Considered songwriting with They Might Be Giants

Grammy-winning They Might Be Giants’ John Flansburgh joined us to talk about songwriting from listening and intuitions. Download the lyrics to Outside Brain to follow along.

We talked about:

• Modal writing when you don’t know what modal writing is, and our Songwriting Challenge 2023: Write in a Mode
• Tension between conventions and breaking the rules
• Songwriting as a very plastic medium where the variations are endless
• Using terms like “gold dust” and “kicker” to identify elements or sections of songs 
• How learning the I-vi-IV-V became the key to start writing songs 
• How John and John typically bring completed songs to each other, but work at editing for a long time until it’s right
• Starting songwriting by failing at cover songs 
• John says, rhyming is overrated and bridges are overrated

They Might Be Giants treat the entire history of popular music as a trampoline rather than a rulebook.… Read the rest