As It Happens: Song A Day

It's songwriting in real time! Listen in as host Jonathan Mann (Guinness World Record Holder for Most Consecutive Days Writing A Song - 4000 days and counting), writes his daily song. You'll hear everything from the nuts and bolts of lyrics and chords to the more emotional work of failure, frustration and general messy chaotic wildness that comes with a daily creative practice.

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Episodes

My Baby Yoda Song Went Viral On TikTok

This episode is all about how I made the song and what happened once it went viral.

Mar 24, 2020•17 min

The Lyrics Came To Me In A Dream

I woke up this morning with some lyrics and a melody in my head.

Mar 17, 2020•16 min

A Good Ol' Fashioned Song Fight!

SongFight.org is a weekly song competition that’s been going since the early aughts. Each week you’re given a title. You make a song with that title, email it to the "fight master", who then posts all the songs to be voted on. The song with the most votes wins. There’s no prize but the warm satisfaction of a job well done. From roughly 2003 to 2005, I participated in SongFight every single week. I rarely won, but as a precursor to song a day, I found it was a great way to keep myself accountable...

Mar 10, 2020•20 min

I Undertook A Difficult Song Request

Every once in a while, I'll put the call out on Twitter and ask people what they think I should write about. The suggestions are often about current events. Or animals. Today, I decided to go with a suggestion that's a bit more difficult to interpret.

Mar 03, 2020•18 min

Let's Avoid Existenial Dread By Listening To This Podcast

Today's song is about all the ways we distract ourselves to avoid being alone with our thoughts and our mortality. It started when the title popped into my head.

Feb 25, 2020•18 min

Trying To Knock Myself Out of A Rut

Every once in a while, I try starting a song using an instrument I don't normally use.

Feb 18, 2020•19 min

Climate News Is Depressing, Let's Make A Song

In August of 2019, Iceland marked the loss of a glacier. 100 or so people, including the Prime Minsiter, walked up the mountain to hold a ceremony and install a plaque that reads , “Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier. In the next 200 years all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done Only you know if we did it.” I saw this bit of news go by and knew immediately that I...

Feb 11, 2020•21 min

Starting A Song When You Have No Ideas

There are many days when I sit down to write a song and I have no idea what I'm going to write about. This is one of those days.

Feb 04, 2020•16 min

Write Drunk, Edit Sober

There’s a quote, most often attributed to Hemingway (though no one can find where he said it): WRITE DRUNK, EDIT SOBER. In this episode, we do some "sober editing".

Jan 28, 2020•16 min

Turning Tweets About The New Mac Pro Into A Song

Every year for the last 8 years, I've turned Apple's big WWDC event into a song. This year featured a lot of (excited) swearing.

Jan 21, 2020•15 min

Writing A Song About Anxiety

This song started as just two lines that popped into my head one morning. It's about anxiety, something I struggle with every day.

Jan 14, 2020•15 min

I Was Inspired By A Tweet About Space Debris

I wrote this song on May 31st, 2019. It's Song A Day #3803.

Jan 07, 2020•17 min

A Look Back At 4000 Days of Song A Day (podcast trailer)

You'll learn a bit about what you can expect from this podcast, and you'll hear a smattering of songs from the last 11 years of Jonathan Mann's ongoing Song A Day project. Also: Hear a snippet of one of the first songs he ever wrote when he was 12 years old. Please be sure to subscribe and come back on January 7th to hear the first episode!

Dec 11, 2019•9 min

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