Editor’s Note: This is Part 2 of a 4-part series on reinventing the songwriting camp with NYU’s Clive Davis Institute and Songtrust. Check out Part 1 and stay tuned as we release the rest of the series.
Here’s something I’ve never understood: When three talented people write a song together, why does only one version come out?
When NYU’s Clive Davis Institute teamed up with Songtrust to rethink the traditional songwriting camp, one of our primary goals was to challenge the old-school rules of the music industry. During our sessions, we presented the campers with that exact question. Then we posed a follow-up: If all three teammates have the ability to get a song to the finish line, why don’t they each create versions of the song they wrote together?
Tripling the Asset Value
Three versions of the same song? Yes.
Why? Because all three teammates are stakeholders in the song. By the magic of songwriting, they can become stakeholders in three versions of the song, which triples their holdings of the same asset. The advantages are obvious: More recordings gives the song more chances at a public life; and every version helps build the larger story of the song.
We see this constantly on socials. At NYU, we’ve had multiple students blow up by creating new versions of other people’s songs—like Chloe Gasparini’s viral voice memo cover of Kanye West’s “Ghost Town.” Chloe’s performance, which was brilliant, also gave Kanye’s song tens of millions more streams, so it benefited him, as a stakeholder in her version, too.
We know that there are endless ways to interpret something as abstract as a song, and with every interpretation we are introduced to the different shades that a song contains. So, why would someone limit their own song to just one interpretation?
The Lie of the "Definitive Version"
There’s a reason. Or, there used to be.
This goes to the heart of the music industry: The concept of the “definitive version” of a song. At the CDI x Songtrust camp, we told campers: This does not exist, and never did. The “definitive version” is a lie perpetrated by old record labels to protect their own assets—the so-called “master recording.” In camp, we impress upon campers that there is no master anymore.
You already know this, of course. For some of you, a live version of a song is “the one” for you. Sometimes it’s a cover that someone else did. You might not like Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” for example, but love Jeff Buckley’s version. If you’re like me, you prefer k.d. lang’s version from the Vancouver Olympic Games in 2010. The point is that there are choices, and choices are a great thing.
Creating Opportunity, Not Competition
When our camp teams broke off into sessions, we asked them to consider:
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What if the writer recorded their own version of the track?
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What if the producer cut an alternative flip for a different genre?
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What if the artist and writer did a duet version… translated for an international market?
Which begs an even bigger question: Can a song be constrained by a single voice? Can one approach, and one artist really extract all of its nuance and meaning? Can you even say, having heard one version of a song, that you’ve truly “heard” the song?
I would say no. You’ve heard one opinion of a song that exists in multiple states. This is partially why artists like lyrics to be “open to interpretation:” they want the listener to be part of the experience of the meaning of the song. So how can a single read of a song accomplish that? It can’t.
This may sound like I’m on a tangent, but it filters right down to each trio in sessions at the songwriting camp. Each teammate has the opportunity to reveal a dimension of an endlessly abstract form known as the “song.” They are not in competition with each other, either—competition is another residue of a burned-out system, and besides, all three members are ⅓ owners of every version, so everyone wins, regardless of what happens to any one version. For people on the songwriting side, this is creating opportunity, not competition. That’s a win/win/win.
Long Story Short
By stripping away the myth of the "definitive version," songwriters can spark creative musical conversations around their songs while maximizing the full value of the music they create.
Mike Errico is the author of “Music, Lyrics, and Life: A Field Guide for the Advancing Songwriter” and a professor at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University.
