Todd Wright - 40x40

More than 8300 words later and with the help of 40 plus friends and musicians 40x40 is finished. I am relieved but a little sad. I got by with a lot of help from my friends...too many to list but they know who the ...

Appropriate title. 39 down and 1 to go. I wrote this about the fact that I keep discovering how wrong I was about things I was sure of...and now at 39 and 50 weeks old I may not know anything at all. Maybe when I ...

Nine years ago I wrote a wedding song called 6/16/01. Getaway Car recorded it a few times but it never came out right (although an 8 year old bass take survives to see this version.) It seemed appropriate to final ...

Dinner with Mark Williams and Bryan Dawley turned into dessert at Iceberry turned into a bottle of Yellowtail (for them) and a laaaaaate hang at my house to write a song for this week. There are so many nautical s ...

Luke Brindley and I wrote this song in the wee hours of Sunday night / Monday morning. We didn't start recording until Tuesday at 11PM right after I played a 4 hour gig here in town. Bryan Dawley and Luke came ove ...

I had no song as of 4:30PM Tuesday. It had been one of those get-nothing-done-mope-around-the-house kind of days which are particularly unmotivating. Finally I just decided to rip into myself. This is probably the ...

Women of the world take note as I am about to say something no man has ever said (or at least no man in my family). Not only am I going to say it but I am tying it to a melody, surrounding it with chords and sendi ...

An old school Elvis Presley ballad walks into a bar and gets it's ass kicked by the Pet Shop Boys. This song would be the result.
Bryan Dawley played guitar and sang sweet high harmony.
Micah Wilshire mix ...

Angry pop songs are written when the AC is broken.
Mark Williams played guitar and bass
Tyler DeYoung played drums
Micah Wilshire mixed.
...

Holy "Lean On Me" I have NO idea where this hopeful, it's-all-gonna-be-ok lyric came from. Please do not let this song's message tarnish my cold, sarcastic and abrasive demeanor. Truth be told, every week my daugh ...

This is one of my favorite 40x40 songs so far. I wrote the chorus in about ten minutes on Sunday. Matt McGinn showed up an hour later and helped write a verse and bridge in about 30 minutes. I started tracking Mon ...

Sunday and Monday are my "40x40" days but this week I had family obligations Sunday and Monday I had to be in Red Bank, NJ to work with a band in the studio. We wrapped Monday night at 10PM and I knew the only cha ...

There are some bits and pieces scattered through my iTunes library called "ideas." This past Tuesday morning at 2AM when I had no song for the week I went to the search window in the upper right hand corner and ty ...

Leave It All Behind started as a game. Every few months I do a songwriter's circle at Jammin' Java in Vienna with three other friends and writers. We decided it might be cool to pick a title and each write our own ...

This was an old idea that was laying around for nearly ten years. It was slower and super lame until 11 beats-per-minute and a twelve string guitar brought it back to life. It's another simple broken-hearted angry ...

This is an old song I wrote about a particular music industry person (or persons) who once held my fate in his hands. He would say things like "if you looked like so and so you'd have a record deal by now." It did ...

This song was inspired after a conversation I had with a friend about insecurity and how debilitating it can be. Every day when my daughter goes to school I freak a little (if not a lot) that some kid is putting h ...

I got several requests to record this one so here it is. It been attempted in the studio several times but never well enough to see the light of day. It's a simple rock song about asking your ex for a temporary re ...

This is a song I wrote in my head a few days before my daughter slept over at my house the first time. I was crazy nervous and I knew she would be too. Thankfully it went pretty well and now years later (and many ...

I wrote this song nearly ten years ago when some friends were thinking about getting divorced. The lyrics are not incredibly deep but I feel like there's something bigger in the simplicity. I never played it for e ...

This was an old love song I wrote in the day. It seemed to be a pretty simple heart-broken message until I sang through it a few times and it started to sound stalkerish. So apply it as you will to your own person ...

This one is slow and sad. I don't think in the first 18 weeks I've many heart-wrenching-woe-is-me-for-losing-you songs yet. This is unusual because every song I wrote up until age 32 was about that and only that. ...

Do people even know what 45s are anymore? This song is a power pop tribute to vinyl records, fuzzy guitars and sha-la-las. I started it Tuesday at 6:33PM and I'm just wrapping it up Wednesday morning at 4:31 AM. ...

This is another "old" song that never saw the light of day. I asked for requests on my Facebook page this week and this was one of them. I'd all but forgotten it and don't even remember writing it or what it's abo ...

Enough of the serious stuff for a bit. I needed to write a simple 3 minute bubblegum pop song because it's been a while. I started writing this Monday at 3AM and finished it Monday at 3:25AM. This song has it all: ...

This song is my New Year's Resolution. Enough said.
J.P. Evans and I were fellow drummers in our middle school drum corp. We hadn't seen each other since high school but thanks to Facebook have reconnected an ...

This week presented a whole new challenge when seven family members and one bulldog descended upon me and filled every available foot of floor space in my home. I loved having them here but it made it difficult to ...

It's strange how a song can be born many years before it's written and you never really know it's happening. I shall explain... I had a meeting with a record executive about doing some writing for his artists. He ...

I wrote this song in a band van on my way back from NYC. I'm not sure which van (or band for that matter) but it was inspired by what's called an alternate tuning. Basically you twist the little tuning pegs on you ...

I hope you weren't expecting something festive when you saw the title of this week's song. I was walking my dogs late one night and singing to myself (as I sometimes do) like a crazy person. The line "she's gonna ...

Inspired by true events. This is for every man who ever put a tree in a tree stand while his woman barked out orders. "It's crooked...to the left...to the right....there....no...you had it...now i ...

"Let the police come, let 'em draw their guns. I won't come out for anyone." My friend Justin Sheehy from the great band Jonasay came to my house one day and played me that little snippet...from there the twisted ...

The very talented Katherine Thorsey was in the studio finishing a song about a month ago when, at the tail end of our session, she asked if I would help her write a song for her boyfriend's birthday. Unaccustomed ...

I'm writing this from New Orleans, LA where this week's song "When I Found You (11:11)" was born. Better Than Ezra bassist Tom Drummond and I started a side project a few years ago and have written somewhere close ...

Mama said there'd be weeks like this...When I started 40x40 I knew it was going to be difficult. I did not account for illness. This was the toughest so far as we had house guests all week and I couldn't work late ...

Alien Love Song started as an "I'm gonna try to write a hit" moment. I thought if I was going to write an obvious love song I should make it about something unique. That way I could have a hearty laugh when Faith ...

Three years ago in late October my friend and drummer Chris Williams passed away. He played with me in the Pat McGee Band and occasionally in Getaway Car. His favorite GC song was "Orbit." So this week, for him, I ...

The first two 40x40 songs were very obviously inspired by my daughter and this one is no exception. She turns SEVEN this month so cut this proud dad some slack. Unlucky Stars is about the moment when every ...

The great Brian Delaney from the New York Dolls is on drums. The amazing Jared Bartlett is on guitar. I played the other stuff and the always incredible Micah Wilshire mixed it My daughter helped me with th ...

This was an unfinished idea I wrote with GetawayCar guitarist Matt Miceli. This past weekend TGC drummer Dan Garvin stopped in while visiting from Cincinnati and played drums on it. So in a way, it's somewhat o ...