That stings
How an SA musician managed to make a hit song in 30 seconds.
Imagine being a musician and some ad agency rings you up asking for a song that’s as good as Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams for their client’s next campaign.
But that’s not the whole brief. On top of Dreams by Fleetwood Mac they add Smashing Pumpkins’, Today and Steal my Sunshine by Len.
“While they sound like they’re the weirdest things to combine, it kind of made sense to me,” says Surahn Sidhu.
Surahn is the songwriter and musician and author of Better the music track that backs RAA’s new brand platform, Better to be a member. He’s also written songs for Usher and toured with Empire of the Sun.
Surahn is a self-professed specialist in music published between 1970 and 1982. He says he loses interest pretty quickly after Thriller. Of course, he told us this after he accepted our brief (and our down payment) which featured two tracks from the 90s.
“Knowing that, deep down, you wanted to get to Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams gave me great scope because I was like, ‘okay, why don’t we start there?’,” says Surahn. “It’s two chords. That song is two chords and that’s a wicked place to start: F and G.”
Far from presumptuous, Surahn knew Dreams was the “real” brief because months earlier we had gauged his interest in recording something original for the campaign and referenced both Fleetwood Mac and his own 2023 album, Soft Rock Summer.
For Surahn, the Better track started with those three reference tracks, Dreams, Today, and Steal my Sunshine. They acted like coordinates for Surahn to steer the track by. The coordinates must have been accurate because, within 36 hours, he turned around a 30” demo.
“I have no drive and passion to make throwaway music that’s ‘on-trend’ or whatever and that’s where I feel the music industry is at right now,” says Surahn.
“The brief, bonkers as it was, was kind of perfect. I thrive heavily on diversity, I mean, I studied diversity from an agricultural point of view [Surahn owns an almond farm in Willunga] and when you start putting diversity into your life, into the foods you eat, into the way you think, into the religions you read about, into the music you listen to… All of a sudden life feels richer and less boring.”
And so, on a road trip with his family in the Flinders Ranges Surahn wrote a three-versed pop song with a 30-second guitar solo.
“Yeah, it passed the campfire test,” laughs Surahn. “It wasn’t easy, by any means, because the first 30 seconds we made for the launch of Trev’s campaign only needed to work for 30 seconds.
“The big “aha” for me was the pre-chorus, which—like I said to you before—is one of the greatest pre-choruses I’ve ever written. I feel like it’s some sort of disco thing that’s super uplifting. And, most importantly, it gets us back to the F and G chords in the chorus.”
“A hit is a hit” a wise man (in an episode of the Sopranos) once said. But what makes a hit? I guess we learned a hit is made by two chords. A hit is made by combining three random songs. A hit is made by an incredible musician. A hit is made when ‘a hit’ is the brief.
Listen to Better as part of a road trip playlist Surahn put together on Spotify. And, if you want an insight into just how wide we were searching for the perfect sound to back RAA’s bearded bee, “Trev” have a listen to film director, Luke Shanahan’s playlist here.
