The Song Doctor
Let me diagnose your problem
It started when I was sitting in the corner of a recording studio control room. How I got there is a whole other story, but for now, I’ll say that I was a friend of the sound engineer.
The band had just finished getting most of their track down and the producer asked my engineer friend what he thought. He gave a non-committal answer, probably because of years of experience in diplomacy. No-one asked me but I answered anyway.
“It sounds like two songs mixed up”, I said. If you can pull them apart and then complete them both then you’ll have two great tracks. The producer looked at me with a bemused expression. The band sniggered quietly. The engineer looked elsewhere.
They ignored me after that and just got on with the final mixing. Later that day, when we were on our own, the producer approached me. “Actually you might have a point”, she said. She sat down at the computer and duplicated the recording file. On one she selected most of the tracks, and with the second one she selected the others. She then played both tracks. They were both a bit rough, and the second one needed a change of tempo, but I was right. We actually had two songs.
Both appeared on the band’s next album. My name wasn’t credited though, which was fine by me.
I didn’t think much of it after that, until a call came out of the blue a few months later. The producer send me an mp3 file of a grime track. “Any suggestions for this?”, her message said. Grime wasn’t really my thing, but I listened a couple of times anyway. I called her back.
“I think it needs to start with a whisper. If someone whispers you lean in and really start listening.” She sent it back a couple of days later with the opening vocals in a whisper. “Whisper at the end too”, I replied. That worked, and in fact it was called Whisper. Yes, you’ve probably heard of it, and it’s practically a sub-genre now.
Still no credit, still fine by me.
When I got a message again after another few months I said I needed to come in next time. I booked a last minute day off work and travelled to the studio. I must have been given a good introduction because from the start it seemed the band really wanted to hear what I had to say.
“Putting a song out is a brave thing”, I said. “Even though it’s just so easy to do these days, even if you’re not human, what you’re doing is like standing on the street and shouting, ‘listen to this’. This song sounds apologetic, like you hope you don’t mind intruding. It needs to be braver.”
That wasn’t something a producer or engineer could respond to but, to their credit, the band did. They redid most of their parts, trying to be, well, braver. It worked. Number one.
So this is what I do now. I don’t take credit, though now I do take money. No royalties, just a day rate. You’ve probably heard the songs I’ve had a hand in. Though it’s less of a hand, and more of a bit of chat at key points. No, I won’t tell you what they are. It doesn’t take all day. I don’t work evenings. I’m not bored yet.
At some point someone called me the Song Doctor, and it stuck. Anyway, let me listen to what you’ve got for me.
