Confessions of a Serial Songwriter

Shelly Peiken

• Publisher: Backbeat
• Year: 2016
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781495063626
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music Biographies

A 2017 Best Spoken Word Album Grammy Nominee!

Confessions of a Serial Songwriter is an amusing and poignant memoir about songwriter Shelly Peiken's journey from young girl falling under the spell of magical songs to working professional songwriter writing hits of her own. It's about growing up, the creative process – the highs and the lows, the conflicts that arise between motherhood and career success, the divas and schemers, but also the talented and remarkable people she's found along the way. It's filled with stories and step-by-step advice about the songwriting process, especially collaboration. And it's about the challenge of staying relevant in a rapidly changing and youth-driven world.

As Shelly so eloquently states in Confessions of a Serial Songwriter: "If I had to come up with one X factor that I could cite as a characteristic most hit songs have in common (and this excludes hit songs that are put forth by an already well-oiled machine...that is, a recording artist who has so much notoriety and momentum that just about anything he or she releases, as long as it's 'pretty good ' will have a decent shot at succeeding), I would say it would be: A universal sentiment in a unique frame." Peiken has tapped the universal sentiment again and again; her songs have been recorded by such artists as Christina Aguilera, Natalie Cole, Selena Gomez, Celine Dion, the Pretenders, and others. In Confessions of a Serial Songwriter, she pulls the curtain back on the music business from the perspective of a behind-the-scenes hit creator and shares invaluable insight into the craft of songwriting.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• The Muse
• SongSex
• Snapshot: Crystal Blue Persuasion
• Movin’ on Up
• Carly Simon
• So Sue Me
• Underneath It All
• The Mother App
• Snapshot: I Saw the Light
• The Antidote
• A Visit from Jim
• The Opportunists
• Wilson (No) Phillips
• Daring to Suck
• That Song!
• A Perfect Storm
• Bitches & Babies
• Snapshot: Sara Smile
• Her Name Was Christina
• Miss America
• One on One
• Human & the Chrissies
• Christina—The Sequel
• Cars & Cats
• Free Falling
• Almost Doesn’t Count Almost Didn’t
• Snapshot: Maggie May
• So Sue Me (Twice)
• No. 1
• I Could Cry
• Come On Over, Shelly
• Breaking Away
• Napster
• Suzan, My Wife
• The Mother App Revisited
• Map to My Song
• Snapshot: Time Travel
• Cirque du Beatles
• 6 Degrees of John Lennon
• Snapshot: Across the Universe
• Eargasms
• Don’t Bore Us, Get to the Chorus
• What a Girl Wants (The Movie)
• Turn the Page
• Snapshot: Fast Car
• Where Have All the Albums Gone?
• So Sue Me X3
• Forever Young
• Snapshot: What’s Love Got to Do with It?
• Nashville
• Stumbling
• Snapshot: Creep
• Tom & Delilah
• Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
• Toplining
• 17 Minutes of Britney
• Come Together
• How Hard Can You Get Me
• Double Dipping
• Kum Ba Yah
• Gleeful
• Snapshot: Beautiful
• Worst Session Ever
• Farewell, My Muse
• The Competition
• Snapshot: Human
• He Ain’t Heavy
• Get Off My Cloud
• Fucking You
• The Way It Wasn’t
• (Not So) Gently Down the Stream
• What on Earth Is a Hit Song?
• Ain’t Gonna Happen
• Suddenly
• Grammy Fever
• The Future Always Comes
• Should I Stay or Should I Go
• Snapshot: Complicated
• Tick Tock
• The Pitch
• A Little Help from My Friends
• Accidentally on Purpose
• To Sell or Not to Sell
• So You Want to Be a Songwriter
• Little Earthquakes
• Landsliding
• The Gap
• I Hope You Dance
• Afterword
• Thank you…
• Glossary
• Photograph, Text, and Lyric Credits
• About the Author