writing credits

[Stephen Swann]

ross.reyes writes:
>
> > I just looked at the number of times a Bouchard was
> >credited to a song vs. no Bouchard being credited -- if I counted right,
> >44 out of 72 songs had a Bouchard song-writing credit from the first
> >album to FOUO (61%).
>
> Someone please answer:
>
> I thought that a writing credit was given for the lyrical content
> of the song, not necessarily for the music.  Is there a distinction?
>
> I had thought that the writer brings in the lyrical stuff, maybe
> some loose ideas on the music, and the rest of the band chimes
> in to flesh out a complete tune.  Is that way off?

The writer doesn't bring in the lyrical stuff, except in the sense
that the song demo *will* have lyrics, as well as music.  But the
lyrics aren't written by the band, anyway, except for maybe a couple
of oddball exceptions.  Pearlman wrote by far the largest part of the
lyrics (at least in the early days), and the band wrote the music.  So
when you see songwriting credits like S. Pearlman, D. Roeser,
A. Bouchard, you can bet that Al and Buck wrote the tune, and Sandy
wrote the lyrics.  Hey John, isn't this stuff in the FAQ?

As for the part about how demos work... I've heard a few of the band's
demos (Al's and some others, like Buck's demo of "The Vigil"), and
they were all pretty much finished, as far as songwriting goes.  I'm
sure there's a chance for some last-minute creative input from the
other band members, but those demos weren't "loose ideas" by any
stretch - they were fully written songs.

Steve