"And You Are?"
I love writing songs. I love it so much I’d do it for free. And I have. SO MANY TIMES.
One of the last remaining avenues for songwriters to make real money is in “usage” or “placement.” It’s where they use/place your song in a show/film/ad, and it’s pretty much the best. In the olden days, allowing one of your songs to be commercialized thusly broke all the rules of punk/indie contrariness—god forbid you “sell out.”
Now? Where do we sign?
Recently I was approached (through my publishers) to write songs for possible inclusion in what promises to be a massive film, based on a very well known “intellectual property.” This chance of lifetime arrived on Christmas Eve eve accompanied by the to-be-expected Hollywood urgency; a scene was shooting very soon, and it needed a really specific song. So I wrote, starting that day, throughout the holiday, delivering multiple versions for them to choose from. In my totally objective view, each version was superior to the previous one, and they were all awesome.
Then throughout the first two months of the new year, I wrote multiple options for all the other songs they’d asked for. I got better as I went and by the time I came up for air, I’d gotten really damn good at writing this specific type of song. I wish I could tell you what it was for but… NDA, baby. Suffice to say, these songs are hilarious and perfect and definitely getting chosen for the project.
But, yeah, not so much, because… crickets. But that’s fine. I’d known all along that it was a long shot. But you miss every shot you don’t take. I gave it my best. But whatever. By the time I got official word that none of my songs would be used, I’d known in my gut that was the case for a while. All those hours, all those songs, all for nothing.
But, BUT, that’s not always the case. Sometimes the long shot pans out, like when James Gunn asked me to write a song with him for Guardians of the Galaxy. That panned out in a big way. I wrote seven versions of “I Don’t Know What Christmas Is” with James before one was deemed acceptable by Disney. Someday those other versions will see the light of day—sample lyric from early, much darker alternate: “Up on the housetop reindeer claws, peel the bad kids’ faces off.” I mean, that’s got Disney holiday special written all over it!
Years ago, Don Was asked me to create a song for a Vince Vaughn/Joey Lauren Adams rom-com called A Cool Dry Place, and I wrote the song “Jagged.” I sent him a rough acoustic demo. He liked it, but the next thing I knew, that lo-fi recording of “Jagged” had migrated to the opening scene of the Sandra Bullock/Harry Connick rom-com Hope Floats. You can just barely hear it. The usage felt insignificant enough that I had no qualms about recording a proper version with the 97’s to open our album Fight Songs.
Here’s that Hope Floats placement, recorded via my iPhone and home television as I streamed it on Hulu, because I couldn’t figure out a more advanced way to share it with you:
What’s that you say? You can’t hear my lo-fi demo of “Jagged” playing in there? Trust me, it is. I’ve got twenty-five years worth of $1.07 residual checks to prove it. (Also, Sandy’s got a pretty solid “doing a pilot” joke in there).
But the vast majority of these songs written “on-demand” never find a home. They weren’t “commissioned,” that would imply payment. Nor were they “for-hire,” because, ditto. And I’ve learned not to get too excited about the slim chance that each of these agonized-over compositions represent. But they continue to exist, unused, unheard, and unloved except by yours truly.
I would like to share one of these songs with you, thereby unburdening myself of at least one of these orphaned babies. This one’s name is “And You Are?” [After the paywall. That’s called incentive.]