Questions + Answers

From Susanna P.

Hi Allison!

I always appreciate your messages on Substack.

One thing I’d love to hear about os your songwriting process. I particularly love your album “Down to Believing,” especially the title track. Such an absolutely perfect song, imho. I also love “Bad Weather” and “Wish I” … (these stand out to me) (Guess it’s obvious I love the heartbreakers.)

Curious about your exact process from start to finish. And 🙏🏽 thank you.

🩷📝Susanna

---

Dear Susanna,

Thank you for this great question, and for the compliment about “Down to Believing.” It’s one of the songs in my songwriting catalog that I’m proudest of — I think I hooked into and onto something, on the chorus particularly, that was hanging around in the universe waiting to be pulled down and I got lucky.

And I owe the melody to Keith Gattis and Audley Freed. I’d been listening to Keith’s music and one of the melodies, a song called “I can still come pick you up,” (co-written with Audley) got stuck in my brain. I got all over it when I wrote “Down to Believing,” and it was so integral to the lyric structure I built that I just put their names on it. That’s what I believed was the right thing to do so that’s what I did. I’d make the same decision today.

The process is up to the song. I’ve never been a very disciplined songwriter — I depend on the muse too much, but working with words in a constricted format when the energy isn’t flowing is a waste of time for me. I know that now and as a result am a very purpose-driven songwriter. I’ll also say this — I learned from living with Steve Earle for 8 years that it is most times indeed a waste of time and energy to try to come up with something to say if you’re not either willing to say it or if there’s nothing in you that needs to be said. I go with that philosophy and know that I’ve done quite a bit of time practicing the craft and I can depend on it if the lightning I receive should need a bottle.

Have a fantastic weekend.

Peace. Love.

Allison

---

---

Paid subscriber benefits:

• Access to the chat on the Substack app

• Subscriber Saturdays — exclusive paid subscriber-only posts on Saturdays

• Special discounts - every time I put paintings in the shop, paid subscribers will receive a discount code to use for 24 hours.