The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory

by John Seabrook

“OK, say that you have a verse, and it’s done in eighth notes, and everything is starting on the one—DAH-ut da-ut da-ut da-ut DAH-ut . . . Right? OK then when you go to the pre-chorus you probably don’t want to start on the one, and you don’t want to do eighth notes. So you come in on the two, or on the upbeats, or go to long notes, so it stays fresh.” The same principle works in reverse. In a song that’s mostly singing, a sixteen-bar rap provides new texture. The key is to switch up the feel to keep things lively. “That’s why rapping in songs is interesting,” he goes on. “Intrinsically, if you’re rapping, and then you’re singing, you’ve created a new part. There’s no question about which part is the chorus—it’s the sung part. When you’re doing something without rapping, you still have to make that distinction, but you do it all with melody and rhythm. And that is fundamentally what songwriting is.”