Shelly Peiken - Confessions of a Serial Songwriter

What People Are Saying

Im eternally grateful to professional songwriters, the unsung heroes of many giant careers. Shelly Peiken provides fascinating insight into this least understood profession to the thorough delight of the reader.

Clive Davis

In the conversational tone of your BFF, Shelly Peiken tells you everything about the life of a songwriter. The good, the bad, the funny, the sad, what you need to know, what you want to know and even what you wish you didnt know, but are now grateful she told you. Confessions of a Serial Songwriter is the must have songwriters guide to life in the music business.

Cynthia Weil

Life, love and lyrics: with her open heart and personal prose, Shelly takes readers through the looking glass into one of the music industrysmost essential professions. Anyone aspiring to a career as a songwriter will find a wealth of eye-opening revelations and hard-won wisdom within these pages.

Dan Kimpel, Song Biz Editor, Music Connection Magazine

I relate to this strange, small world of which you speakthe games, the competition, the doubts, the sadness, the elation, the camaraderie, the songwriters high...seeking a better way. We are not alone.

Candice Beu, Mother and former Recording Artist on S-Curve Records

Shelly is a true beacon in the night for the rest of us.

T eresa LaBarbera Whites, A&R

Shelly brings authorial wisdom and a perpetual coolness to the pop song like no one else.

Greg Wells, Grammy-nominated Producer and Songwriter

Shelly bares her soul, speaks of her triumphs, her insecurities, her loves and her losses. On these pages you will see that her songs and her life are inseparableher life is where her songs come from.

Kevin Cronin, REO Speedwagon

It is incredibly hard sometimes to earn respect in the writing room when youre a young singer-songwriter. Shelly, however, not only respected what I had to say, but also nurtured my ideas in such a caring way. After writing with her, I felt that I had both collaborated with her and learned a lot from her!

Laura Marano, Actress, Recording Artist

Folks need to read and know about the great women in the music business.

Kevin Goins, Editorial Coordinator at SoulMusic.com

I love Shellys ability to really tap into the personal and turn it into something catchy and sing-able in record time. Shes such a warm, creative, caring person, who really invests herself in each song, and Ive really enjoyed picking her brain about how to be a working songwriter and a mom at the same time.

Lisa Loeb, Recording Artist

Shelly Peiken gives even more meaning to this wacky world were lucky enough (and crazy enough) to be a part of.

Emily Warren, Songwriter

Shellys writings are some of the best Ive ever read regarding this truly life-morphing process, always from a chefs stew of her own personal and professional senses. For those of us who share these wonderful yin yang days, weeks, years and/or decades searching for the note or the line or the mood or the sound that makes us go aah...capturing in those moments something we soooooo want to describe, but ultimately come up short of, she gets as close as anyone has a right to.

Mikal Paul, Musician

Copyright 2015, 2016 by Shelly M. Peiken.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Published in 2016 by Backbeat Books
An Imprint of Hal Leonard Corporation
7777 West Bluemound Road
Milwaukee, WI 53213

Trade Book Division Editorial Offices
33 Plymouth St., Montclair, NJ 07042

Permissions can be found , which constitutes an extension of this copyright page. Every reasonable effort has been made to contact copyright holders and secure permission. Omissions can be remedied in future editions.

Edited by Ronny S. Schiff

Cover Design and Formatting by Wicked Book Covers, www.wickedbookcovers.com

Cover Photography by Karen Ray Photography, www.karenrayphotography.com

Printed in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Peiken, Shelly.
Title: Confessions of a serial songwriter / Shelly Peiken.
Description: Montclair, NJ : Backbeat Books, 2016. | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016000480 | ISBN 9781495049255 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Peiken, Shelly. | Lyricists--United States--Biography. |
Popular music--Writing and publishing. | LCGFT: Biographies.
Classification: LCC ML423.P33 A3 2016 | DDC 782.42/164092--dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016000480

www.backbeatbooks.com

Contents

serial adjective \'sir--l\

The repetitive nature of similar acts performed over a period of time.

Hang around the music world awhile, and youll often hear the phrase, It all begins with a song. Hang around even longer, and you eventually realize somebody actually writes these songs. The incredibly talented Shelly Peiken has spent her life to date as part of a remarkable and ever-changing creative community of successful and professional songwriters whose work you know and love, even if youve never known her good name and excellent face. So if youve ever sat in your car or on a subway or around your backyard singing Bitch made famous by Meredith Brooks, or What a Girl Wants by Christina Aguilera, or dozens of other familiar songs sung by everyone from The Pretenders to Celine Dion to Keith Urban to Britney Spears, then its definitely time you get properly introduced to the funny, smart and beautiful woman who did so much to bring those songs to life.

Confessions of a Serial Songwriter offers you the tremendous pleasure of really getting to know Shelly Peikenand then some. This is more than a great book that takes us inside this fascinating world of working songwritersits even better than that. This is an insightful, honest, often funny, emotional look inside the good, the bad, the ugly and ultimately the transcendent aspects of trying to lead a creative life inside a competitive career thatlike most of themis full of highs and lows, ups and downs, art and commerce. And as you follow this pop culture pilgrims progress inside the world of music, as well as film, television and life generally, you soon begin to realize that this time its extremely personaland that songwriters are the soul inside the music machine that never stops. A little bit Nora Ephron, a little bit Carole King and a whole lot of fun, Confessions of a Serial Songwriter is ultimately a book about life, as all the best ones really are.

David Wild is a Contributing Editor for Rolling Stone , a two-time Emmy nominated television writer and New York Times best-selling author.

I am not Sheryl Crow. Though sometimes I wish I were. I love how she sings. I love how she plays guitar. (I love how she does it all in eight-inch strappy heels.) She writes songs that speak to my heart and other bodily parts. And, she seems like a really nice lady. But like I said, Im not Sheryl Crow. So who am I?

I am the young girl who was riding her bike around her Long Island neighborhood one summer day and passed a car with the window open and the radio on. The most amazing sound was heading right toward mealmost knocked me off my bike. It was Karen Carpenter singing Close to You. It put a spell on me. All I wanted to do was follow that car and catch the magic.