Can you write a hit song after age 50. Losing the writing touch.

 Can you write a hit song  after age 50?

A long ago correspondent of mine, Richard Freeman, had an interesting theory. His theory was that popular songwriters, have only  a limited period of time before their songwriting abilities deteriorate.  They are just like sports stars in that regard. Freeman was referring mainly to their ability to connect with the zeitgeist of the marketplace, but also to their  ability  to write hit tunes, to avoid repeating oneself, and to continue to do so in a prolific manner. I argued the point at first, but I soon realized that for the most part he was  correct.  Usually most songwriters can't write their own hits  for  more than a decade.  In the second and third decade their work is very unlikely  to be among their best work, but occasionally they will produce an interesting album.

The great songwriters go longer,  but their later work is also always  weaker. It   is rare for even the best  melody writers  to still be able to write hits after say 25 years.  Think of Paul McCartney,  the most successful  songwriter, of the last half century. His  last top fifteen solo hit on the  American top 40 was in 1985.  He has recorded some excellent albums since then, but no big American hits. The 1989 song , "My Brave Face" written with  Elvis Costello was  his last top 40 American solo hit. Then he came back in 1995 with  a  joint Beatles  rewrite of  a 1977 John Lennon, song called "Free as A Bird".  McCartney finally broke his American hit drought in 2015  when McCartney finally had new written  song that was a hit-"Four Five Seconds"written and performed  in collaboration  with Rihanna and Kanye West.

Only a handful of  performing songwriters have been able to write hit for over a quarter of a century.
 Elton John wrote the melodies for songs  that hit the American top 40 for  every year between 1970 and 1997, he's had  a few British hits since but nothing in America. Madonna went between 1983 and 2012   but she usually brings in somebody to write or help write the melody. Madonna appears to be the oldest major artist to  help write a new American top 40  hit song as a solo artist. She was 54 when her last major hit came out.    The Bee Gees went 30 years, but rarely had a hit in the last 15 of those years.   Eric Clapton, seems to have gone  the longest he had self written hits between 1967  ("Sunshine of Your Love") and 1998 ( "My Father's Eyes"). But  this last hit , "My Father's Eyes" was mostly written in 1991. This is odd in that Clapton is only an occasional songwriter. What of more recent artists?  Bon Jovi wrote  hits between 1983 and 2007.   Mariah Carey has gone between 1990 and 2013  years,  but she always has brought in outside writers to help her, and her  last decade has been less successful.   Leonard Cohen released  his most famous song, "Hallulujah" at exactly age 50.

Most songwriters slow down well before twenty year mark,  and stop having hits or bring in outside writers to help them write hits, some good examples of the "I need help" phenomena are Rod Stewart, Heart, Aerosmith, Train, Lionel Ritchie, Michael Jackson, Stevie Nicks. Nowadays, most artists bring in the song doctors at the first sign of trouble, or bring in collaborators from the get go.

The  Rolling Stones' only radio airplay hit of the past few years was ripped off from  K.D. Lang, they have not had an American Top 40 hit since 1989.   U2 no longer has  big hit singles  in the US, though they still have them in the UK. Springsteen had 22 years of  hits.  Jimmy Page  has not really written much of significance after the demise of Led Zeppelin, Most most mature  artists just simply don't write new music that gets played on the radio after a certain point in their careers. Even when they do manage to write or record listenable material, it will not chart highly on the US charts. Some notable examples of this include "Maria" by Blondie, "New" by Paul McCartney, "Your Life Is Now" by John Mellencamp, "Don't Want To Lose You Now" by Lionel Ritchie. "Anybody Seen My Baby" by the Rolling stones,  and on and on.


Some artists just stop recording -Garth Brooks (who often used outside songwriters) took a long break, and Billy Joel   effectively stopped recording new material altogether.

With the advent of American Idol, the era of singer-songwriter ended and a majority of the hits on the American 40  are written in collaboration with / or totally by writers  who are  not the  actual artist on the recording.

The phenomena doesn't necessarily apply to non performing  writers of classical music or musicals.  Beethoven wrote his classic ninth symphony  at age 54, and Richard Rogers composed the music for  Sound of Music at age 57.   Burt Bacharach wrote two number one songs  after age 50.  "Arthur's Theme", and "On My Own", a duet between Patti Labelle and Michael McDonald.

Originally published April 2012.