Song Talk Radio | Songwriting Tips | Lyrics | Arranging | Live Feedback

We talked about the first songs that resonated with us as kids.

Stuff We Talked About:

* Our Anthony moving on

* Turns Out Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ Was Lifted from a 1972 Song by The Hollies

* Moving to the minor on the 4th chord

* February Album Month FAUM.org

* New Show Format: Get your songs on the show!

* Classic Albums Live

* WhoSampled.com

* Sealed-With-A-Kiss lyrics

* The Air That I Breathe –

The Hollies – Lyrics

* Logical-Song-by-Supertramp Lyrics

* Say-Youll-Be-There The Spice Girls Lyrics

Listen to the show:

Join the gang as we go over our favourite bits of the last year and lots more stuff!

We talked about:

* songwriting things that Bruce, Neel, and Phil have learned over the past year

* Sean Bertram’s episode and contrast and dynamics in your performances

* Jenny Perez’s episode and her controversial song Mr. Tinder

* Blair Packham and Patrick Ballantyne pulling apart their favourite songs

* Vincent Degiorgio and CYMBA Music Publishing episode

* doing cover songs to get noticed

* our theme shows and how educational they are

* where to put your hooks to register as a play on streaming services

* the future of Soundcloud (our speculations, anyway)

* Michelle Thibodeau’s episode and the eternal question of Do You Write from the Heart or the Head?

* Neel’s songs The Countless Few (#meToo) and All I Want for Christmas

* Phil’s song Have a Parkdale Hookers Christmas

Listen to the show:

Bruce, Neel, Phil and Vanessa each shared a song that meant something to them for the holidays. Bruce featured a song from a series of The Beatles releases from 1964 to 1969 that he and his brothers bought each other for Christmas. Vanessa brought in a ballet number from her childhood as a dancer. Phil showcased a feel-good (well, except for the drunk tank) song from the Pogues. And Neel featured a song from his childhood that may have played a role in his wanting to be a musician.

We also talked about:

* lengths of songs

* Mixolydian mode

* Romantic vs. Classical vs. Modern music

* CBC Ideas: Nine Minutes That Changed the World (on the Claude Debussy piece, Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and how it ushered in the modern classical music era)

* Focused listening

* How movies and music that technically have nothing to do with Christmas become associated with the holiday

Listen to the show

Check out the songs

We featured songs on this episode that use the unique “talk singing” technique. For the most part, we agreed that talk-singing meant that the singers were using short notes without too much melodic range, but still consciously in the key of the song.

We talked about:

* how the ends of talk-singing musical lines work

* the differences between rap and talk-singing

* how talk-sung songs have interesting music beds

* how you have a melody even when you’re speaking

* how the late 70s and 80s saw a lot of talk-singing songs

* our theme episode on Unconventional Singers

Listen to the show

Check out the songs

 

You don’t necessarily need to have a fantastic voice to write or even perform songs well. We looked at some of our favorite songwriters with unusual voices and how they did it.

Listen to the episode

We talked about

* Is pitchy the same thing as unconventional?

* Newtonbrook SS

* Rush-Stick-It-Out lyrics

* https://www.rush.com/

* Neil-Young-After-The-Gold-Rush lyrics

* Whistle-Down-the-Wind-Tom-Waits-Lyrics

* Playing everything on your tracks

* American Pie – Don McLean

* http://www.tomwaits.com/

 

Popular guest co-host and guest on Song Talk Radio, Patrick Ballantyne dropped by the studio to share two of his favourite Canadian songs. “Help Me” by Joni Mitchell is a great example of her unique combination of melody, structure, and lyrics to evoke a casual conversational tone. Includes a great instrumental hook. Patrick’s other pick was a song by Ian and Sylvia, “The French Girl”, in a very unusual version recorded by Gene Clark. As we discussed the tunes, we talked about:

* Patrick’s new album – “Calendar”

* Hearing songs of yearning at the age of 13

* Joni Mitchell’s unique vocal style

* adding a 2/4 bar in a 4/4 song

* When the root chord is a 7, it creates tension

* Led Zeppelin

Listen to the show

https://s3.amazonaws.com/songtalk/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Song-Talk-Radio-Episode-198-Patrick-Ballantyne.mp3

Andy De Rego, also known as Black Suit Devil, is a seductive blend of acoustic soul with thought provoking lyrics and heartfelt, soulful melodies. Andy has been a regular in Toronto’s rock, blues and metal music scenes for over twenty years, writing and performing across North America. Andy joined us to talk about:

* stealing borrowing from Black Sabbath if you’re going to start a metal band

* how Andy’s lyrics pull from the political, “fight the man” attitude of metal

* Andy’s song Blind Man, a song about corporate control and injustice – download the lyrics

* Short songs vs. long songs (hint: Andy writes long songs with a lot of tension)

* the daily grind of being a full-time musician, and where to find good paying gigs

* Andy’s song Fumble – download the lyrics

* how to separate the verse from the chorus

* the great debate of enunciating every word in your vocal performance, or not

Listen to the show

Watch the live performance

The gang celebrates 4 years of Song Talk nerd-ery! Station tech genius Michael Newton stops by too.

What we talked about:

* Our fav guests the past year

* Bad jokes

* Angela Saini

* Rachel Raditz

* Nolan Hubbard

* Theme shows

* The Oh Chays

Listen to the Full episode

 

 

 

 

The next time Halloween will occur on a Tuesday will be in 2023, so we were supernaturally possessed to take advantage of the freaky intersection and dig up some Halloween themed songs for this show.

But first, the important stuff. Since this is radio, we figured Halloween costumes were in order. Phil showed up as the classic Frankenstein’s Monster, Neel just kept with his usual weekday morning look as a corporate zombie, Bruce donned a pretty (scary) tiara to complete his princess outfit, and Vanessa came in dressed like a sushi, because, well, she digs sushi.

We also welcomed our newest team member, Anthony, who will be taking over technical duties next week. Glad to have you aboard, Anthony!

Listen to the show

The Songs

Download the lyrics / sheet music for:

Kaw-Liga

Halloween Parade

I Put A Spell On You

Stranger Things Theme

We talked about:

* Neel’s haunting solo piano piece, Agony

* Bruce’s seriously (not so) creepy song The Street

* The Residents unique approach to music

* Michael Jackson’s Thriller

* Hank William’s original country music version of Kaw-liga

* Halloween on Church Street in Toronto (Church Wellesley Village)

* Hocus Pocus

* Oliver Sacks and the power of music

* Song Exploder podcast episode with Stranger Things music composers Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein

* The theme music from Jaws

* Musical dissosnance

* How to introduce tension by not resolving your chords, or avoiding or delaying a perfect musical cadence

Ed Roman is an award-winning singer/songwriter, performer and multi-instrumentalist from Shelburne, Ontario, Canada.  Blurring the lines between pop, rock, folk, and country music genres, Ed’s uniquely crafted songs have received regular rotation on more than 100 terrestrial radio stations across North America and more than 400 stations, worldwide. On this program we had some lively discussions about:

* What is “Canadiana”?

* Being human and the influence of family on songwriting

* Music as a way to deal with dyslexia

* Forming a band at the age of 14 and writing original tunes

* Lyrics have many meanings for the listeners (good!)

* Emotions in the performance

* Protest songs – what happens behind the scenes?

* Holding onto unresolved chords versus fulfilling expectations

Download the lyrics

The Way She Goes

I Told You So

Listen to the whole show

https://s3.amazonaws.com/songtalk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Song-Talk-Radio-Episode-194-Ed-Roman.mp3

Watch the performances