Recording - January 2015 - 51

JANUARY 2015
TAXI Road Rally 2013

What Makes a Chart-Topping Song: Ralph Murphy
Part 2
Continued from last month's A&R Insider
Title: Almost all #1 songs reach the first use of
title within 60 seconds or less. Most are
faster-35 to 40 seconds max. For instance,
Taylor Swift has used "Never ever" three times
by the end of the chorus, and Carly Rae Jepson
with "Call me maybe," four times by the end of
the first chorus. And they both occur at one
minute and three, one minute and four
seconds. The one constant between genres at
#1 last year seems to be repetition. Seven
seemed to be the magic number. And of
course, then there's Rihanna with "Diamond,"
which has 38 repetitions. Again, you can't get
enough diamonds, right, girls?
Repetitions of titles are dangerous, unless
you're dealing with Dance. If you're dealing
with Dance, there is a whole different consideration. BPMs, danceability are the major
factors. But, in a song? Songs, as opposed to
Dance songs-and they are two different animals-the title is supposed to be a destination,
not the whole song. So you set me up and lead
me to that song, so you have to treat titles
differently.
Expectations: This leads me to the next topic.
Creating an expectation and then fulfilling it in
60 seconds. Most listeners don't go looking for
new music; they want something they're familiar with. That's why singers who want to lure
people into their websites sing a "hit song."
Like the Idols and X Factors use hit songs.
Because if someone is singing hit songs, the
assumption is, "Oh, they must be a star.
They're really, really cool." Most consumers
want songs that they have good associations
with. So if you're not speaking to me, about
me, or a situation I heavily identify with, I mentally tune out, and it won't be long before I
physically tune out. I've noticed it in nearly all
#1 songs, the first three or four lines lead
directly to the title.

Ralph Murphy emphatically tells the audience, "What invites you in is melody, and what keeps you there is lyric."

The pronoun: I call the pronoun the "little big
word;" it changes everything. When the
listener hears the pronoun you, they feel
invited in, they feel spoken to. Almost all #1
Billboard songs of all genres use the pronoun
you within 20 seconds from the start of the
lyric. The unfortunate thing for you, the songwriter, is that after you use the pronoun you,
you have to tell the listener all about them. It's
called playing the you card.
Detail. A dear friend of mine, as a matter of
fact, a Hall of Fame writer, inducted into several Hall of Fames-Harland Howard. He once
told me to always write for women. He was of
the opinion that women physically bought 50%
of all records made, and made men buy the
other 50%. That means that detail is a huge fac-

tor in hit songs. In my research I have found
that the more graphic the detail given, the
greater the chance of success. Try saying to a
women at an event that you just attended,
"There were just a few people there, and they
were dressed really strangely." She will want to
know exactly how many people were there and
how they were dressed. They are going to want
to know detail, detail, detail.
And again, I have friends who own restaurants,
and a major consideration for them is location,
location, location. For me, when I finish a song,
I say, "What's in it for the woman? What's in it
for the woman? What's in it for the woman?!"
If there's nothing in it for the woman, then it's
later for that.
Continued on page 52
51

Recording - January 2015

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