Here’s the UK’s Eurovision entry for 2009, written by Andrew Lloyd Webber (music) and Diane Warren (lyrics). Any comments on the song and the songwriting technique? And yes, Jade does miss that last note by a good half a semitone, but hey – that’s not the songwriters’ fault.

Every year at the Songwriting Festival, Bath Spa songwriting tutor and ex-Nashville songwriter Andy West writes a complete song in front of the SWF audience, and explains his processes and problem-solving techniques throughout. The lyric, as it evolves, is transcribed and projected at the back of the theatre, and the song is then performed at the end of the hour.

When Andy writes he divides the process into two parts – creative and editorial. For the creative part, he often uses dummy lyrics or even cliches, returning to improve the early draft later when he’s in the editing phase.

The main purpose of the lecture is to break up the songwriting process into a series of clear choices; it also demonstrates one of the SWF core principles – that writer’s block doesn’t exist!

To quote one respondent to Jez’s blog, it’s all a bit ‘Barney the dinosaur’. Not breaking any hearts near you soon…

Cold Kisses (Thompson)

Here I am in your room going through your stuff

Said you’d be gone five minutes, that’s time enough

Here in your drawer there’s lacy things

Old credit cards and beads and bangles and rings

Well I think I’ve found what I’m looking for

Hidden away at the back of the drawer

Here’s the life that you led before

Old photographs of the life you led

Arm in arm with Mr X Y and Z

Old boyfriends big and small

Got to see how I measure up to them all

There is a place we all must start, love

Who were you holding in that fond embrace

I’ve found a door into your heart, love

And do you still feel the warmth of cold kisses

Here I am behind enemy lines

Looking for secrets, looking for signs

Old boyfriends big and small

Got to see how I measure up to them all

This one’s handsome, not too bright

This one’s clever with his hands alright

Tougher than me if it came to a fight

And this one’s a poet, a bit of a wet

Bit of a gypsy, a bit of a threat

I wonder if she’s got over him yet

Old passions frozen in the second

Who were you holding in that fond embrace

Hearts have a past that must be reckoned

And do you still feel the warmth of cold kisses

Time to put the past away

That’s your footstep in the street I’d say

Tie the ribbon back around it

Everything just the way I found it

And I can hear you turn the key

And my head’s buried when you see me

In a Margaret Miller mystery

And do you still feel the warmth of cold kisses

Do you still feel the warmth of cold kisses

In the 2008 Festival we were joined by songwriting legend Richard Thompson, who performed a set specially for the festival visitors, participated in workshop/playback sessions and discussed his songwriting techniques with SWF director Joe Bennett.†Here’s an excerpt of the solo acoustic set he performed, featuring the song ‘Cold Kisses’.

Reproduced by permission.

†