How I (Casually) Wrote A Hit Song

Friedemann: social media is sometimes quite weird in the sense that when I'm most busy, it's the hardest to keep up with it. And so it looks to the outside world as though I'm not really doing anything. And then other times I post regularly and it looks like I'm super busy, but actually all I'm doing is social media. Take this week, for example. I'm writing and shooting a holistic songwriting masterclass. I am producing an EP for another artist. And I wrote, directed, shot, and edited another music video with about a dozen people. this is for a song called Seesaw, which is my personal favorite off of Joanna's new record, which just released last Friday. So I'm gonna put the link in the description. Please do check it out and send her some love. I'm really proud of the record. I think it's full of fun ideas, and Joanna did a great job with the performances. do check out the record. If you hear anything that you have a question about, if questions come up as you're listening to the music, I would love to hear those and maybe I can make another video about those. anyway, after last week's video, I got a comment from a person called Jesse65847 who asked about something I mentioned in previous week's video, which is that I am a hit songwriter. And he asked how that came to be. So let me tell you. first of all, like literally every person ever who's written a hit, I want to start by saying that this is not normally the type of music I write. I'm not ashamed of the song. I think it's fun, but I would personally never listen to it. And that's just because my personal preference is complex arrangements and melodies. this is not that, right? This is a song that drunk people can sing after two AM in the morning. So the song is Rakete for the German band Metropolis. I'm gonna put another link in the description. Metropolis' biggest song before this song had gotten about 20,000 clicks. And Rakete currently stands at 35 million streams across platforms, which for a small band is a massive breakout hit by any standard. So as far as the story goes, I think it's quite underwhelming. And there's really not that many twists and turns to it. I know part of the band, I know the producer, who's also playing the bass, I think, of the band, Jenny, and she organized a writing camp for the new single. So she just invited a whole bunch of writers that she knew. we all got randomly grouped together, and I was paired with a lyricist. And a member of the band that I also hadn't met before. And we were just asked to write music for Metropolis. now this may shock you, but I don't have a lot of experience doing this. I'm not really a writing camp kind of guy. I've done a couple, but I really prefer working with artists one-on-one. And I've never written in this genre before or since, to be honest, and I'm not planning to. This really was to help out a friend. And she said, it's one afternoon of work. I'm gonna meet a couple of cool people, so why not? as with any writing session, I came prepared. I've been collecting ideas for a week, but I didn't really stick to the memo that they had sent out. usually when I'm when I'm being asked to write something for a band, I will check out their discography. And then think about what do I think is missing in this person's or in this band's catalog. And in this case, what I thought was missing was since they are a carnival band, they were really missing just party songs, just simple, easy to sing along to songs that drunk people won't forget the lyrics to. And so That was my personal memo to myself. I was thinking it needs to be memorable, it needs to be fun, and fun to sing specifically. And it should be something a very drunk person or a child could sing along to. and I actually didn't find my winning idea until I was driving over there. That's where I came up with the hook. Wir starten die rakete. Right. That I came up with in the car ride to the studios. so rakete is the the German word for rocket. And this idea of raquete tetare is a portmanteau of rocket, rakete, and tetare, which is sort of like ta-da. It's like what a trumpet like that's a tetare sound. So it just makes the word rocket a little more fun, I guess. And also, which I found out later, I didn't know this at the time, in Carnival here in Cologne, the word rakete is a sort of audience interaction move that people know and Love. so in the writing session, I was the producer. We also had a member of the band and a lyricist. who could write in the dialect that they use here in Cologne, which I don't speak, so I couldn't actually write the lyrics to this. so I was just the producer. I started off by basically just singing my idea to the others and they laughed. And that was that. we figured out an idea or a concept for the lyrics, using the rocket launch as a sort of metaphor for partying. And then we just started. I produced while the others were writing some lyrics and we connected every once in a while to give feedback to each other. So as far as the composition goes, there are a couple of things in here that elevated, I think, beyond what most children's songs would do. one is the chromaticism in the melody, like which is like an HM5 scale. That sound is baked into the main melody of the song. And I always try to do something a little bit weird with my melodies because I do think it tends to stick better. if you do, everything by the books, if you do everything diatonic, for example, quite often it just kind of washes out against everything else that's out there. So I always try to bring in a little bit of non diatonicism, a little bit of chromaticism in this case to to make it sound a little bit more interesting. and so that's kind of what happened. I was sitting in my laptop producing synths and we talked to each other and I think I came up with the idea for that countdown in the pre chorus, and then just added a lot of rocket sound effects to my production. A few hours later, Metropolis' singer came by and she couldn't stop laughing about the song. And she was a big fan of it. And she came in and was like, my god, you all have to hear this. This is crazy, you know, that sort of thing. And that's how it became the band's new single. Now my production was a lot more electronic. Jenny took that and turned it into something a little bit more live sounding. She added the live brass instead of my synths, and she also added that MM like post chorus. and that's kind of the whole story. It was one afternoon of work. It put Metropolis on the map. I'm really happy that I could help. And obviously, shout out to everybody else involved in the song, co-writers, performers, Jenny, the producer. but in all honesty, I don't think about the song a lot. I'm happy people like it. I'm happy to hear it's doing well. I also understand the ones who find it annoying and repetitive. do I want to write more songs like it? If I'm asked, sure, for an afternoon or two. But it does feel like I am selling my soul a little bit. It's not what I wanted to do when I became a musician. This is not the reason why I make music. And if you're thinking, well, but the money's gotta be great, the money's fine. It's honestly not that big of a deal. The whole band is in the credits, right? Remember that, plus the extra lyricist that was in the session. So there's really not that much to go around. I'm not complaining about that, by the way. I literally spent an afternoon working on this thing and they worked on it for far longer than I did. and I wish I could say that the difference in clicks was all me, but I know it's not, right? Yes, I came up with the concept and I came up with the hook, but the equation is song times marketing equals success. If your song is a zero, sure, success is impossible. So credit where credit is due, I did well, I think, and so did the other people in the room. But you could have the greatest song in the world, and if you don't have the right marketing, you still won't see any success. And Raketa did have a marketing team behind it that helped make the song what it is. Now granted, the previous song also had that same marketing team, but still important that both of those ingredients are there. How does it feel to be a hit songwriter? Well, it's a nice pat on the back, right? It's a nice little confirmation that what I'm doing and what I've been teaching with holistic songwriting about commercial techniques is working. it's also great for my CV, obviously. It gives me credibility for holistic songwriting. But the thing I really want to talk about is this. I didn't write a hit. By accident. I've been a professional musician since I was fifteen. I've studied music and written and produced hundreds of songs. But I didn't do all of that so I could someday write a hit. When I was 15, sure, that was the dream, of course. But there comes a point in any musician's life, I think, I hope, where you realize, I'm not as good as I thought I was. And a little bit later, at another point, maybe you realize that people don't really give a shit about you and the music you make. And I think that's a really important point in any musician's career because most people give up at that point, right? Most people realize, nobody's gonna listen to this, then why should I continue making music? and it is a fair question, why write if nobody's there to listen? I wrote a lot of songs I wish more people would hear. Seesaw being one of them. When we come to it off of my second Kano Head record, I'm currently writing a song called All American Dream for this new EP that I'm working on. So many songs. why keep doing this if your ego is going to take a massive hit with most of the songs you're ever going to put out in your life? Because it's fun and I couldn't imagine my life without it. Even Rakete, right? As silly and stupid as that song is, as you know, as much as it's in a style I would never listen to, as much as I wrote it in a co-writing situation with them which I'm often uncomfortable with, I found it a really fun experience, and it was fun to write. if you are watching this because you saw the title and you thought, maybe I'm gonna learn something for how to write my own hit, and you are currently questioning your why, and you are realizing that you are only doing this for the hit, right? For the success. I want you to know this. Before public victory comes private victory. Before people can recognize your talent, you first have to rise above by willpower alone. You have to figure out how to build a life around yourself. How to stay healthy, how not to burn out, how to live with the people around you, how to get good at your job. For example, I lost five kilos in the past three months. That's hard for me to do because, boy, I love me some candy. and you know, I have gotten some compliments for it, maybe twice or so. And that's super nice, but it's clearly not enough to help you through the hard times. When you are playing board games with your friends and somebody puts a bowl of apple rings on the table. You know, if you only do it for the approval of others, that's a moment where you will fail. Because it's not true that nobody's watching. You're watching. And you do care. Because what you do determines how you look at yourself. if you think of yourself as a slob. Or depressed or lazy or boring, then you are those things. But it doesn't take much to change that. Challenge those ideas you have about yourself by doing the opposite. Prove to yourself that you have discipline, that you can be happy or fun by doing things that reveal discipline, happiness, or fun. So what's one thought that you have that's holding you back that you could challenge today through action? What's the thought and what's the action you're gonna take? Tell me in the comments below, and then we'll get back to you.