Happy Valentine's Day!  We're looking at one of the great love songs of all time today....let's dive in.

Today is a nostalgia day for me.  My earliest memories of radio growing up in Ogallala, NE in the 1980s were filled with tunes like this....soft rock.  And of course, in case you weren't there, let me just confirm for you that Lionel Richie was all over the place in those days.  He was one of the hottest singer songwriters in the world, and for very good reason.  

He broke through to success as a member of the Commodores, where he was a saxophonist and vocalist.  Originally the group focused more on R&B dance tracks, but eventually Richie's ballad compositions were so undeniable that the group had to start featuring them as singles, where he scored a number of iconic hits for them such as "Three Times a Lady", "Easy Like Sunday Morning", and "Still" among others.

After breaking out on his own in 1982, he had a big success with his debut solo album, "Lionel Richie", selling over 4 million copies.  But the follow up was nothing short of an industry earthquake.  His 1983 masterpiece, "Can't Slow Down", has been certified Diamond by the RIAA and has sold over 20 MILLION RECORDS!  Only a small handful of albums in history have done anything close to that.

It featured 5 smash top 10 hit singles, including two chart toppers.  Among those two #1 hits was today's beautiful song, "Hello".  I love the origin of this song because it's so ordinary and uninspiring.  His friend, record producer James Anthony Carmichael, came over to visit him one morning and said as he walked through the door, "Hello, is it me you're looking for?" as a silly way to greet him.  Lionel heard the phrase and immediately thought there might be a hook there.  So he started playing with it, initially thinking it was too corny and almost walked away, but then Carmichael said to him, "Finish that song!"

Isn't it interesting that something so beautiful and successful could have such inauspicious beginnings?  Sometimes great works of art have inspired beginnings that feel worthy of legend, but most honestly just come from someone getting an idea from a moment in life most would ignore, and then sitting with it and working until something is there.  It's so easy to forget that art is a craft, and a craft is just a skill that has been practiced enough that it looks like a talent.  And skills can be learned.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately.  I talk about this a lot with my students, and it's a theme that will no doubt pop up here in the blog pretty frequently, but I think we really underestimate the value of repetition.  We are so self conscious as adults about looking foolish because we are bad at something, that we forget that continuing to do it will eventually lead to being good at it.  And then we look at those few who have put in the reps and say, "They're so talented".  Maybe....but I assure you they aren't what they are from talent alone.  They learned a skill by sucking at it and practicing until they were competent at it.  And then they practiced that skill until they were so good at it that it became a craft...and craft masquerades in the world as "talent".  

The reason I think this is relevant to the story today is that, had Richie not put in his songwriting reps in the years prior to that moment, he may very well not have heard a potential hook in the tongue-in-cheek greeting that his friend offered, and even if he had, he may well not have been able to turn it into a beautiful song with a catchy melody, symmetrical structure, and under 3:30 so that it could easily be considered for airplay on radio.  That isn't talent at work....that's craft.

None of us can know if we're going to be the next Lionel Richie, or anything close to it....but ALL of us can learn a new skill if it appeals to us....and all of us can practice that skill until it develops into a craft.  We just have to get over the fear and discomfort of being bad at it as a necessary first step toward becoming good at it.

Enjoy my cover of this song from a livestream show I did on July 8, 2020 during the COVID-19 Pandemic, and then check out one of my favorite performances of it by Lionel himself from Paris in 2007. 

If you'd like to explore my piano method more deeply, my best students use my video courses and join me for conversation and twice monthly Q&A Livestreams in my private community...you can find it all HERE. Thanks.

If the video doesn't show above, use THIS LINK to see it on YouTube

If the video doesn't show above, use THIS LINK to see it on YouTube