One Hell Of A Song

Album: At Night, Alone (2016)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This track originated with a couplet on another All Night, Alone track, "Buried In Detroit."

    At the wake they'll say "He made a lot of mistakes
    But he could write hell of a song"


    Posner explained to Genius: "This album is dedicated to my late teacher and mentor, Norman Henry. He was in his 60s, before he passed away, and he's a classical arranger, writer and pianist. And this whole time, I was working on this album, every time I write a song, I'd go to my music lesson with him and I would play it for him.

    I played him 'Buried In Detroit' and when I got to this line in the end, he went 'Woooo,' as if he was a 13-year old listening to Jay Z when he stumbled on a hot line. I thought, 'Wow if it made him react like that, maybe that line had some legs and I should have a whole song written around it.'

    And I don't remember exactly where I was when I started writing 'One Hell of a Song' but that was sort of the emphasis to explore that line further."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Facebook, Bromance and Email - The First Songs To Use New Words

Facebook, Bromance and Email - The First Songs To Use New WordsSong Writing

Where words like "email," "thirsty," "Twitter" and "gangsta" first showed up in songs, and which songs popularized them.

Stand By Me: The Perfect Song-Movie Combination

Stand By Me: The Perfect Song-Movie CombinationSong Writing

In 1986, a Stephen King novella was made into a movie, with a classic song serving as title, soundtrack and tone.

Adele

AdeleFact or Fiction

Despite her reticent personality, Adele's life and music are filled with intrigue. See if you can spot the true tales.

Ian Anderson: "The delight in making music is that you don't have a formula"

Ian Anderson: "The delight in making music is that you don't have a formula"Songwriter Interviews

Ian talks about his 3 or 4 blatant attempts to write a pop song, and also the ones he most connected with, including "Locomotive Breath."

John Lee Hooker

John Lee HookerSongwriter Interviews

Into the vaults for Bruce Pollock's 1984 conversation with the esteemed bluesman. Hooker talks about transforming a Tony Bennett classic and why you don't have to be sad and lonely to write the blues.

Al Jourgensen of Ministry

Al Jourgensen of MinistrySongwriter Interviews

In the name of song explanation, Al talks about scoring heroin for William Burroughs, and that's not even the most shocking story in this one.