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Vanessa, Phil, Linda, Bruce, and Neel

How to write a break-up song

True to form for Song Talk Radio, the day before Valentine’s Day seemed a good day to talk about break-up songs. So Phil brought “Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels)” by Jim Croce, Neel chose “One More Minute” by “Weird Al” Yankovic, Bruce performed a new original tune “I Don’t Love You Anymore”, and …

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Neel, Linda, Blair, Mike, Phil, and Vanessa

Deep Dive: Penny Lane & Strawberry Fields – how do they work? with Blair Packham

Songwriting master Blair Packham stopped by and we gave a deep dive on The Beatles Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane. Friend of the show Mike MacInnes sat in for Bruce. Stuff we talked about: John Lennon / Paul McCartney comparisons Candy Flip’s version of Strawberry Fields Key Modulations Penny Lane Lyrics & Chords at UltimateGuitar.com …

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Neel, Phil, Vanessa, Bruce, and Anthony

Creating songs when you have an unconventional singing voice

You don’t necessarily need to have a fantastic voice to write or even perform songs well. We looked at some of our favorite songwriters with unusual voices and how they did it. Listen to the episode We talked about Is pitchy the same thing as unconventional? Newtonbrook SS Rush-Stick-It-Out lyrics https://www.rush.com/ Neil-Young-After-The-Gold-Rush lyrics Whistle-Down-the-Wind-Tom-Waits-Lyrics Playing everything …

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Neel, Bruce, Stephen, Vanessa, and Phil

Book Writing for Musicals with Stephen Witkin

Stephen Witkin joined us again to talk about his career writing the book for various musicals, and shared three songs resulting from his writing. We talked about: The difference between “On Broadway” and “Off Broadway” Prom Queens Unchained available from Samuel French different sub-genres in musicals the nature of collaboration between book writer, lyricist, and …

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