Free Making Records: The Scenes Behind the Music by Phil Ramone

most beloved of the last sixty years: “Love and Marriage,” “Three Coins in the Fountain,” “Time After Time,” “Be My Love,” “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” “All the Way,” “High Hopes,” “Call Me Irresponsible,” and “My Kind of Town (Chicago Is).”
    And Jimmy Webb—the author of such hits as “Up, Up andAway,” “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Wichita Lineman,” “MacArthur Park,” “Didn’t We,” “Adios,” and dozens of others—characterized songwriting as “Hell on Earth.”
    Why would Cahn and Webb—both highly accomplished songwriters—make such harsh statements?
    Because as smooth as they seem when you hear them on record, great songs don’t always come easy. Behind many three-or four-minute masterpieces are days, months, or years of effort.
    Yes—believe it or not—years.
    It took ten years and seven albums for Billy Joel to complete the lyrics to “And So It Goes,” and he tried to finish it for nearly every album we did together.
    This is how it happened:
    We would come to a session, and Billy would start to play the song.
    The melody was fine, but at the end of the phrase “And so it goes, and so it goes…” his lyrical thoughts stopped cold. When it reached that point he’d begin to joke around, singing it several ways in rapid succession, varying his emphasis on the word goes each time:
    “And so it goes…and so it goes …and so it GOES!”
    I finally figured out that Billy had written the punch line for something he hadn’t yet defined, and I told him so. “I’ve painted myself into a corner with a line like ‘And so it goes,’” he admitted. “What does that mean? So what goes? What can I write to lead up to it? ‘I jumped off a bridge and fell in the water—and so it goes?’ It sounds like the end of a news program: ‘I’m Walter Cronkite, and so it goes…’”
    Billy’s frustration with the song became a running gag. Whenever we’d start a new album, I’d ask:
    M E: Have you finished “And So It Goes” yet?
    B ILLY: Naw, I’m stuck.
    M E: And so it goes…!
    Billy finished the song—finally—and included it on Storm Front (an album I did not produce) in 1989. The song and the recording are resplendent in their simplicity; “And So It Goes” is a staple in Billy’s repertoire, and one of his most moving ballads.
    Not every songwriter finds songwriting a chore. Elton John, for example, wakes up inspired.
    Elton might start his day to find that two or three sets of lyrics from Bernie Taupin have arrived, and when he does he will walk over to the piano and begin improvising a melody. The ease and speed with which Elton writes is unrivaled; he is exceptionally disciplined. Sometimes Elton and I will talk and he’ll say, “I wrote seven new songs for a show this week.” That’s one song a day! Of those seven songs, three are probably finished.
    While most singer-songwriters pen both words and music, Elton enjoys letting others write the lyrics. His primary collaborator for the last forty years has been Taupin, who has helped Elton write most of his greatest hits, including “Crocodile Rock,” “Honky Cat,” “Daniel,” “Rocket Man,” “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,” “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” “Someone Saved My Life Tonight,” and “Candle in the Wind.”
    The way Elton and his lyricists write—correspond would be a better description—is bewildering. I was privileged to witness such an exchange while Elton finished up the songs for Aida . In that instance, Elton—who was in the States—e-mailed and faxed the melodies to Tim Rice, who was writing the lyrics in London.
    Whether the songs come easily or not, I’m awed by the way a songwriter can take a wisp of an idea—a few notes or chords—and spin it into a full-fledged melody.
    I’ve been at dinner with Burt Bacharach and seen him pull a scrap of paper from his pocket and scribble some notes that might later become the