“Beyonce wanted me to write her a song like [OneRepublic’s] ‘Come Home.’
The Write Stuff is an occasional series about songwriters.
Ryan Tedder loves the frozen food aisle.
Christopher Polk/Getty Images
That, to me, is my absolute favorite moment,” he tells EW.
If you sing along any time “Burn” by Ellie Goulding comes on, you love his work.
And the list goes on.
Christopher Polk/Getty Images
Tedder would go on to play classical piano for 10 years.
“I was a kid with headphones on.
Music was my soundtrack to everything all the time,” he says.
“I’d change the music depending on the mood or the location of where I was at.
Around age 15, those two obsessions collided when he learned the name of songwriter Diane Warren.
“I discovered that most recording artists didn’t write their own songs,” he says.
“That’s like finding out Santa Claus isn’t real.
And then I said, ‘Well who did write it?’
Once I discovered that there were these songwriters that were writing all these songs, I became obsessed.”
But Tedder’s obsessions weren’t all about music.
He also had his sights set on a different segment of Hollywood: He wanted to be an actor.
“I applied for internships to probably five record labels and five film studios.
I said, ‘Okay God, you tell me.
Do I do music or do I do film?
And whichever one gives me the internship, that’s my answer.’
And I ended up at Dreamworks Publishing in the songwriting department of Dreamworks Records.”
It was a surprise to pretty much everyone who knew him.
He hadn’t even told his family that he’d been writing songs for the last four years.
Music was the same way for me.
And that more or less was my approach.”
EW asked Tedder to reveal the story behind that song and a handful of his other hits.
He told me, ‘I want this album to have a Prince vibe.’
I started playing those chords on the organ, mocked it together.
I had a melody in five seconds, I had the opening line.
I sent it to Clive Davis and Simon Cowell, and they wanted it for Leona.
It had been years since a British artist had had a hit in the U.S.
I remember the day I got the call that it hit No.
Simon told me, ‘This is going to cross the pond.’
That was my first number one.
I couldn’t work, couldn’t do anything and it got old really quick.
Beyonce had called me a month before.
She wanted me to write her a song like [OneRepublic’s] ‘Come Home.’
It was total luck that the particular keyboard patch that came on sounded like angels.
That entire song was written in under three hours.
She was like, ‘Who?’
Fast forward four, five months and it’s the Grammys.
We made a deal right there.
I said, ‘I just don’t want to do a ballad.’
She’s like, ‘Alright let’s do something that moves.’
I started stomping and playing the guitar riff.
Then she calls me and says, ‘Is it cool if I already have an idea?’
I said, ‘Sure.’
And then she sent me a voice memo.
She’s like, ‘I want it to sound like the 1980s.’
It was very much on the fly, and that song was done in about three hours.
And I did the rest of the production I think later that week.
