I Know Places - Voice Memo

So over the years, a lot of people have asked me

To sort of describe my songwriting process from beginning to end

"How long does it take?"

"Where do you write?"

"What are the circumstances?"

"Do you start with music?"

"Do you start with lyrics?"

Um, and, you know my answer is always that it happens differently every time

And that's why I'm still so in love with songwriting

So what I've done here is shown you three different examples of, um

The beginning stages of these songs, and how they each started, uh, different ways

So, um, I'll explain them to you, and maybe that will help you understand kind of

How I put songs together

I sent this voice memo to Ryan Tedder because I'd always wanted to work with him

And finally we, we scheduled some studio time

So I always wanna be prepared

I wanted to send him the idea that I was working on, before we went into the studio

Just in case he wrote back and said

"I can't stand that, I wanna work on something else, think of something else"

So, um, I just sat down with the piano, put my phone on top of the piano

And just kind of explained to him where I wanted to go with the song

How I saw the melody sitting in

And, um, we ended up recording the song the next day

And it ended up being on the record called, uh, "I Know Places"

So this was the voice memo I sent to him

The night before we ended up finishing the song

Okay so this is kind of this rough idea thing

Uh-uh-uh-oh

Oh-oh-oh-I

Oh-oh-oh-oh

Oh-oh-oh-I

Oh-oh-oh-oh

Oh-oh-oh-I-I-I

Na na na na, waitin' at the back door

They're around, and the vultures come around

And you know that they, what they want us

Say what they want 'bout, say what they want 'bout us

And you come and sing and listen

I would not think about it, but I'm not done

Ever know that a thing or two about it, thing or two about it, I

'Cause they got the cages, they got the boxes

And guns

They are the hunters, we are the foxes

And we run

Baby, I know some places we won't be found

And they'll be chasin' their tails trying to track us down

Cause I, I know places we can hide

I know places, I know places

Uh-uh-uh-uh

Uh-uh-uh-I

Uh-uh-uh-I

Uh-uh-uh-I

Know places

Or whatever, I don't know, but that's basically

Just like a dark, really dark, like, um, lyric, like bridge thing and it's about like, uh

Everybody's like, trying to get into, and like, ruin a love or whatever and it's like, you just

Whatever, you know

Um, and then the chorus would just go to that major and just like, be like ohh, chorus

Um, so I hope you like it

It wouldn't be a piano thing, it would be like

Nnn, ss, nn nnn, ss, nn

Like very, like, beat

Now I'm just making weird sounds

Hope you like it