At the beginning of my career, I had a song go on hold for a female country music star whose singles regularly went to #1. The head of her record label said my song was a “must-cut” situation, and I was faced with a daunting decision: should I buy a… Read more...
To grab our listeners’ attention we need to separate our songs from the competition, and one way to accomplish this is by including an unexpected twist—an element of surprise. This article examines various ways to incorporate twists into lyrics and melodies. Story Songs With Surprise Endings “Ol’ Red” (written by… Read more...
BMI is proud to announce its support for the 12th Annual ‘Songs of Hope’ event on September 15 in Los Angeles, a special star-studded evening of music benefiting City of Hope, an independent biomedical research institution and cancer treatment center. This year’s iteration will feature storied recorded executive, producer and… Read more...
While Dave Stewart’s is a success story most aspiring songwriters dream of replicating, it wasn’t all easy. In his recently published memoir Sweet Dreams Are Made of This: A Life in Music – which is receiving critical acclaim from New York Daily News, Boston Globe and… Read more...
Prolific BMI songwriter, artist and humanitarian Dave Stewart has contributed the tender, thought-provoking song “Man to Man (Woman to Woman)” to the Music That Changes the World compilation, currently being re-launched by Transcendental Music to benefit the David Lynch Foundation. The robust collection features other BMI… Read more...
In the eight years that Joss Stone has been in the international spotlight, you’d have to believe she’s fielded questions on just about every topic under the sun at least twice. And yet she sounds pleasantly surprised to find her songwriting the focus of an interview: “Oh, cool! That’s really… Read more...
More than a year after the U.S. release of Slumdog Millionaire, Indian composer A.R. Rahman is still riding high atop the wave of praise and anticipation generated by his stunning soundtrack for the film. A Golden Globe and two Oscars resoundingly confirmed his place as an auteur’s ideal musical counterpart,… Read more...
Whoever insisted that you can’t do it all, obviously never met Dave Stewart. Best known as one-half of the hit-making duo Eurythmics with singer Annie Lennox, he is a songwriter, guitarist and producer for some of contemporary music’s top acts whose output also includes everything from a musical to film… Read more...
