HOW TO WRITE A HIT SONG: A LETTER TO UPCOMING ARTISTS

Dear up-and-coming musicians,

When I was learning guitar, a great guy named Jilly Baby said to me, "You're a good guitar player, but you'll never be great. The great ones always burn out, and there will always be a younger, faster player, but here's the trick: Write good songs."

But how do you do that?

I started studying the greats, like Lennon and McCartney, Michael Jackson, Musa Juma, Jagger and Richards, Reuben Kigame, Papa Wemba, Bacharach and David, Brian Wilson, Hall & Oates, Rkelly, Motown; the people who were writing the great pop hits of the day. You don’t want to study failures. If you’re going to write a book, you’re going to copy John Grisham, and if you want theatrical, you copy Stephen Sondheim. Basically, you copy and steal from the best. 

You will start to notice how they write songs. For example, there are often repetitions of familiar phrases; lyrics that you get from everyday conversations that people will be familiar with. Something like "Takin' Care of Business" or "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet," that kind of thing. You take those and build them into the refrains of songs.

What I would do was when someone hit number one, I would write their followup song. When Petula Clark hit number one with "Downtown," I would write another song called "Uptown." Of course, I never got the actual song to her, it was only practice. I would pattern it after this three minutes and 10 seconds of magic, whether it was the Beatles' "Can't Buy Me Love," Eric Clapton's "Crossroads," Jimi Hendrix doing "Purple Haze," or anything. Copy that song then write them their followup.

What you want to do is make that song your own, which requires a couple of steps. When I first start working as a producer with Trooper, I told them to get their 10 favourite songs and write them down. Then I told them to take one song and write new lyrics to it. Next, change the chords to match those new lyrics, then change some of your melody lines to fit those new chords. At the end of the process, they came back with a pretty good song. They started with the Who's "My Generation" and ended up with either "We're Here for a Good Time (Not a Long Time)" or "Raise a Little Hell," something like that.

That’s what Chuck Berry did. He used to take these country western songs, take those lyrics and put it over an R&B sound, or he'd get an R&B song and put his own country lyrics over it, and all of a sudden he’s a great storyteller. He's talking about "Maybellene" and "Johnny B. Good," and he’s telling these incredible stories all over a three-chord blues format.

Sometimes the song you end up with is nowhere near the one you copied, which is the trick. It’s like saying, "Here is some flour, sugar, water and chocolate, now make something." Somebody will make a pancake, somebody will make a cupcake and somebody will make a doughnut. They will all taste different, but it’s all the same ingredients. It all depends on proportions. If you’re a lyricist, you put in heavier lyrics and lighter music, and if you put in lighter lyrics, you balance that with heavier music.

The key thing though is to put your own twist on it because you're going to get sick of your friends saying that it sounds like Lady Gaga or John Lennon, so once you change it enough and they all say, "Wow, this is amazing. Did you write it?" You'll say, "I think so." The thing is you stole it from so many places, it’s become your own.

Do this long enough and open your mind and eventually a song just comes to you. Some angel says, "This poor guy has been trying to write songs for two years, it’s time to give him one," and out of the blue somebody says two words and you get this whole song that falls in your lap.

Embrace it, write it down, play it for someone and when they say, "This is amazing. Did you write it?" You'll say, "I think so."

#iAmKlassik #DSTG

KENYA, A NATION OF FOOLS

4 years ago, Kenya was a prosperous country. Its share in world trade was good enough, which fell to a level we cannot imagine. The result is multinationals opting to close shop for nothing is business enough. Local entrepreneurs have nothing to smile about.

Today, there is no doubt that Kenya is a poor country. While there are some pockets of affluence, about 80 per cent of our people are afflicted with poverty, unemployment and other evils, and one major cause of this is the mental backwardness of a large part of its people. Consider the following:

1. When our people go to vote in elections, 90 per cent vote on the basis of tribe, religion or community, not the merits of the candidate. And this is exploited by some unscrupulous politicians. That is why many persons with criminal backgrounds get elected.

2. Politics has been turned into a religion by our corporatised media, and most people lap it up like opium. The real problems facing 80 per cent of the people are socio-economic — poverty, unemployment, malnourishment, price rise, lack of healthcare, education, housing etc.”

3. During the recent cabinet reshuffles by the president, the media hyped the developments as a solution to the problem of corruption. In reality it was, as Shakespeare said in Macbeth, “…a tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/ Signifying nothing.”

4. Honour’ killings are common in many parts of Kenya. Political assassinations are on the rise and yet we still take sides instead of condemning the killings in harshest tones. What a shame!

3) Crimes of passion are common and as a leader, I can tell you that Kenyan courts have a large number of cases of young men and or women who are murdered in a barbaric manner by their spouses for some stupid reasons.

I want to see Kenyans prosper, I want us to get decent lives.

I wish to see Kenya in the front ranks of the advanced industrialised nations of the world, with its people having a high standard of living, instead of suffering from the present evils of massive poverty, unemployment, inflation, corruption, tribalism, child malnutrition, absence of healthcare and good education, etc. The truth is sometimes bitter, but sometimes bitter medicine has to be given to an ailing person.

WORDS OF KLASSIK WISDOM

POINTS TO NOTE: A MUST!

1. You cannot change what you refuse to confront.
2. Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.
3. Don’t think of cost. Think of value.
4. Sometimes you need to distance yourself to see things clearly.
5. Too many people buy things they don’t need with money they don’t have to impress people they don’t know. Read Rich Dad, Poor Dad .
6. No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying.
7. If a person wants to be a part of your life, they will make an obvious effort to do so. Think twice before reserving a space in your heart for people who do not make an effort to stay.
8. Making one person smile can change the world – maybe not the whole world, but their world.
9. Saying someone is ugly doesn’t make you any prettier.
10. The only normal people you know are the ones you don’t know very well.
11. Life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you react to it.
12. The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.
13. It’s better to be alone than to be in bad company.
14. As we grow up, we realize it becomes less important to have more friends and more important to have real ones.
15. Making a hundred friends is not a miracle. The miracle is to make a single friend who will stand by your side even when hundreds are against you.
16. Giving up doesn’t always mean you’re weak, sometimes it means you are strong enough and smart enough to let go and move on.
17. Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresea, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, etc…
18. If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.
19. Don’t choose the one who is beautiful to the world; choose the one who makes your world beautiful.
20. Falling in love is not a choice. To stay in love is.
21. True love isn’t about being inseparable; it’s about two people being true to each other even when they are separated.
22. While you’re busy looking for the perfect person, you’ll probably miss the imperfect person who could make you perfectly happy.
23. Never do something permanently foolish just because you are temporarily upset.
24. You can learn great things from your mistakes when you aren’t busy denying them. Read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People .
25. In life, if you don’t risk anything, you risk everything.
26. When you stop chasing the wrong things you give the right things a chance to catch you.
27. Every single thing that has ever happened in your life is preparing you for a moment that is yet to come.
28. There isn’t anything noble about being superior to another person. True nobility is in being superior to the person you once were.
29. Trying to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.
30. You will never become who you want to be if you keep blaming everyone else for who you are now.
31. People are more what they hide than what they show.
32. Sometimes people don’t notice the things others do for them until they stop doing them.
33. Don’t listen to what people say, watch what they do.
34. Being alone does not mean you are lonely, and being lonely does not mean you are alone.
35. Love is not about sex, going on fancy dates, or showing off. It’s about being with a person who makes you happy in a way nobody else can.
36. Anyone can come into your life and say how much they love you. It takes someone really special to stay in your life and show how much they love you.
37. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion; today is special.
38. Love and appreciate your parents. We are often so busy growing up, we forget they are also growing old.
39. When you have to start compromising yourself and your morals for the people around you, it’s
probably time to change the people around you.
40. Learn to love yourself first, instead of loving the idea of other people loving you.
41. When someone tells you, “You’ve changed,” it might simply be because you’ve stopped living your life their way.
42. Someone else doesn’t have to be wrong for you to be right.y
43. Be happy. Be yourself. If others don’t like it, then let them be. Happiness is a choice. Life isn’t about pleasing everybody. Read Making The Hard Choices by Bonnie K. Zablon.
44. When you’re up, your friends know who you are. When you’re down, you know who your friends are.
45. Don’t look for someone who will solve all your problems; look for someone who will face them with you.
46. If you expect the world to be fair with you because you are fair, you’rey fooling yourself. That’s like expecting the lion not to eat you because you didn’t eat him.
47. No matter how good or bad you have it, wake up each day thankful for your life. Someone somewhere else is desperately fighting for theirs.
48. The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.
49. Many people are so poor because the only thing they have is money.
50. Learn to appreciate the things you have before time forces you appreciate the things you once had.
51. When you choose to see the good in others, you end up finding the goodu in yourself.
52. You don’t drown by falling in the water. You drown by staying there.
53. It’s better to know and be disappointed than to never know and always wonder.
54. There are things that we don’t want to happen but have to accept, things we don’t want to know but have to learn, and people we can’t live without but have to let go.
55. Happiness is not determined by what’s happening around you, but rather what’s happening inside you. Most people depend on others to gain
happiness, but the truth is, it always comes from within.
56. If you tell the truth, it becomes a part of your past. If you lie, it becomes a part of your future.
57. What you do every day matters more than what you do every once in a while. Read The Power of Habit .
58. You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading your last one.
59. Things turn out best for people who make the best out of the way things turn out.
60. If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.
#iAmKlassik