Journale 26

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Songwriter / March 1981

Adrienne Anderson is the lyricst who has cowritten such hits as "Deja Vu" (with Isaac Hayes), "Could It Be Magic" and "Daybreak" (with Barry Manilow), and "I Go To Rio" (with Peter Allen). She has also collaborated with Melissa Manchester, Leon Ware, and Earth, Wind and Fire's Maurice White. Some of her important covers include Donna Summer's recording of "Could It Be Magic" and Pablo Cruise and Peggy Lee's renditions of "I Go To Rio." The latter song also became a popular TV number, performed by such artists as Donny and Marie Osmond, Ann-Margaret, and Tony Orlando. "Daybreak" became the theme and variations for religious popularizer Oral Roberts 'TV special, and subsequently an "ecclesiastical hit." Anderson has been developing her art for 10 years, starting out not as a songwriter, but as a singer. One of her accompanists: Barry Manilow. "I paid him $ 10 an hour, but we got bored and started writing songs together." Anderson's first published song, for which she wrote words and music, was "Amy." Tony Orlando produced it; Barry Manilow sang it under the name "Featherbed," and it led to Barry's first singles' deal. Her first hit, "Could It Be Magic," occurred when Manilow began recording for Arista Records. Perhaps the nicest part of Anderson's story is that writing "Deja Vu" for Dionne Warwick was the capper to a much earlier idolization. Warwick turned Anderson from a devoted jazz fan to an R & B addict: "When Warwick's 'Walk On By' came out, I flipped out. I remember saying to my teenage sweetheart of seven years, 'Wow, this is great; this is what's happening!' He got so furious that he almost broke up with me. So when I was in the studio and heard Dionne singing some of the lyrics to 'Deja Vu' for the first time, I turned to Barry and asked, 'Barry, do I have to be cool?' and Barry said, 'Nooooo,' and then I just let out this great big whoop." Songwriter: How did you get linked up with Isaac Hayes, composer of "Deja Vu?" Anderson: Dionne Warwick and Isaac Hayes have a long relationship. Years ago he wrote the riff that eventually became part of the instrumental in " Deja Vu." Periodically, when he saw Dionne on the road, he would play that riff for her and he'd say, "What do you think?" "I love it," she'd say, "Give me the song." This went on for years, a marathon, but finally Isaac finished it. Dionne's next question was, "Great, great, where are the words?" When Dionne got her deal with Arista and it got down to the nitty gritty for material, she told me she called Isaac: "Isaac," she said, "If you don't have those words in two weeks, I am personally coming down to Atlanta with a butcher's knife and I'm gonna cut off what you treasure most in life...." What ultimately happened was that Barry Manilow, the producer of Dionne's record, suggested to Isaac that I have a crack at the words. Songwriter: How did you go about working on the song? Anderson: When I received the song, it was a nice demo titled "Deja Vu." I'm not used to being given a title first thing, but since this was my first collaboration with Hayes, I decided to give it a go. I knew that if I was going to work with a title like that, I would have to spend the balance of the lyric defining those words. The first lines I actually came up with were: "I keep remembering me/ I keep remembering you/ Deja Vu." I came up with them in the first 15 minutes. They're my favorite lines. I also knew that very first instrumental riff that Hayes had written and played over and over for Dionne had to be left alone. I knew as soon as I heard the tune, that I could not put a single word in there.

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Songwriter: What are the strengths of "Deja Vu?" Anderson: What makes "Deja Vu" a hit is that people can sing along with it. I even find myself singing along with it. The music is dreamy and the melody is simple enough to engage you. I worked on making the lyric a personal one, and the opening words, "This is insane," kicks it off that way. At the same time, the words have impact because it is also a dramatic, very unusual way of opening a lyric. Songwriter: Were there rewrites? Anderson: The song went through many, many drafts. Both Barry and I played a lot with that lyric. Barry wanted to make sure that this song was right in the pocket. He's my strongest critic... I have to say here that I have learned a lot from him about being a lyricist. He forces me to be as crystal clear as I can be. Many times he'll say, "God, that's great. How do you come up with this stuff?" He can also say, "I think I understand what you're saying here," meaning that he does, "but you've just got to be a little clearer." Songwriter: So criticsm isn't something that makes you defensive? Anderson: I love people to be critical of what I'm doing because if they are, it means they've got a perspective that surpasses my own. Criticism is a gift. I'm fortunate in that I write with people that I feel good about writing with. I respect them. The really choice lines, the gems, don't get overlooked by them. And the words that don't work are hopefully pointed out to me. When someone says, "Ah come on, you can do better than that," it gives me a sense of security. I love it. It's more stimulating for me. Songwriter: How about the other way around? Do you make suggestions about the music? Anderson: I've gone through various changes about that. When Barry and I first started working together, he was always bugging me for a melody line here or there. He'd hit some chords, and say, "What are you hearing?" He loves my ears. And he also loves the fact that I am relatively unschooled in music, because he says I was free could make. But then I went through a phase where I was into legitimizing myself through inventory. I would write to almost anything. I got to a point where I was very mercenary: I wrote the words; they wrote the music; and whoever wanted to produce or publish the song would. I was only interested in getting my job done. But what I began to find was that when there were flaws in the music, the songs weren't getting through. I found that what I was doing could only work if the music was working too. Now I take more responsibility for the music. If I don't feel right about it, I say so. Songwriter: What was your early songwriting like? Anderson: I was geared towards being your ultimate Dory Previn type lyricst. If what I was saying wasn't absolutely unique to mankind. I was being a hack. My lyrics also tended to be so dense that a lot of wonderful words and ideas got passed over. They were too "clever." The title song from "Bright Eyes," one of Melissa Manchester's albums, is a good example of my earlier style. One of the verses went: "Just a dance for a changer/ A stranger to brush my hair/ And I know I'm an angel/ That's fallen from the sky." A publisher I once showed the song to made a comment that still sticks in my mind. He said, "A stranger to brush my hair... that's a whole chorus right there!" Now I can look at the words to "Rain," one of the last songs I did with Barry, which go, "Rain falling down from the sky/ Kissing my love goodbye/ Rain falling down," and I see that I've gone from 15 metaphors and images in a few lines to simple, direct lyrics. Saying more with less. Songwriter: Maybe this is a good time to start talking about what characterizes a great song. Anderson: People sing along with great songs. A great song, a song that's a standard, is participatory. I catch myself singing along. Remember that Billy Joel song, "Just The Way You Are?" A while back it was on the radio all the time. Waiting at a red light one day, the song was playing on my car radio. I glanced out my right window and saw a woman in a sedan lip-synching it. Just her and me and Billy Joel. I started laughing to myself, thinking, "Well, if that doesn't capture the essence of what this crazy business is all about." When that song came out, everybody loved it. Young people, old people, rich people, poor people, educated people, uneducated people. It was the perfect example of a song that a 12-year-old could understand and a 80-year-old could understand. Mainstream success is getting to the people. I don't see that as a conflict. I see that as a synthesis. That's why this business off creative success versus commercial success is nonsense past a point. Great songs communicate because they are saying something from a place that's universal. One of the things that attracts me to what I do specifically, writing pop songs, is that it is the ultimate mainstream art from. And I'd say that three people who had the greatest influence in opening my eyes to understanding that you could be both great and accessible were John Lennon, Stevie Wonder and Sly Stone. These men expressed the universe in very basic, simple street language. And when I saw the power in the simplicity of this kind of communication, my own writing began to change. Songwriter: Could you elaborate? Anderson: Melissa and I have this running gag. She'll be on the road for awhile and when she comes back, I'll ask, "What do you think my favorite line of the year is?" And she'll say, "Kitchy, kitchy ya ya da da." (From Lady Marmalade by Labelle.) She knows I'm going to throw up my hands and say, "Now that's great. That's really great." The song is using language in a way that cuts undermeath, and the words are saying something primeval, so that you get to a level of communication that is way beneath the brain, some- where in the solar plexus. That's what I'm shooting for with my words - for the gut, not the brain. When I use words that are beyond a mental thought, that affect my chemistry, that allow me to feel something beyond the words - that's when I get excited about what I'm doing. Songwriter: Poetry is also like that - the words penetrate to a place beyond the brain. What's the difference between a lyric and a poem? Anderson: Poetry is meant to be read. Lyrics are meant to be sung. I get letters from writes who have pages and pages of what they call lyrics and they ask me what to do with them. I tell them to either write some music to them or to find someone to write the music. A lyric is a poem until it is sung, and it can only be sung when it has music set to it. A song also requires that the message be communicated within the rhythm of the music. By the time the words are sung, people need to have absorbed them and be on to the next lines. With poetry, a reader can pace himself as he pleases, go over lines or dwell on a phrase. In a song, the lyrics has to make sure that if he's going to move from A to B to C to D to E, that by the time he gets to F, his listener isn't still back on B. If he's writing

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