was working on a new song; it was a bit of a battle. I didn't have a lot of enthusiasm, inspiration, or energy. (Maybe that's because it was before eight o'clock.) But I worked on it anyway, like a good songwriter should. The title is interesting, and something I haven't heard before. The angle is good, but for some reason I just didn't care about the concept.

It's AABA song, which is a nice change up for me. I got three verses and a bridge, and they're entirely filled with placeholder lyrics. So that means it doesn't count towards my total. If it did, I could just write song after song after song filled with placeholder lyrics. That would not be in the spirit of my goal.

Sometimes it's just not happening.

So while I get points for putting any effort, and spending the time on it, I don't get to add it to my total of songs for the year. The good news is that I can come back to this song when I am feeling it, and it will count. So all isn't lost.

Co-Writing With Artists

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Edstrom) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 00:47:00 +0000

Writing with performing artists is the best way to get songs out into the world. You skip all the normal gatekeepers, and if you do a good job, you help that artist express their point of view. Last year I worked on a number of songs with Nashville artist KatieBeth. She's an extremely talented singer and a passionate performer. I've worked with her across two different projects and it was a great learning process.

Here's what I learned about writing with performing artists.

1) The song must be about the artist's truth. I can write on all kinds of topics, but the artist needs to sing about what's important to them, what's relevant in his or her life. Sometimes an artist has a title or concept, and they don't even quite know exactly what it means. That's the intuitive part of the artist that makes them special. Their job is to access those emotions and project them into their listeners' lives.

The writing process is often exploratory. Through trying things out the artist refines his or her thinking. If successful, the song will represent that artist's truth. Digging out that kernel of truth may require a lot of conversation. Some of it has nothing to do with the topic. It's the artist talking about their life. Those writing sessions can bring up a lot of emotions. Get those emotions in the song and you've got magic.

2) The artist's voice must come through. I'm not talking about their singing voice, though that's an obvious consideration. What I'm talking about is language. The lyrics need to be something that artist might actually say. Sometimes it's a matter of word choice, sometimes it's phrasing. If it isn't in the singer's voice, it will sound false.

3) The artist is the customer. Nashville style writing has lots of conventions and craft rules that have to be learned and understood. I come to a writing session with that background. But the artist often doesn't give a crap about the rules. They just want a song that feels right to them. They have a whole life history of musical influences, much of which will be rock and pop. The trick is to know when you're writing straight down the middle radio hits, and when you're working on the blurry edges of genres. In the end, if the artist isn't happy with every word and every note, it's a failure.

4) Give the artist permission to hate it. I'll often keep writing on something once the co-writing session is over. I need time to digest the information and make sense of it. I'm kind of slow, in that regard. I'll usually play around with some ideas and then send the artist a guitar/vocal demo. I always make sure the artist knows it's okay to hate it. I can't be offended. Now, if I whiff too many times, it just might be better for me to not write that songs, cause I obviously don't get it. But that doesn't happen because I invite them to hate it. If they do, we change it. Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite.

5) Artists must know who they are. I've tried to write with artists who were good singers but who had not developed their identity as an artist. What happens then is you end up writing a very generic "nice" song that anybody could sing. It might be pleasant, even clever, but it won't help their career. You want an artist who walks in with clear ideas about who they are and what they stand for. That gives the writing session a framework, a point of view. My job is to put on that point of view, like an actor, and try to think from that perspective.

I Think I Might Be On to Something

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Edstrom) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 02:09:00 +0000

Stopped writing fiction for a while, picked up my guitar, and suddenly was in the midst of a new song. I love how that happens. One minute you've got a little germ of an idea and minutes later you've got a chorus starting to take shape.

This one is not junk. So that's even more exciting. Oh, the verse is crap, but it's just a placeholder anyway. With this one added to the list, I only need 11 more by the end of the month to be right on schedule for the year. That's doable. What I need to do is get ahead of the pace. I need to build in a buffer for the inevitable dry spells and interruptions to my flow.

Since I'll be home alone for a few days, I should be able to knock out some extras this week. Stay tuned.