They shouldn't do. I understand performers have a bonus if they are young and pretty but writers, producers, arrangers should get better as they get older. Yet they seem not to. Why?

I listen to some of the great classic standards - they were written by men and women in their seventies and eighties - often in New York, fifty years ago. Who is doing that these days?

I blame drugs or lack of them.

Tell that to Mick Jagger Angel!

Lots of older songwriters still write potential hits, but they don't realise their potential because most radio stations ignore them, record companies don't bother to plug them and fewer older people buy records these days.

But do they? I wonder. When was the last decent Carole King song; or Diane Warren one? Even our better songwriters seem to have dried up. Yet maturity and experience should make better constructed lyrics and melodies. Sounds of the 60s a couple of weeks ago played some old Eurovision entries - songs like Love Is Blue and Eres Tu never even won the show yet they were terrific songs. Surely this is an area of music that is not age limited? In fact 90% of the elements of music should feature older and more experienced artistes, gaining wisdom and skill. Old painters and ageing carvers of sculptures don't deteriorate. They improve.

I was discussing this with a songwriter friend only the other day. He postulated that when you are younger you have much more creative energy and drive whereas when older the very gathering of life experience conversely inhibits the same creative spark. Odd. And I agree about those Eurovision songs; great melodies and songs. How about 'Merci, Chérie' by Udo Jürgens too..

But some of those Irving Berlin songs; Hoagy Carmichael? When I Fall In Love is in my latest film - what a lyric, what a tune! Victor Young was 50 when he wrote it. And 45 when he wrote Love Letters (Straight From Your Heart). Wow.

Security and lack of wanting. No hunger-no hit:)

AH

Arrangement is key these days, and the songs being cut are more arrangement-based than ever. Daft Punk is an excellent example of dressing over content if ever there was one. It is harder to keep abreast of trends when you get older.

But the other reason - and one you have touched on yourself before - is that the industry has still not adjusted to the fact that young people do not generate that much money any more. The whole biz still seems focused away from audiences with disposable income. So inevitably, the writers that cater for mature audiences don't register on the radar at all.

M

No hunger; no hit applies only to a certain kind of song Andy. Like the Jagger/Richard hits. But I reckon melodies like the best Stones hits should easily mature and develop into older songs; not so high on energy and passion, but better on melody and structure.

Old people have souls too, don't we? We love and hurt as much as the young. Indeed, these days, deeper.

And that may be the problem. The species is getting more and more superficial. When Tommy once told me he loved someone he'd never met, I told him he meant he "quite liked" them.

Michael Jackson used to say "I love you" to his fans. He didn't even know them. Brought up as an entertainer, he meant he needed their support. He didn't love them.

So we old people get touched more deeply. I notice I spend longer appreciating trees, flowers, birds.

Perhaps Gangnam Style is the typical 21st Century hit song. But since I always wrote superficial catchy songs, it should be the perfect area for me. I suppose, having co-written a Top Thirty hit in 2012 (Stupid Stupid), I have written a hit more recently than most of my peers - McCartney, Jagger, Elton etc. And I was (then) 67.

Maybe as we get older we prefer to suit ourselves rather than please others and the songs become less commercial because of this?

A good point Honey but the first essential ingredient in art, for me, is to satisfy yourself. The rest of the world is unimportant. David was carved FOR MichelAngelo by MichelAngelo.

I would say it depends on what your definition of a hit is. Most "hits" consist of a very basic chord structure and melody with generic lyrics and a clever production to make it "radio friendly". Not to mention someone cool to front it.

This kind of song is the starting ground for many songwriters, they write them while still learning. As they mature they want to explore rhythms, timings, chord progressions, poetry.. They no longer want to write a 3 minute throw away ditty to please other people, it's meaningless, soul destroying and the act of forcing it produces transparent pulp.

Good examples are the Paul's, Simon & McCartney , both of whom wrote the throw away ditties at the start of their careers but then matured.

Simon continues to write excellent songs but they're not "radio hits", they're rich in structure and lyrical content. In interviews he says his best song is Graceland, not his biggest hit and certainly not the catchiest of melodies, it's the lyric and sentiment that make it a great song. The opening lines set the scene in a beautiful flowing and concise manner:

The Mississippi delta was shining
Like a national guitar
I am following the river
Down the highway
Through the cradle of the civil war

McCartney is a good example of a matured writer attempting to write "hits", some of the songs on Memory Almost Full are so shallow they're painful.

And then I suppose we are less likely to cobble together a few old hits and pass it off as our own, which seems to be the thing right now.

K wrote:
I would say it depends on what your definition of a hit is. Most "hits" consist of a very basic chord structure and melody with generic lyrics and a clever production to make it "radio friendly". Not to mention someone cool to front it.

This kind of song is the starting ground for many songwriters, they write them while still learning. As they mature they want to explore rhythms, timings, chord progressions, poetry.. They no longer want to write a 3 minute throw away ditty to please other people, it's meaningless, soul destroying and the act of forcing it produces transparent pulp.

Good examples are the Paul's, Simon & McCartney , both of whom wrote the throw away ditties at the start of their careers but then matured.

Simon continues to write excellent songs but they're not "radio hits", they're rich in structure and lyrical content. In interviews he says his best song is Graceland, not his biggest hit and certainly not the catchiest of melodies, it's the lyric and sentiment that make it a great song. The opening lines set the scene in a beautiful flowing and concise manner:

The Mississippi delta was shining
Like a national guitar
I am following the river
Down the highway
Through the cradle of the civil war

McCartney is a good example of a matured writer attempting to write "hits", some of the songs on Memory Almost Full are so shallow they're painful.

I like shallow. To me, Cecillia is a better song than Graceland.

Almost impossible to pick the best ever Paul Simon song but I'd go for American Tune myself.

honey!oh sugar sugar. wrote:
K wrote:
I would say it depends on what your definition of a hit is. Most "hits" consist of a very basic chord structure and melody with generic lyrics and a clever production to make it "radio friendly". Not to mention someone cool to front it.

This kind of song is the starting ground for many songwriters, they write them while still learning. As they mature they want to explore rhythms, timings, chord progressions, poetry.. They no longer want to write a 3 minute throw away ditty to please other people, it's meaningless, soul destroying and the act of forcing it produces transparent pulp.

Good examples are the Paul's, Simon & McCartney , both of whom wrote the throw away ditties at the start of their careers but then matured.

Simon continues to write excellent songs but they're not "radio hits", they're rich in structure and lyrical content. In interviews he says his best song is Graceland, not his biggest hit and certainly not the catchiest of melodies, it's the lyric and sentiment that make it a great song. The opening lines set the scene in a beautiful flowing and concise manner:

The Mississippi delta was shining
Like a national guitar
I am following the river
Down the highway
Through the cradle of the civil war

McCartney is a good example of a matured writer attempting to write "hits", some of the songs on Memory Almost Full are so shallow they're painful.

I like shallow. To me, Cecillia is a better song than Graceland.
I wouldn't call Cecilia shallow, it sounds natural and not like a matured writer forcing himself to write a hit.

Loads of McCartney songs could have been hits, it's absurd they didn't down to merit. That ghastly Radio One book showed where good songs were going thanks to idiots like Dann.

Bridge Over Troubled Water has got to be the best Paul Simon song, not only for its lyrics but also for the rich melodic piano accompaniment. A beautiful masterpiece in my view.