Andy West

Andy is introduced by Joe as the bravest man at SWF as he is about to write a song live with no preparation at all in front of a crowd of songwriters.

He hands round pieces of paper and asks everyone to write down prospective song titles.
The purpose of this demonstration is to share one method of songwriting with the group. Drawing from his experiences in Nashville he explains how he formulated a method drawing from what worked for others he had met.
One songwriter he worked with would write notes of whatever they thought could go on in the song at the bottom of the page to have them there when they began writing the song. Andy has found this very useful and this is the method he is employing today. He goes on to say that the first thing they would agree on was the title.
He describes how he would look at the titles and see if there was something that he could relate to in order to take some ownership of the song and put something of himself into.
He discards some titles explaining why he is doing so as he wouldnít use those words himself. He isolates some titles that he thinks would sing well whilst also thinking about potential subjects for the song. There are some titles that he likes but he feels would take more than an hour to write and some that he would really like someone else to write.

Lyric suggestions come thick and fast from the audience...

He does a vote within the group and which coincides with his own choice. The title offered is Barry Shearman Brings the House Down.
Andy says the first thing to do is ask yourself whatís behind the title. He advises being the detective arriving at the scene of the title and asks for suggestions about what the title could be about. Blain notes down all the options on the screen and the background story chosen is that of a man who comes from a long line of entertainers but has ended up as a builder who is not very good at his new job.
Andy makes the point that because of the descriptive nature of the song he would have quite undemanding music. He references ëAll Along The Watchtowerí as a song that has very rich lyrics with an undemanding backdrop.
He likes the suggestion of having a chronological story and soon has the first four lines being about the entertainer’s background.
Andy says itís important to get as many points down as possible and something that feels like a good first draft without being overly critical.

He makes the point that it saves a lot of time if you write a song with a title that you feel you can say a lot about to begin with.
More suggestions are thrown out and Andy is careful to keep it in the same voice and make sure the references are not too obscure. He uses the storyline that theyíve decided on to keep things on track.
The question is asked around whether he is deliberately not playing the guitar. Andy says he prefers to get the lyrics right in the story, and as itís a story song he wants to concentrate on the lyrics primarily.
Once heís happy with the verse Andy plays it with the melody he has had in his head and more ideas come out which Blain notes down.
Ideas are coming thick and fast and one songwriter comes up with a killer line that finishes the song off.
Itís a great experience, really good fun and a real eye opener for everyone to a different approach to songwriting.

The demo panel 2009 - Boo Hewerdine, Andy West, Iain Archer, Chris Difford, Joe Bennett

Our songwriters were invited to submit songs for group discussion for public critique (and many thanks to those who were brave enough to do this!). A recording of each song was played, with lyrics projected in the University Theatre. Our panel this year is Boo Hewerdine, Joe Bennett, Iain Archer, Andy West and Chris Difford.

The standard of songs was excellent, although some of the writers commented that they felt their writing has developed so much in the last few days that they could see flaws in their previous works. Best of all, the critiques were received in the spirit of the Festival – appreciating the quality of others’ work but accepting that the songs had room for development.

After the morning tea-break (in which a pleasing number of people were frantically finishing lyrics to complete the latest task) we got together two of our guest tutors, Boo Hewerdine and Chris Difford, to meet ‘Parkinson-style’ to discuss songwriting techniques and experiences. Chris famously uses the same method as Elton John & Bernie Taupin – of completing a lyric in its entirety then sending it to Glenn to add the melody and harmony. We discussed in the session whether this leads to a particular character of lyric, and it certainly seems so in Chris’ work – the songs are filled with imagery and storytelling, and perhaps most importantly always avoid clichÈs.

Meanwhile, the studio teams are working hard – we’d estimate that we’ll have around 70 recordings completed by the end of the week. In many cases, songs are completed at lunchtime, recorded in the afternoon and gigged the same evening with the house band. By day four of each year’s SWF, we generally find that songwriters are ‘in the zone’ and all are comfortably completing one song per day (well, perhaps not comfortably – but they’re completing the songs, anyway!).

Here are some quick pics from day 3, including the second evening performance session† – all the songs have been written since Monday.

Collaboration task complete!

The house band accompanies one of our songwriters.

Rocking out in the cafÈ...

Andy finalises a new song prior to a playback tutorial

One of the SWF producers (Neil Martin) finishes a songwriter's mix on Pro Tools.

Recording vocals in the studio