ITZ ON SONGWRITING

This interview was recorded for Scholastic and distributed as part of a packet of promotional materials for a songwriting contest, the idea of which was for kids to write song lyrics in order to win tickets to see Hanson. It consists of several segments wherein the guys tell the stories behind how three specific songs came to be written and then talk about the songwriting process in general. The segments on the individual songs come first and are interspersed with the MON recordings of those songs. The longer, general songrwiting section comes afterwards.

Because it wasn't broadcast on major media channels or distributed commercially, this interview has not been heard nearly widely enough, in my opinion. I think that's a shame, because it showcases Isaac, Taylor, and Zac as serious creative artists in a way that I have not seen anywhere else. There are no stupid questions here about girlfriends, religion, or whether they've ever been grounded, just ITZ sharing their thoughts on the creative process and giving us a peek at how it unfolds for them. A lot of the things they have to say apply not just to songwriting, but to any creative endeavor, and it is nothing short of mind-blowing to hear some of these insights coming out of 17, 15, and 12 year old mouths. Just more evidence of how utterly brilliant they are.

Isaac and Taylor do most of the talking here (presumably because they are older and hence more experienced songwriters?), although Zac does have some nice moments. Since the interviewer is unheard for the most part and does not seem to be controlling the flow of the discussion very much, they are allowed to interrupt each other, interject and overlap with each other's comments, finish each other's thoughts and even each other's sentences. They do all of those things a lot! Sometimes they all contribute to the expression of the same idea so that the end result is a collaboration, and other times they seem to be so excited about what they are saying (or trying to say) that they step on each other's comments or stumble over their own words as they try to get them out. That excitement was, for me, one of the coolest things about this interview, and the way they interact with each other here is very interesting as well.

I deliberately included a lot of the stutterings, hesitations, and repetitions of words and phrases that appeared in the recording to the best of my ability, in order to give a sense of how it actually sounded. For the same reason, I also tried to indicate things like interruptions and overlappings as best I could. I hope that this doesn't make the transcript too hard to read, and that some of the flavor of their speech patterns and their interactions will come through as you read. I also hope that the parenthetical comments I couldn't resist inserting are not too intrusive.

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Narrator: Hanson, the featured artists for Scholastic's "Write Lyrics" program, are three talented brothers from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Their best-selling album "Middle of Nowhere" has won them enthusiastic reviews and many fans around the world. Scholastic editors spoke to Isaac, Taylor and Zac Hanson, who shared their ideas about songwriting and the stories behind three of the songs from the album MON: With You in Your Dreams, Man from Milwaukee, and Yearbook.

T: WYIYD is actually about ... I ... our grandma. We wrote a song about when she died. And ... I guess you could say that's one of ... a lot of the songs that we write are more about, you know, things that happen and things that you just think about. But this is actually about a real event. It's about, yeah, it's about somebody dying and saying, you know, no matter where I am, I'll be WYIYD. So I mean, it's ... it's just ... it's about ... it's the story of somebody passing away.

I: A lot of songs that we have written have .. have been .. have been written actually late at night oftentimes ... where you're down in the garage or up in the upstairs room where the keyboard is or where the instruments are, and ... oftentimes, you know, everybody else is in bed, but you have stayed up—

T: You sneak up there in the dark and have a song and you end up staying up all night trying to finish it.

I: [overlapping with Taylor's last few words] And that was ... and that song was one of them, where one of you is just sitting up there playing and then—

T: [picking up Isaac's thought where he left off] --ends up staying--

I: Yeah.

T: --deep into the night to write a song.

I: Yeah.

[SONG: WITH YOU IN YOUR DREAMS]

Z: MFM, we started that song ... Our car broke down in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and ... and as we were sitting outside the hotel we started writing that song and ... and then ... eventually ... once we got to LA, when we were recording MON we finished the song.

T: Actually we went through the whole album, and we basically had almost finished the album, and we had ... Zac had had the idea throughout the whole record since we ... throughout the 6 months we had been in LA—

I: [overlapping] Yeah.

T: --and then finally ... we ... we pulled it together and finished the song.

I: Yeah, Zac had had the chorus idea.

T. And then we kind of created this whole theme, the alien theme that's behind it, you know, the fact that this song's about somebody sitting in the desert and there's an a- ... there's this guy sitting by him and—

I: --who's a very strange-looking man and ... and ... he ... he wonders why this guy's sitting there and then he starts talking about the fact that he's from another planet—

T: --and the guy doesn't believe him but in the end he's ... in the end the guy goes away to the next planet—

I: --the alien does—

T: --the alien does ... and then the person singing it is now ... now he is the guy with the yellow walkie-talkie because he's now waiting to be taken away.

I: Because he believes that there ... there are aliens—

T: Yeah, he believes that there are aliens so in the end that's ... he's kind of ... it's kind of turned around. That's really one of the rules of songwriting. You can write it about anything and as long as it sounds good, it could be the coolest song in the world.

I: Yeah, it's your own rules, as long as it ... as long as it's, you know, if ... as long as it tells a story and it makes sense and it rhymes ... or some ... or you're—

T: That's really not even ... that's really not even something you have to follow. It's really your own rules, however you want to do it. It's your own game.

[SONG: MAN FROM MILWAUKEE]

I: We ... we wrote the song YB with a lady named Ellen Shipley and during that ... during the time that we were writing with her, we had come up with 2 song ideas and ... as we were—

T: [overlapping] Actually we were—

I: Yeah, as we were writing those 2 songs ... we ... we somehow came up with the line .. someone said "Dear Amy, see you in September" as we were playing chords [Taylor says something unintelligible that overlaps with part of this] on the keyboard and ... and it just had this ring to it. And then we kind of stopped and started talking about that and it seemed like something—

T: [overlapping] --it sounded—

I: --and it sounded like something that someone would write in a yearbook.

T: "Dear Amy, I'll see you in September." And it just ... it ... it seemed right. [Zac tries to interject something here but can't quite get it in] And as we kept talking about it—

I: --and writing the song—

T: --and writing the song and kept playing the chords, we kind of left the other 2 songs behind, and before we knew it we had another song and it had this whole theme behind it, the theme became, you know—

I: --the mystery—

T: --the mystery of Johnny ... of Johnny, some kid disappearing and you've got that picture in the yearbook where his face is not there and everybody wonders from then on why ... why he disappeared.

I: Because in a yearbook there's ... oftentimes [Have you noticed yet that he likes to use this word a lot?] in a class there's one little square--

T: [overlapping] --one person that didn't show up—

I: -- a little square where, you know, somebody didn't show up on picture day and it says "photo unavailable."

T: One thing that's funny about that song is everybody always asks "Now where did Johnny go?" That's one of the questions, if they're gonna ask about a song it's people wonder where we think he went. And really that's ... there was no conclusion to it because we don't even know. It's more—

I: We purposely decided to not conclude the song and to not give it an ending.

T: It left it a mystery. It left it for whoever's listening to figure it out.

I: Oftentimes people think Johnny's dead, but, you know, that's not even ... even ... even true because again like—

T: --unless you just want to think that.

I: Yeah, it's all for you to decide.

[SONG: YEARBOOK]

Narrator: Hanson has been writing songs for years, both individually and collectively. Isaac, Taylor, and Zac drew on their experiences to give us some insights into the songwriting process.

I: As a songwriter and ... as ... as a musician, you're always ... you're always thinking about songwriting, I think, especially ... especially when you do have a ... just a little moment .... where .... of silence or something, you ... you think about the fact that ... oh, you have your acoustic guitar with you and you sit down and oftentimes you just ... you just play and ... and ...

Z: And the other cool thing is ... being a songwriter you write ... you write a ton of songs, so you can ... if you come up with a chorus, you can go and say, "Well, this song might work with that," and you can play off of that and you can--

I.: There have actually been, yeah, there have actually been a lot of songs that we have written that have been ... I guess you could say collaborations between two songs.

T: Well, most of the time that's ... that's something that happens. The rule ... I mean, the one thing that you always have to remember is when you're writing a song, anything could be a good piece later on, so you should never ... you should never just say "Oh, that's bad", if ... just because it's not finished. You know? So a lot ... a lot of times we'll take around tape recorders or ... just sing it to yourself and ... and ... and try to keep remembering it, to keep it in the bank.

I: [overlapping] Yeah.

Z: [also overlapping] Or sing it to someone else so they'll remember it, too.

I: Yeah.

T: Yeah, somebody else, so they'll remember it--

I: [laughing] Yeah, but the ... you--

T: [interrupting] When you have [Isaac tries to continue talking, but Taylor just plows right through. Isaac finally makes a little frustrated-sounding noise and lets him have the floor.] --so later on when you think of another idea, it can become a full song and you always have to remember that anything could complete something. It could be the perfect piece later on.

I: Yeah, it ... the ... and yeah, that's the one thing that you've got to remember ... is to ... or it's a really good idea to record your songs on a ... on a tape recorder because that's ... that's a good way to keep it--

T: [overlapping] So you can go back and--

I: To keep it ... you know ... it's ... it's a solid thing, you can stick it in a tape player, listen to it back, it doesn't, you know, it doesn't go away as long as you can ... [laughing] as long as you don't lose the tape--

T: [overlapping, also laughing] --if you don't lose the tape.

I: Yeah. Which, we've lost tapes, too.

T: A lot of tapes.

I: Yeah.

[The above comments gave me a mental image of a whole bunch of tapes of unfinished Hanson song fragments floating around somewhere in the world just waiting to be found. What a thought.]

I: Songwriting is your own game and it ... and there are really no rules ... uh ...

T: Everybody does it their own way.

I: [overlapping] Everybody does it differently, you know. Some ... sometimes ... sometimes I have ... I have taken the time to write it down and ... at certain points in time. Or also--

T: If maybe the lyrics are better than the melody.

I: Yeah, and maybe the lyrics are better than the melody. [He sort of laughs; I couldn't help but wonder if this sort of thing happens to him a lot.]

T: So you just write the lyrics down so you ... so you make sure you remember those, cause the melody's not that great, but--

I: [slight overlap] Or talk them into a tape player.

T: Yeah.

I: Umm ... you know ... and ... and ... also, when you ... we ... we do sometimes write poetry [Did you catch that? They write poetry. How cool.] or just write things ... write ideas down and--

T: Sometimes there's a theme that you write down--

I: [interjecting] Right, exactly.

T: --that then becomes a song, even if it's not those exact lyrics, like you think about the way something looked, like the way a telephone pole looked, and then you remember ... even though you said that telephone—

Z: [suddenly jumping in] Very solid and—

[Zac and Taylor interrupt and overlap each other repeatedly for a while here. Taylor wants to finish the thought he started, but Zac is determined to get his two cents in!]

T: --pole was green—

Z: --and green--

T: --you end up writing about--

Z: --and spiky with nails in it and--

T: Zac-- [He seems to think Zac is getting a little carried away here; it's one of those classic "Zac embarrasses Taylor" moments.]

Z: [in a goofy voice; he's obviously having fun with this] --and it's got that big gray thing on the top--

I: Yeah.

Z: [still in a goofy voice] --with some cords.

I: Yeah. But it ... it ... it's actually really funny because ... you can write ... you can come up with an idea ... actually, well, I've done this a bunch of times where you ... where I've written ... a poem ... or ... some kind of a poem, and then the theme, exactly like Taylor said, the theme of the poem--

T: --becomes the song.

I: --is more what becomes the song than the actual lyrics that I've written down. So you know, there are ... again there are no rules to writing songs. It's ... it's how the final product comes ... comes along.

T: I would say anybody can write songs. I mean everybody ... I would say everybody does it differently.

I: Yeah.

T: Everybody ... some people could write ... some people are lyricists, there are some amazing people that just ... write lyrics. And there are some amazing people that just write melodies. And there are people that just ... that write it ... that write both at the same time. But I would say, really, like we said before, it's ... it's ... never to throw anything away because you never know what a ... where a great idea could come from, and to constantly be writing, if not for ... if ... just for the exercise of it, it's good. So I mean we ... for a little bit we had this thing where we said, try to write a song every day, just for the heck of it. And we ... and we did that and --

I: [tries to interrupt] --and ... and we ... once in a while--

T: [sorry, Isaac, Taylor's on too much of a roll here] --and once in a while you'd come—

I: Yeah.

T: --up with bad songs, you'd come up with cool ideas ... you'd come up with ... we came up with long ... with some full songs, complete ones. And ... and it's just cool to ... to always try different things and---[Zac tries to interject something but can't quite break through] never be limited by one way of doing it.

I: And also not to worry because sometimes you come up with nothing.

T: Yeah, sometimes you come up with nothing.

I: You get ... work all day and you go "Man, I'm tryin' to come up with a song" and it doesn't--

T: [overlapping] --it just--

I: [overlapping] --and sometimes it doesn't happen, but I--

Z: No matter what you do, just keep writing whether you think it's bad or [Taylor laughs] you think it's good, just keep writing.

I: Yeah, eventually you ... you .. it may shine through.

T: Writing songs is really your own thing, it's--

I: It is your own thing. I mean ... there ... there are definitely ... I mean ...

Z: [trying to interrupt] You definitely--

I: [sorry, Zac, it didn't work, didn't even slow him down] Advice is good, though, because a lot of the times you may become too ... so ... so attached to something sometimes that you don't realize that maybe it can be changed a little bit or-- [Taylor says something unintelligible that overlaps with part of this] That's actually what I think is very cool about our situation as a band, considering that we are all songwriters and we are all ... you know ... you know ... lyricists and write melodies and everything like that, sometimes you may have great lyrics and Taylor or Zac says to me "Ike, you know, the lyrics are great, the melody should ... the melody needs some changing." [See? What did I tell you? This is the second time he mentions this. It must something that happens a lot.]

T: Or you .. or you kind of act as the editors, and you say, "Well, do that, do that", because sometimes you just get so indulged in a ... in a way ... you want ... wanted to write a song--

Z: [overlapping] You've just got lots of stuff that's going nowhere.

I/T: [both at the same time, partly overlapping] Yeah/yeah.

I: So I mean ... suggestions can be very helpful, at ... at times ... I think it's also at the discretion of the person that is actually doing it, too ... you know ... if you ... people come give you ideas--

T: You'll find that out as you write songs. [Find out what, Taylor?]

I: Yeah, you'll realize that as time goes on, yeah. [Oh, well, at least Isaac knew what he meant.]

I: When you start out writing songs, I know that when we started out writing songs ... you know ... that the songs are not quite as good.

T: It's--

Z: Or at times when you start out writing songs, it's ... sometimes your songs are based off of the stuff you listen to, but--

T: Yeah, a lot of ... I mean ... I think that's ... that's also another thing. It's cool to listen to other things and ... and sometimes you won't even realize it but just because you heard some ... uh, some music, that influences your songs .. so it's also cool to hear different music, and by listening to different sounds, just because the different sounds are in your head, you come up with something new.

I: Right, that's ... that ... you know, we listen to all kinds of music. We always say we listen to anything from En Vogue to Aerosmith, from R&B to ... you know ... just rock & roll--

T: And whatever's in between.

I: And whatever's in between, yeah. Because that's ... I think that's very cool, because it broadens your mind as a songwriter and as a musician, and ... and ... and that's good ... it's good to be exposed to all those different things, because all those different things are ... are music. They're ... you know ... they're lyrical ... uh, there's rhythm--

T: [overlapping] Everybody has a different style.

I: Yeah, there's a different style to everything.

T: And I would say the worst thing to ever do is to think that there's one way to do it and one way to do it right or wrong ... and ... and ... because that's the opposite of songwriting altogether, because it's all about, you know, just a thought ... a vision ... a ... something that you're thinking and not ... that can become the greatest song.

I: At ... at all different points in songwriting, everybody gets involved. It ... it really depends on the song and just ... just the circumstance. For instance ... you know, well ... a lot of different songs will ... someone for instance will start out a song oftentimes ... someone will come up with a chorus or with just the idea—

T: And we ... sometimes everybody'll write it together. so the song Thinking of You, that ... on that one, for instance, we all wrote it all, we wrote it all together at once and--

I: [reminding him] --while we were jamming--

T: --while we were jamming. And ... so you see ... in any way a song can be written.

Narrator: We asked if Isaac, Taylor, and Zac have a favorite out of all the songs they have written.

Z: All your songs were attached to you, because ... you know ... it's ... it's a thought you had ... it's something that you did ... a piece of you is in each of your songs, so I don't think you could have one favorite.

T: Some songs you're more attached to, because it's a real event or maybe it's ... just a thought that you've been trying to find a way to put on paper or to put into a song and you finally find a way.

I: Yeah.

T: So you're attached to that song in a certain way. But I would definitely say that every song is connected to you in a--

I: And it's funny because you do know the songs ... whether they're bad or good and oftentimes you will know whether they're bad or good.

T: [overlapping] And I'll say to Ike, "Oh, remember that song that went like this" and you'll both say, "Oh yeah" and you'll either say, "Oh, yeah, wow, that was bad" or "Oh, yeah, that was cool" and I would say ... I would say a lot of times the way you know if ... if it's a good song ... I mean, this is only sometimes ... is you'll be singing a song and you're like "Wow, that's cool" and you'll go "Oh, do ... don't you know that song?" and somebody'll go "No." And you'll say to yourself, "Wait, I wrote that song." And ... and it's just ... it's something that ... it ... it ... it's in your head so strongly that ... that you feel like ... you ... you feel like everybody should know it. You just ... it's ... it's ... it's just one of ... it's just a song that's been cycling in your head.

Unidentified man's voice in the background: We'll wrap it up. You guys got to roll.

I: Okay.

T: [overlapping with Isaac] Yeah.

I: Cool.