Diane Warren: Songwriter Extraordinaire

00:00:15 Speaker 1: Pushkin. If you've sung along to a power ballad in the last thirty years, chancers are, you're already intimately familiar with Diane Warren's songs. Some of her biggest hits include shares, if I Could Turn Back Time, Selene Dion's Because You Loved Me, and Aerosmith's I Don't want to miss at You, like your mayor stool, like the handicuffs, you go the fool, and I'm no wage shit, I'm nowhere. Over the span of her thirty five year career, Diane Warren has penned hits for hip hop, country, R and B an adult contemporary artists. In late August, she finally released her own alley, The Caves Sessions Volume one, where she wrote songs for artists like Tydalla Sign, Darius Rucker, and John Legends. The genre spanning project is modeled after DJ compilation Aalogus and brilliantly shows off Warren's incredible range as a writer. On today's episode, Rick Rubin talks to Diane Warren about how she decided to become a songwriter when she was just eleven years old, and how her parents built a shed in their backyard where she could work out her early arrangements. Warren also talks about her one and only music teacher, who told her dad she had no future in music, and why she feels she has yet to write her best work. This is broken record liner notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Richmonds. Here's Rick Rubin and Diane Warren and to see you same great to see you. It's been it has been I don't know how many years, but it feels like it's been a long time, really a really long time. I'm trying to think when the last time I saw you was. I can't remember. I can't remember I did last week. So I remember visiting you in Malibu, and I feel like that's like ten years ago. Probably. I remember coming your studio. I remember being in the studio when you played me a Wheezer's version of Unbreak My Heart, which was odd fucking awesome, which I loved to this day. I love it. I love just people flipping my songs. Yeah, I think that's one of my favorites of your songs. I just love that song. It's a it's a really special song. Thank you. Tell me how that one got written. It started with the title Don't Break My heart. It was a weird title. I'd never heard it before, you know, and I can't remember the magic of that song. No no no non this signe me break. I went from B minor to D minor. It was like, when I came up with that, I was like, oh, fuck, that's fucking that's the part. That's the part where it gets you. It hits you immediately. It's like it's an emotional change. Yeah. Yeah, it's weird. You know, it doesn't make any sense. But you know that's because I you know, I didn't really study music, so I didn't know, you know, when something's fucked up and wrong. So I probably do a lot of fucked up wrong things that are cool. When did you start writing songs? How old were you? I was eleven, But when I was when I was fourteen, I became like obsessed where it was all I lived for. I would study Billboard. I mean, I was a shitty student. I got kicked out of, you know a couple of schools, and I fucking hated school. But when I really got into writing, you know, I made my dad get me a subscription of Billboard. I studied it like that was college to me. I studied to see who wrote every song and who produced songs, and I didn't really care who sang them, you know, as much. I was interested in all the behind the scenes stuff going on, but I was just obsessed, obsessed with writing. And that was on was fourteen. So I'm the same way now. I just go, you know, I you know, I say I'm in a nicer play to write, but I'm not. I mean, my room is disgusting right where I mainly work. You know, it's really messy and dirty and stuff. So at the time, you know, as a kid, my dad got me a shed in the back of the house because my parents couldn't stand listening to me playing the same song over and over. That's why I do when i'm writing, I'm just kind of playing it over and over and getting it right. So I would go in that. I'd be in that shed in the backyard, you know, this like metal kind of shed thing and just writing and if it was cold, eye a little heater there. I've just been like this and I'm the same way now. I just I just I do the same thing. I'm still as obsessed. I think hopefully I'm better and I keep learning. I think I'm really writing my best songs right now? You know that I've ever written from the time you're fourteen, Did you know you wanted to be a songwriter and that's what you wanted to do with your life or did you think you'd have a real job and you would write songs too, a real job? What no I knew when I was I knew I was eight years old. It's what I wanted to do, you know, And there was no plan B. Plan B is you know, being a bag lady and you know, living on the street or somethings. I literally do not know how to do anything else. I don't I don't know to do anything else. I'm utterly useless at everything except this. Where do you think the idea came from to do it? What did you see that at least made you want to do this? Well? I always loved music, and i've you know, I've always just been immersed in it. You know, I have older sisters, so I always heard music. My mom and dad had like, you know, all the all the great show tunes, you know, Man and La Mansha, all those, you know, My fair Lady, and then my sisters had all the pop music of the day. And when I grew up radio played everything, so I just got fed this diet of just great music and I but anyways, I remember looking on a single on a forty five Kids when They're there used to be forty fives back in the old days, and it was a forty five of up on the Roof, and I saw a goffin King and I loved that song, and I thought to myself, and I remember, I still remember looking at it and going, I want to be in those parentheses. I want to be that. I don't want to be the singer, I don't want to do any of that, but I want to be in the parentheses a kid when I thought that, so, how the fuck did I know that? So cool? That's a great album title for your next album. In the parentheses would be a great name. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's amazing that you knew so early and you dedicated yourself to it and it worked and it's one of them billion. But it's the passion that you put in that makes it what it is. It's like you're meant, you were clearly meant to do this. It's interesting. Yeah. And then there's all these you know things that these pinched me moments like like I was the biggest Beatles fan, Like my older one of my sisters took me to see the Beatles twice, you know, when I was like a little kid, like six or seven or something, and I just had Paul McCartney and Ringo Star on my song Here's to the Nights. In the video, they're singing my song and with a bunch of other great artists as well, like Lenny Kravitz and Cheryl Crowe and Chris Stapleton, you know a lot of other artists on there, but the you know, the main part of that song is Paul McCartney and Ringo Star. And I'm like, I still like, if I think about it, it kind of blows me away. Did you take piano lessons as a kid? No, I didn't take any. Okay, So I'm gonna tell you the one time I took music lessons, my dad brought me a little guitar from Tijuana. He took me to a guitar teacher in the valley. So the guart teacher wanted me to learn scales and I didn't. So the second time, I just wanted to make up my own songs. I mean, fox learning scales so I came back the next week to take my second lesson, and the guy said, mister Warren, you shouldn't bring your daughter back. She has no future in music. So that was that was, That was my music lessons. You know. I taught myself to chords. I taught myself. I taught myself to play the piano. Someone once told me that the piano is the songwriter's instrument. So when I was eighteen, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna learn enough to you know, I'm not a good piano player. I'm not even a good guitar player, right right. I can get around. I know chords. You know. I took one theory class in school that you know, beginning theory, but I don't I didn't really pay attention to it, but maybe some of it seeped in. But again, I'm not. I'm not a schooled musician, which is good because if you're, if you if you have too much music education, you'll go like, well that you can't do that, that's not the right, that doesn't you know? Well fuck that. I don't even know what's right or wrong. I just go by what I feel. What's your rhythm of writing? Do you write every day every day. It's funny with t shirt you chose to wear fuck off, I'm writing, Yeah, that's kind of my favorite shirt. I thought it was appropriate since I'm since we're talking today that I should wear that. My rhythm and my first hit being rhythm in the night, So rhythm is a good word. You know. I just show up, you know, I go to work every day. I go get my coffee and go to my office and either starting something new or working on what I'm working on. How did the first one happen? How did the DeBarge song happen? I was signed to a guy named Jack White, who not not the White stripes Jack White. I'm a German producer and through Jack, I was signed to arist To Publishing and ministered him. So someone over there named Linda Blum actually told me about that this movie on the Last Dragon, and I did the song for it. I've done a lot of movie songs. I still That's what I do a lot of. So my first big hit was from a movie Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon and to Bars did the song and its the first time that I had to you know, hit words and music you know by me. I wouldn't have guessed that you wrote that. I didn't. I didn't know that you wrote that song until until recently. Again, you write all kinds of songs, yeah, I do, but that's not one that I would have imagined you wrote. And it really made me happy to see that you wrote it. I love I love that you wrote it. I probably wrote a bunch of songs you didn't know I wrote. You probably didn't know I wrote Blame it on the Rain, Yeah I didn't. It's so cool. Yeah, let's say you were to sit down now to write a song, just start the process for me. I mean, I don't know. I don't know how to do that in front of somebody, Like I mean, I play some chords, I don't know. I might have a drum going on a programmed to drum pattern or something, or I might start playing something. What's going to come from that? Who knows? And when you play, are you listening to what you're You're playing and listening, and then based on what you hear, you make decisions to change things or do something different, or to go somewhere else. I'm not even conscious of it. It's it's such a weird, like that's why it's hard to like, you know, people are going, well, what's your process? I mean, I have no fucking clue, you know, I'm just I'm just in the moment. I'm just going with it. And and concepts kind of pop up, these crazy concepts like I just started something. I'm not gonna play you because I don't know how much of it. But I was like, the fucking coolest concept, Like you know that no one's done this, you know, so it's kind of fun, you know, whether it's on break my Heart or whether it's you know, something else I'm coming up with. You know, it's just kind of finding something that maybe hasn't been said that way, or some notes that excite me. And I don't know, have you always programmed a beat first and then played to the beat or not necessarily? No, Sometimes I don't any I'm just sitting at the guitar or my keyboards. You know. I love big string sounds, you know too, I love that that so, you know, yesterday I was trying I was kind of trying to the song was working on. I was kind of playing in my hand on the drum machine, was and trying to play the bass on the on my left hand. It was kind of funny and horrible sounding, but the song I think would be good, So you know just how I however, way I do it? Do you typically get the melody before the lyrics and then you fill in the lyrics. Yeah, I mean the really good ones kind of come together in a weird way, but then the rest of the song I have to fill in, like like what's you know, the first verse might have come easy, and then you know where am I going to go in the second verse? And I remember going near the bridge until I have every part of the song written, because I have no idea what the bridge wants to take me, even musically. Would you not know the bridge until the rest of this written? Yeah, unless I might have had something that that I didn't use in the in the verse that like something I did a few weeks It was like that where it's this part didn't work in the verse, but I was like, I made a mental note to myself, there's there's your bridge. Yeah. Do you ever start the process with an artist in mind, I'm going to write a song for share or do you just write a song? I try just to write a song, you know, like, um, yeah, I just I just try to write a great song. I don't want to have any preconceived notions, like if I write it for with one person in mind, that's going to only be for that one person. And if they don't do the song, you know, then what you do? You know, So, if you write a great song, you know it can go a million different ways and to a lot of different people. You know, when I'm writing something, I go, oh, that's really great for so and so or so and so. But I don't sit down to write a song for somebody. You know, I'm the only time I stand to write a song for something in particular as a movie. Yeah, Typically, if it takes a week to write a song, has there ever been a case where a song has come really quick or where a song that you've had to fight with for a really long time, Has it ever happened nothing I've had to fight with for a really long time. A couple of them have come quick. I could think of two songs that came really quick, you know. Two of my favorites too. One is Until It Happens to You, done by Lady Gaga. That song just wrote itself. The other one is a song that called when I'm back on my feeding in it. Michael Bolton did that to this day is one of my favorite Both those songs are two of my favorite songs. When they come quickly like that, when do you start thinking about who could record it? During the process? You know, while I'm writing it, I think I like different artists I could do the song. I'm not above calling people you know, you know me? Yes. How often does it happen when you finish a song and you think, wow, this is really great? It's been happening a lot lately, amazing. Like I'm like, I'm like wow. Used to be where I felt like I'd write one of those songs every now, like in a bunch of songs and one of those And now I'm feeling like with a lot of what I'm doing right now a great feeling. Yeah it is. I feel like I'm learning and just getting better. I'm just hungry to learn and hungry to write, and you know, hungry to succeed. Yeah. How would you describe what makes a song great? It's hard to describe it. You feel it, right. A great melody, I mean, you have to have a great melody, and to me, you have to have a great lyric too, and you have to have the marriage of the two. What do you think makes a great song. I think it's the feeling. I think it's the way it makes you feel. I don't think there's any technical way to describe it, right, but that is what's making you feel something when it's that perfect combination. Yeah, the example you gave when you played Unbreak the piece of Unbreak my Heart with that change. To me, those moments are what makes a song great, like an unexpected change that the fact that it's unexpected makes you listen closer, you know, like it catches your ear, it makes you pay attention. Yeah. But often things that catch your ear and make you pay attention or things you don't like so for be something. It's like a fine line when something can be challenging enough to be interesting and still you want to listen to it again instead of never hear it again. Yeah, I prefer I prefer the other way. I prefer it the good way. We'll be right back with more from Diane Warren after a quick break. We're back with Rick Rubin and Diane Warren after the DeBarge song. What was the next song that somebody recorded of yours? I think nothing's going to stop us now, or I Get Weak? I can't remember. There's a bunch of them. Then nothing's gonna stop us now. It was from Mannequin, and that's kind of become a classic. I did that with my friend Albert Hammond, and then you know, a bunch of other ones. At that time, I'm just trying to think a big hit with heart. Who will you Run to? Blenda Carlile I Get Weak, which is still one of my favorite songs I've ever done. You know, the doors started opening, you know, the doors that are closed as you know, you know, you know, when it became easier, you have a little success, and and all of a sudden, you know, it's it's the people that didn't like that song. Oh I really like that song now, you know that shit goes, you know, but it's just like it's natural. Describe what the record business was like when you entered it versus the record business of today and all the changes it's gone through. Just describe your experience of seeing it change. Okay, Well, one thing stays constant, and that's a great song. So what I do stays the same, Right, I still have to write a great song. The negative difference to me is it's so data driven. Now. To me, the data that matters is if it makes the hair on your arms stand up and it makes you your heart feel something and you just go, fuck, what is that right? As opposed to your TikTok numbers and all the all the algorithms. Algorithm of the night. I'll rewrite it, the algorithm of the night. I was talking to an artist and he's really good and he just put his album out and I gave him a song. So it's like last year and one of his managers works for a major come any you know, he's on an independent label, and I go, why doesn't your manager sign you? And he goes, my TikTok numbers aren't high enough. I'm like, fuck, like you know, and you think you think that like the greatest artists, you know, with the Beatles, you know, if their TikTok numbers weren't high Wood Prince get signed today? Would to me some of these some of that I find I find sad because it's really all about, like we were talking about what a song makes you feel, not about your numbers, because you know what, some records and artists might take longer. But I don't know if a label will stay with you for that to happen. And to me, that's sad, don't you think, don't you think? Absolutely? And some of the biggest artists in the world didn't break to their you know, to their third album. Yeah. And in today's the world, if you know, if now it's a first single, yeah, you don't even get to your second forget your second album. You don't get to your second single. Yeah. It takes time to develop. It's sad. That's sad, and I feel bad for artists, and then they kind of have to do all the work even before a label is you know, interested. But for me, it's it's the same thing. I have to write a song somebody wants to sing. So that hasn't changed at all. What's the feeling when you hear a great singer sing your song for the first time? What's how? Does it? Nothing better? I mean nothing better? You know. I'm sitting here writing a song and I'm singing it and I sound like shit, you know, And then look, I have one song. I'm gonna give you an example, and I got to hear two great singers on it. I wrote a song called I Was Here that Beyonce sang really one of my favorite songs, and then last year Dame Shirley Bassi recorded it. It was like, fuck, it's like so cool, you know, the original James Bond. Dame Shirley Bassi just did my song. Both song amazingly, you know, but so different, Like Beyonce is singing it fucking amazing, but you know she's talking about you know, I was here, I lived, I Love. She's almost looking ahead and then Shirley Bassis behind in a way like everything she's done. And it's so it's such a different reading of the song and both are just genius. I think it's an incredible thing when the song's context changes based on the person singing it. Oh yeah. Well. Another another example was when I did how Do I Live? And it was out with Leon Rhymes and Trisha Earwood and Leon Rhymes was fourteen and then Shushia Earwood was older, and so it meant something different like you're fourteen years old, how do I Live without you? And both versions were great. One was you know, kind of innocent and one was lived in you know, and they both were fantastic. I love to see my songs get other lives. And get reinterpreted, you know, and I really love I love to go on on YouTube and listen to all the covers. Yeah, and there's some fucking cool ones I heard. I did the song stand up for something that common and Andrew Day sings would common. It's kind of become like this protest anthem, you know, since it was written for this movie. Marshall and I went online just to see if there was any cool covers and it's like these little kids, girl is probably eight years old, you know, singing from her heart and singing the shit out of it, and a little kid rapper doing Commons rap, and that just made me so happy, like that that song got through it right. It's like the coolest thing in the world. Have the way that people have reinterpreted your songs. Like you, you write the song, you give a demo to the artist, or you given demo to the producer, and then they make the record. How often is it very aligned with the demo and how often does it really stray from the demo as far as the production goes. Usually it's it's pretty close or someone flips it, which I love. You know. Here's the thing, it's my song, but it's it's your record, so I know that, and that's cool with me because I mean, you know, you want people to respect the song, and you know, I work really hard on them, but sometimes it'll someone will flip something. I remember I had a song called I Could Not ask for More that Edwin McCain did, and I remember matts letta who's a great producer, produced it. I heard it, I'm like, this fucking sucks it like you sped it up like fifteen you know, beats. You know, it's this ballad and I just I hate it when I first heard it, And then the more I heard it, I was like, this is fucking brilliant. What he did. He like he flipped my song and made it better, you know. And then it became a hit by two artists. It became a hit with Edwin McCain and then Sarah Evans had like a number one country record with it too, with that arrangement. So you know, I'm all four people flipping my songs. You know. I just wrote something recently that kind of was just doing this afrobeat kind of thing, and then one of my producers played for me, and it's I had to listen to it a couple of times, you know, but it's fucking great. He kind of flipped it and flipped it on its head a bit. But after someone's it takes me listening a few times to hear past what's in my head, because what's what's in someone else's head might be better. Would you say most of your songs are love songs? You know, a lot of them are, But then you know, but then my songs about other things too. You know, I was here, it's an a love song. Stand up for something's not a love song until it happens you is not a love song, you know. I've I've trying to think on my album, there's a lot of love songs. But then then there's times like this, the Darius Rocker song. In times like this, we could all use an angel. How did this new album come about? Because in the past we've talked about a different kind of album that I thought you were going to make. Well, you never know, you never know about that one, okay, because that's what I thought. When I heard you you have an album coming out. I assumed it was that, and it's and it turned into this and tell me that, tell me how it happened. Yeah, it's it's it's me being DJ Diane. You know what is is. You know, I saw a lot of these DJ producers, the Mark Ronson's of the World or you know, Calvin Harraz, David Getta. You know, they all curate records of different artists. I thought, and I have this song that John Legend did, so it kind of happened the same time. I just don't call it where Is Your Heart? I think it's the best thing he's ever done. He probably doesn't because he didn't write it. It's one of my best songs and performances that I've ever heard on any song online. And he kept saying he was going to use the song, and I kept giving it to other artists and having to pull it because he wanted it, and then he didn't want it. In my mind, I was like, I'm determined to get this song heard right and then I know no one can sing it like him, but whatever. I don't know if he's ever gonna put on his record. But at the same time, I'm thinking that this idea is percolating in my mind. Like you know, I do so many different I'm in all genres of music. Most songwriters are in one genre, whether it's hip hop, country or Latin or rock. And I've always been in all genres. I've always worked with every artist there is, you know, the classical, crossover artists, everything. And it got me thinking, you know, why can't I do that? Why can't I curate a record and let me just do all kinds of songs. Let me just let me do songs like Sweet with Pentatonics and John Batiste and Domino with LP and and give Selene Dion a really totally different song, you know, super Superwoman, and then give a hip hop country song to ty Dolla sign And then why can't I put gez In Santana on a song She's fired? You know, so it's it's all over the place, or Louise Fonzie or there's so much variety on this album. And usually, like when the DJ producers do something like that, they're getting tons of writers. And by the way, every song now, as you know, has like ten writers on it. Well mine has one or more, you know. Or I'm like I'm going like, what do you guys? So what do you guys do? You got the coffee, the high hat pattern and the bridge? What the fuck got you a writing credit on that. But you know, I didn't write the Spanish lyrics on this, so I do have people that did that. Um, and I didn't write clearly, I didn't write g Easy's rap, so that's that's all that's his. But you know these songs are all written solely by me. And you hear a song like sweet and You and you go, how did that same person write Where's Your Heart by John Legend and how to Like? But that was what I went in, you know, wanting to do. I kind of wanted to go, like, just show what I do. And I have so many songs I have. I already have like part of Volume two because I kept changing it, because I kept writing new songs. My favorite song on the record to Sea Side tell Me about Oh thank You? You know, I just you know, um, obvious season. It's not the sun drinking amtobn Zogan of the sun Sunlight. It was just a happy song, you know. I just, um, I can't, I don't know. I don't know what happen. I just kind of was. I had this drum beat I just had on my on my drum machine. I started playing chords to it, and the song that's the chorus just came to me, you know, and it's just such a happy, uplifting song. And it was like right before the pandemic, you know, but it just kind of makes you happy, right like you could close your eyes and just be trans you know. The best songs to me are the ones that transport you, you know, and they and and that song you can close your eyes and if you can't get to the sea side, you know, that song kind of brings the sea side to you. When you're writing that chorus, do you have a picture in mind? Yeah, I was. I love the beach. I love the tropics, you know, so I love that I kind of took me there and it just it just made me feel It made me feel really good, you know. And and I love the melody in it and the verses kind of you know, you can live your life stuck in a traffic light. You know. It's just kind of cool. But you know, would I'll be seaside sitting in the sand, drinking a my tie. I just wish it said, sipping a my tie, sitting on the sand, sip in a my tie. In hindsight, but drinking a my tie is colt that happened often where you'll hear a song or think about a song and think about, oh, I could have done it this way or a different either a different line. Well not usually that one. Drinking my tie is fine too, but sometimes I hear it I thought I kind of thought that I wrote it that way, and I hear I go, oh, no, I didn't, you know. But it's a fun song and and and having the Spanish in it. I love that as well. Are there any of the songs that you that you're surprised were successful in my life? Yeah? Like like you thought the song would any particular undry think, oh, that one's a good one. But it you know, I don't know that it wins these awards, but it does. Like have you had that experience where one just like outperforms your expectation. I'm more like the opposite. Whenever anything works, I'm shocked, to be honest with you, Like, there's so many it's so like, there's so many things that could go wrong, as you know, like you probably made great records, your best records. You go, what the fuck happened? Yeah? And I've done that. No, I mean I remember I did a song with the Cult called Painted on My heart that like that should have been as big as I don't want to miss a thing to me. You know, the Cult did it and was for this movie Gone in sixty seconds. But I have a bunch of those you know that that didn't work, and you go, why didn't that work? So when they work, it's like you just go, that's fucking awesome. How how did that happen? You know it is. It's one of the things that's interesting about the process is there are so many things that have to go right, yeah that aren't and you can break through. Yeah, even even honestly writing it isn't totally in our control because the ideas don't always come, you know, like the best the best ideas don't always come. Yeah, but when they do, when they do, and you could have the best our control. Yeah, it's just like you know, who knows what's going to happen. Just I just I want to keep creating great songs. And by the way, know my best songs aren't even heard yet. That have so many great songs, Yeah, I'm always writing them. So it's always great when you know when they happen or or even if they're not the biggest hit, you know, like maybe Here's to the Night Nights, the song did with Ringo Garney on there that wasn't technically a hit, but I think it's a perennial song that'll be around forever. And I think that there's nothing cooler that's cooler than having a number one record. To me, we're going to take a quick break and then we'll be back with more from Diane Warren. Here's the rest of Rick Rubins conversation with Diane Warren. Have you had any songs that when they came out didn't perform well but then found a second life in a different way and turned into a hit. Oh yeah, I do one of them. Well, it's kind of funny. I did a song called Don't turn Around, and it was after Tina Turner's first album, her big comeback out them with What's Love Got to Do with It? And she was in her second album and I did a song called Don't turn Around and Bryan Adams produced it, and it was fucking awesome. It just sounded like a hit, and I remember her manager going, well, you know it's not going to be on her album. It's like so bummed out. I just remember, like I stole to this day, remember how bombed out I was. And but they put it on a song on the B side of Typical Male of a song of Tina's. Somehow luther Ingram, who did if Loving You is wrong, I don't want to be right, somehow he heard the song recorded it, and you know, it went to like, you know, number eighty on the R and B chart, you know, and then the song has a crazy life. Then somehow this group called Aswa, a reggae group out of the UK, heard luther Ingram's version and they did a reggae version and it became a number one record all over Europe and in England. And then along the way, all these other people recorded, like Bonnie Tyler and Neil Diamond and all these like people started ring the song. And then I'm Clive Davis heard the reggae version and gave it to Asa Bass and it did become a hit. And here's the irony, here's the total irony, and that I haven't seen the Tina Turner musical yet, but in the Tina Turner musical, one of the big show stopping moments is Tina singing that song. So it kind of came full circle. So yeah, like songs can have a million other lives. I don't give up on a song because it wasn't a hit for somebody. Yeah, it's it's fascinating how they can take on life for their own. It's amazing to watch, and it's like a living thing, right it is, and it is all out of our control, and you never know why they come around. It's almost like the way that it works is how it's meant to be. You know. It's sometimes because it had the first version of it been a hit, maybe all those covers wouldn't happen. Yeah, exactly. I mean I had Neil Diamond cover a song of mine that was cool, you know, and then it became a hit, and then it went full circle back to Tina Turner's musical. So to me, a great song is timeless and genre less. At what point is it the most fun of all the stuff you do? Is it most fun to start a new one? Okay? It's both. The funnest thing that I love is coming up with something great. Some moms, I'll have a hit of a joint and I'm working on something and I think it's really great. Like God, I hope when I come back and I'm not high, it still sounds good. No, But but it's that feeling of coming up with something that is my favorite thing. How often when you come back, is it different than you thought it was? I know, I usually know that day it's that thing. It's that what's what it makes you feel? But just a cool like just saying something in a different way that just gets you so excited, or this melody or the combination, or that you come up with something that there's only so many notes and stuff, but yet you can find a million ways to make them work. And I love. That's my favorite thing, is to come up with something and finishing it is great, but coming up with something is better, you know. And then I put up a lot of time into these songs, I really do. I'll sit and I'll work all day long. Two lines, the last two lines of the bridge, like fuck. Everything else is easy, but those two lines have taken me all day or maybe till the next day, you know. But then you know, I'll listen to a song I might have written, you know, a few months ago or a year ago. Whatever. If I have a meeting with an artist and I'll listen, I'll go I'm so glad. I stayed with that song, and I didn't. Because I'm listening like with fresh ears, I'm like, yeah, I'm glad I did that. I'm glad I took those two days or whatever it took to get that right, because it stands up. Do you ever leave a song unfinished or never? You always finish? And I finished everything I'm writing at the time, but I have some starts that I should get to and start might just be like a cool chord change or like the beginning of something. How how small would an idea be that's worth worth coming back to. It's usually a chorus, it's usually a hook. I move on to something else and I go, come, what about that? I should go back to that, and I will I will. I have some really good songs that I'll finished, but I'm always coming u the new ones. It's like my album. I kept like, you know, I kept coming up with new songs. I'm like, well, I want to do this one. You know. My album was done, and my dentist his friends with someone in Pentatonics. My album is done and he goes, you need to, you know, meet the Pentatonics people, and go, oh, I'd just written this song called sweet it's kind of like it's all my albums called kind of motowny and so I met them and my album is really done. I'm like, I want them to do sweet. And then I ran into John Battiste at the Oscars earlier this year where I lost for my twelfth time, and it's okay, I'm in the game and I fucking love it. Yea, and John Battiste won, you know, for on his first nomination for Soul and when I when I met him, I was like, oh, what if I put together John and and Pentatonics, I could be so totally cool because John's whole vibe is this positivity. He's like so upbeat. I wrote the song that's when I was nominated for this year. It's called c Yeah. Laura Puzzini sang it. Can you play a little bit of the of the song, the one I wrote for the movie? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, but can you just play a little now so we can hear it? M I want you to know know that you see because I see who you sorry, and I see too who you I can't see it, who can from me? I want you to know that you see when you think then no one understands you. Oh, oh, well, it's a beautiful song. I can't see it. It sounds so good. Yeah, listen to it. It's called well in Italian, it's called eoc scene and Laura Pazzini sings it, so's it's beautiful in Italian. You've had a couple of other songs that have been translated into Italian. How does that experience work? I love it. I love when my songs are in different languages and everything sounds better in Italian and Spanish. Yeah, it just does. They're both such beautiful, romantic languages. That's why I really on my album I wanted. I definitely wanted Spanish. When you write a song for a movie, do they tell you the story? Do they give you the script? Like? How much do you like to know before writing a song for a movie. Oh? I like to know everything. Ideally I could see a rough film, like like this year, I did a song. I did but a few songs, but I did. One of the ones I'm really excited about is a song called Somehow You Do that Reba McEntire sings, and it's from a movie called Four Good Days Glenn Close and Mulakunas about a drug addic daughter and her and her mom, and it's a really powerful movie. But I saw I saw a rough of that, and I wanted to write a song, a really hopeful song, you know, at the end of that movie. And I got Reba can Tied to sing my song, which is really cool too. She's so great, which she puts into it, and that song in that movie it means one thing, but outside of the movie, because it's about like going through tough times, you know, and if you look at the comments on the video, it's a lot about depression, a lot of hardships the people that you're going through. So I try to keep the song open as well to fit the movie. That's that's the most important thing. But it has to live outside of the movie as well, and then people could become whatever anybody wants it to be. But back to your question, Ideally, if if I watch a movie or read a script, but I have to see, I have to feel what that is, and then it's a subconscious thing, and it's if I'm doing an end song, like I did something I'm so excited about. I'm not going to talk rauts for next year that I read the script and it just was so powerful and It took me a couple of days to figure out what I wanted to say there, because it was had to speak for the character and it's an actual person, so it had to really be powerful and shok me a couple days. But when I got it and I sat at the keyboard and I started crying, I knew that it was wow, that I knew it was right, Yeah, beautiful. Do you ever hear something that you wrote a long time ago and have a new understanding of what it means later? Not really. I don't go back and listen to my old songs, but if I did, I probably would. I'm so forward motion and how I am like I don't usually look back, like my rear view mirror is just cracked. But you're still. Your songs are so in the culture that you come up. Your songs come up. If you live life, we get to hear your songs in life, you know, without the same for me, like I don't, I don't. I don't listen back to my music, but it's not unusual for me for me to be somewhere and hear one of my old songs. Yeah, And how amazing is it that you the work you did, You've done, but you're thinking of different things now, right, you've already moved past that. But when you stop and think about it, it is mind blowing the effect what you do or what I do has on people. It's it's it's it's just like when when we grew up, think about how that was for us. Well, that's what you're doing or what I'm doing could be for them, and it's still it has the same effect on us. I mean, I know when I hear a song. Sometimes I'll hear a song and I don't remember if I hear something I like, I can't tell whether I worked on it or not. Yeah, because they fall into the same category of something that I've listened to so much. Right, either I was in the room or I wasn't right right, but the same I've heard it, you know, ten thousand times, so I may have been there, you know. I to think about have to try to picture the room and see if I was there. Sometimes it really feels familiar. It's like, wow, where did we record this? Like oh wait, I had nothing to do with this one. You could be somewhere and you hear something you go like it happens to me, Like I was getting coffee BC before COVID and I heard something. I go, what is that? Oh, that happened to me recently too, And it was just the most random thing. And they were my songs that happened to me at a restaurant like last month, my friend. Yeah. And it was so weird because I was about to send one of the songs. I forgot that someone even did it, and I was about to send it to another artist, you know, like I'm glad I didn't because they would have wanted They probably it was in the same genre, muse, they probably wouldn't wanted to do it. Another song comes on right after, and it was this obscure song I did on in sync. I was like, wait, that sounds familiar. Oh shit, that's my song. And I was wondering if if someone in the restaurant knew that I was there or something, because it was kind of obscure songs. Yeah, but I forgot that that was mine. And then I just she zam it, Yeah, it's happened to me too. She zam songs like oh wow, yeah, completely forget. It's just has to do in both of our cases. With the volume even we make, we work on a lot of music and it comes in and it goes out. Yeah, exactly, and it's on in the next and not there doesn't mean a lot to us, because it does, you know, my songs yet to me. But I'm like, I'm I'm what I'm excited about was the next song and what I'm working on now? And yeah, anything else from just from your love of music that you want to talk about, I don't think I kind of covered I just I just love doing this. I love writing songs. I feel like I've almost like never had a hit, you know, So it's all it's all it's that hunger and that that love of it that means everything. Yeah, it's no different. It's nice when their hits at the same time when we but we when we get to make them. The minute that it's done, it's a great feeling of like, wow, we got to make this beautiful thing. Yeah, it's the coolest feeling in the world. You just want the world to hear them, absolutely cool. Well, I hope that there's a way for the world to hear all of the songs that you have that are that you've never put out and that have not yet come out, and that'd be a fun thing to think about is how to make that happen because they all they all need to be hear. Yeah, yeah for sure on this album. You know, there's so many good songs on this album too that I hope that we get singles rights to the John Legend song because that's just such a great song. Yeah. I like the Domino song too. I think, Yeah, is that a cool song that's like the that's so unlike. That's one that's like people are like you wrote that. It's so different. It's like a spaghetti western weird song. And and I love LP's voice on it, and it's just it's so weird. But I think that's like a big song on there. That's a lot of people's favorite song. It's really catchy. It's just super catchy. And I like the fact that it's not like other songs, you know, it's a particular thing. It's it's really good. Thank you. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I have things that people don't even know that I have, you know too, and that's that's one of them. I'm glad it got a chance to get heard, and I hope it's a big hen that's true. We see you soon. Okay, great to see you. I hope to see you in person soon. Same thanks to Diane Warren for sharing her songwriting process with great. You can check out a playlist of our favorite Diane Warren Penn songs plus her new album at broken Record podcast dot com. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast. We can find all of our new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced with helpful Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from Nick Chafee. Our executive producer is Mila Bell. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider becoming a Pushnick. Pushnick is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and uninterrupted ad free listening for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushnick exclusively on Apple podcast subscriptions, and if you like the show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast to have our the music spect Kenny Beats, I'm justin Richmond,