I Know Places (Voice Memo)

So over the years, a lot of people have asked me to sort of describe my song writing 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,

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

and that's why I'm still so in love with song writing.

So what I've done here is shown you three different examples of the beginning stages of these songs and how they each started, different ways.

So 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 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 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 we ended up recording the song the next day and it ended up being on the record called "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-i

Oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-i-i-i

Na na na na waiting at the back door

They're around and the vultures come around

And you know that they, they won't us

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

And you come and sing, and

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

Every 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 places we won't be found

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

Cause I, I know places we can hide

I know places, I know places

Uh-uh-uh-i, uh-uh-uh-i, oh-oh-i, uh-uh-uh-i, no places

Or whatever I don't know, but that's basically just like a dark, really dark,

lyric like bridge thing and it's about like

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

whatever, you know, and the would just go to that major and just be like ooh .

So I hope you like it, it wouldn't be a piano thing

It would be like Ohhh~, very like beat