One of the many fantastic opportunities provided to ASCAP members at this year's EXPO was an intimate private session of only 20 members with songwriter/producer Desmond Child. Child is responsible for writing hits that have sold over 300 million albums worldwide such as "Living La Vida Loca," "Living On a Prayer" and "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)," and he's also a member of the prestigious Songwriters Hall of Fame.
In the session, Desmond shared songwriting tips on rhyming, collaborations and dedication to the craft of songwriting. He said perfect rhymes are always better than soft rhymes, because it makes the song more crisp. He said to be professional, courteous and honest with your collaborators, which includes being on time for appointments, not being on your iPhone during a session, and being fair with songwriting splits (he always splits everything evenly or he won't do the session). Most of all, he said that songwriting must be your life if you want to be successful. He and every other successful songwriter have made sacrifices. One of Desmond's personal sacrifices is that he's missed half his son's life, only seeing him three days per week, if that.
Desmond's session began with him telling the story of how he and Diane Warren had each submitted a song for the movie Burlesque, starring Cher. Both his and Diane's song submission were rejected by the director of the movie. He and Diane couldn't understand why, because when they listened to each other's songs, they both sounded like they would fit perfectly in the movie. The pair decided to work on a song together and resubmit it to the director, who said no to their re-submission. Desmond then decided that it wasn't in the cards for him to have a song in this particular movie, and he left it at that. Diane Warren, on the other hand, was relentless. She "coincidentally" ran into Cher's best friend at a clothing store. When Cher's best friend was admiring a leather jacket and commented to the clerk that it was too expensive, Diane bought the jacket for her right on the spot. It was a $4,000 jacket. Cher's best friend asked her why she was doing this, and Diane reached into her purse, handed Cher's best friend the demo CD of the song that had been rejected by the director, and made her promise she'd give it to Cher.
Long story short, Cher loved the song, while the director still insisted he didn't want it in the movie. Cher pulled her star card, put her foot down and told the director that if she could not have the song in the movie, she wouldn't do the movie. "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me" won the Golden Globe award this year for Best Original Song.
The moral of Desmond's story was that you should never give up and you cannot take no for an answer. I loved this story, particularly because it related to my own experience as a volunteer at the EXPO: at the volunteer orientation we were briefed and told that Desmond Child's Master Session was only for the 20 pre-selected members and no volunteers were scheduled to be in the room. Stubborn as I am and determined to get my way, the first thing I did after I checked in to my blogging post was ask the person in charge about sitting in on Desmond Child's session so I could cover the story. I figured the worst he could say is "no". And as I sat in the room and listened to Desmond's opening story, I was so happy I asked.
