How to write a hit song

"When you were mine" by Prince is one of my favourite songs. I like it so much that I am only allowed to listen to it every year or so because once I start listening it tends to get put onto ultra-high rotation and I end up with scars in my cortex. If you happen to be a musician, I would like you to write a song that is equally packed with awesome, so I can listen to it too! My aim today is to tell you how.

The first thing you need is a screeching, wailing vocal track. You can't just screech for the whole thing of course. If I wanted to listen to Celine Dion I would. You need to sing, preferably in a laid-back, understated way for most of the song before finally breaking into a bit of "yeah yeaaaaahh eeeaaaAAAAEEEeeeiiioooOOOAAAAEEEE!!!!" before resuming the final verse. No-one wails better than Prince. But you can try for me, can't you?

Next, you need a snappy beat. Ideally you'd have hand-claps in that "clapclap clap, clapclap clap" which I think translates into beats on 1,2 & 5 of an eight count, but hey, what do I know about music? If you can't do hand-claps, a snare might do.

Lyrically, I need a story. Sorry, but that's just how it's gotta be. You see, I was raised on country music, where songs all begin by meeting strangers in bars and end in knife-fights or weddings or both. It doesn't have to be a literal "once upon a time" narrative, it just has to hang together in some kind of sense. Just setting a scene or working through a mood is enough. Just don't hand me any "What's the frequency Kenneth" crap. Be modern in your own time, not mine. Be specific enough to interest me, but vague enough to allow me to imagine that in fact you wrote the song just for me. The best lyrics are bizarre expressions of common ideas.

The obvious corollary to the above is that your diction must be impeccable. Say what you like about Prince, he's an eloquent little bastard.

Finally, you need a great guitar solo. And by "great", I mean "having as few notes as possible". I can still vividly remember riding around Brisbane in a friend's car back in 1995 with a Lou Reed cassette slowly melting in the tape deck. At the end of one of his songs an extraordinary burst of music came forth, like the drone of bagpipes accompanying a dive-bombing Stuka. "Aah", responded my friend to my astonished cries, "one of Lou Reed's famous three-note guitar solos!" Less is definitely more. "When you were mine" fades out as a one-note guitar solo fades in over the top before disappearing into the tape hiss. One note. It really doesn't get any better than that. (I don't consider the hypothetical zero-note guitar solo to be anything other than tomfoolery, so don't get all John Cage on me if you're planning on commenting.)

So, all you famous rock stars, pop stars, dirty funk garage stars and hopeless nobodies that I know are out there reading this blog - get to work! Write me a song, dammit!