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