How to Write a Hit Song: 7 Innovative Methods to Improve Your Songwriting

I think we could agree that while it’s relatively easy to write a GOOD song, it’s not so easy to write a GREAT one.

Songwriting is a fine art composed of many finely tuned muscles alongside a high level of skill and craft. When songwriters really want to turn professional, they start writing, every day. Sometimes multiple songs in a day. They know that the only way to close the gap between where they are and where they want, and to improve their songwriting, to be is a large volume of work. To write, a LOT.

Ryan Tedder tells the story of his dream of being a great songwriter. “I learned how to write in Nashville and learned under songwriters who had Grammys when they were 20 and have every accolade that you can imagine. These were the guys who I was coming up under and very intimidated by and learned a lot from. And I learned a traditional craft and I studied Beatles lyrics and Bono’s lyrics and song structure.”

Putting yourself in the room with chart-topping songwriters is the fastest way to get there. You learn best by doing it (after you get schooled in technique and structure and Berklee School of Music is where to do it! Study online if you can’t be in person).

For this article, I wanted to speak to a higher level of craft and discuss the 7 most innovative methods, to improve your songwriting skills, that I as an artist developer have come across and use at my label services company.

After being an artist myself and having released a record of original songs in 2000 (Circle of Fire, inspired by the NY Times bestseller, The Four Agreements), I went on to write with my clients and started mastering the skill of writing in different genres and developing my songwriting chops.

I now have a Team of chart-topping songwriters who have written with John Legend, FINNEAS, Kelly Clarkson, Demi Lovato, Aloe Blacc, and many more. We write hundreds of songs a year. We use a curated system I created, to develop songwriting skills, that walks an artist through the writing process helping them to find their authentic self and material. So far all of our artists’ releases have superseded their prior ones. By a landslide.

Here are some of the innovative methods we use at my company. It’s a part of my curated process.

How to Write a Hit Song: 7 Innovative Methods to Improve Your Songwriting

1. Foreshadowing

First verse has to hook the listener from the start of the song. This is super important because you only have seconds to impress the listener and draw them in. One method we use is foreshadowing. Foreshadowing is like a very strong and clear “hint” of what’s coming next.

Example of foreshadowing: Like Patty Griffin’s song “Rain”, by the end of the first verse you know exactly what is going on and are hooked into the song to see what happens.

It’s hard to listen to a hard, hard heart
Beating close to mine
Pounding up against the stone and steel
Walls that I won’t climb (foreshadow line)

Or like John Moreland’s “You Don’t Care Enough for Me to Cry”

Come down from your mountain
Oh, I miss your holy shoutin’
These days I can’t make you make a sound (foreshadow line)
Take me to the times where
We’d look up to the skies and
Climb up there and draw the thunder down

2. Real Life Song Concept

Writing from your real emotions and real life experiences is proven to make a more powerful song. It always eclipses making something up or cloaking your subject under a veneer.

In my Signature Songwriting Circle we teach artists the power of writing from their life experiences resulting in emotionally compelling songs laced with their authenticity. We find that when a real-life experience is at the core of the concept it holds more relatability and more emotion for the artist – resulting in more emotional experience for the listener.

This carefully curated process focused on improving your songwriting came about over many years of writing as an artist and writing with my students at my studio in New York.

We start with building out Song Concepts that come from the artist’s real life experiences. We look for experiences that are deeply rooted in their lives attached to strong emotions. We build out the Song Concept and dial out the Backstory as separate from the concept. This helps the artist to separate the personal from the universal truths.

3. Conflict Creates Contrast and Depth

This is a recent addition to my process that I added in the past few months. It’s something I’ve been doing in my curated songwriting process here at my company for years inside my head, but I was able to identify it and add it in.

Imagine writing a song about empowerment. It comes from a personal experience in your life where you were able to rise above your circumstances. A popular and infectious kind of song. Like “Brave” by Sara Bareilles. A mistake often made writing this kind of song, would be if you skip to the victory without the conflict, your song / book / movie can come off as too vanilla. By identifying the conflict you bring an instant depth and strength to the song. In this case the conflict could be adding into the lyric a little bit about where you were before you came to this realization of your empowered self.

4. Unique Angle

As said by many writers, you want to find a universal human feeling or experience but write about it in a way that hasn’t been said before.

Songwriter and One Republic frontman Ryan Tedder, when asked ‘what makes a good hook’ said “Simplicity. I don’t know if this is the right word: memorability. A simple concept: simple melody and one that I think packs an emotional punch. And the other element would be a basic human concept and you need to say it in a way that hasn’t been said before”.

Take your Song Concept with your foreshadowing and your conflict and now look for the unique angle. An example of a unique angle was Adele’s song that Dan Wilson wrote with her called “Someone Like You”. The typical thing to say in the chorus would have been “nevermind I’ll find someone new“. But the unique angle was about how she would look for the person who just broke her heart. That ONE WORD made the whole song. We hadn’t heard anyone say that before – in that way. And the song became a world-wide hit. A great example of a real-life story song that packs an emotional punch with an internal conflict and deeply personal but universal at the same time. Everyone can relate to what that feels like, and use this method to improve your songwriting.

5. Cliffhanger

Cliffhanger definition: “an ending to an episode of a serial drama that leaves the audience in suspense.”

In the case of writing songs, here is how I would use this. Don’t give it all away. How can you point to the point of the song, but at the same time not spell it out too much. This is one of the tenants of great lyric writing. Be clear, but poetic and lead them to it but don’t spell it out.

Example: “I Can’t Make You Love Me” by Mike Reid and Allan Shamblin (sung by Bonnie Raitt)

‘Cause I can’t make you love me if you don’t
You can’t make your heart feel something it won’t
Here in the dark, in these final hours
I will lay down my heart and I’ll feel the power
But you won’t, no you won’t
‘Cause I can’t make you love me, if you don’t

In this case, the writers don’t spell out that they are “leaving” or the relationship is “over” in those literal terms, but rather talk about what it feels like to lay next to someone you love that you finally accept doesn’t love you back. Powerful expression of a cliffhanger. It leaves you hanging in that moment and doesn’t tie it up with a neat bow.

6. Twists

Twists in melody. Your melody is the single most important aspect of a song. And in particular the way it twists and turns.

After we write the shell of the song we take it through several processes. We have the artist demo the song to flesh out the vocal line and work through any songwriting issues. Then we have them work with our vocal arranging team (who has worked with some of the industry’s biggest names) to massage the vocal to build out the best possible melody and lead vocal arrangement as well as background vocals. The song always evolves with this final process.

Watch artist Robyn Cage talk about the process of what vocal arranging with our Team did for her song.

7. Reference Track

While most of this blog is about lyrical elements (usually harder to nail than the music for most songwriters), here is a technique I use to improve your songwriting, for identifying the sound, direction and tempo of the song before I put my hands on an instrument. I don’t always do it, but I do like to have this ahead of time as it informs the beat and direction of the song. It also helps to develop a new sound and direction and not just fall into the same chords and tempos you usually write in.

Imagine your song coming to life, or being played on stage. What does it sound like? Pick a track that emulates or has the essence of what you hear in your head. Grab the tempo and maybe a few of the chords and then turn it off. An hour or so later (give yourself time to shake the song out of your head unless you can do that easily) and just play the tempo on a click or metronome. Use that as your base to write the song to.

Tip: Don’t be afraid to use contrasting tempos. You can take a heavy subject and have a light mid-tempo beat. Like Rihanna’s record “ANTI” where she used tempos all in 80 BPM.

I hope this inspires you to improve your songwriting. At the end of the day, be sure that your song packs an emotional punch so people can feel it. Sometimes when we go too general it dilutes the impact. Keep digging for the G-O-L-D and authenticity.

Stay tuned for our next run of the Signature Songwriting Circle opening again Fall 2022. Join our waitlist for special discounts when registration opens!

SSC is a popular and addictive program artists take repeatedly to write their albums. Through 30 workshops, listening sessions and a community experience over 6 months, you’ll walk away with a crystal clear artist persona, artist mission and artistic vision alongside an industry-vetted catalog to make your next music project transformative.