This week, Phil shared his out-of-his-comfort-range approach to tackling this year’s songwriting challenge to write from the title Why Do You Cry?

Download the lyrics.

We talked about:

• Is Old Music Killing New Music?
• The Song Talk Meetup
• Dan Tapper, a long ago guest on our show
• writing a song as a series of declarative statements
• building a song through instrumental arrangements
• taking a minimal approach to the chords
• does Phil’s song need a bridge?
• the wide spectrum of narrative types in songs
• what’s the right length for your song?
• what did Neel, Mike, and Phil learn from our songwriting challenge this year?
• Duran Duran to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame