The best thing that happened to pop music in recent years is that Grammy-winning songwriter Amy Allen watched that insipid Twilight saga and was revolted by the sight of the childbirth scene. This experience spurred Allen to leave “real school,” as she calls the nursing program she was enrolled in at Boston College, and go to “fake school,” that is, Berklee School of Music for songwriting.
Allen shares this story during a Q&A conducted by fellow Grammy winner St. Vincent at the Grammy Museum a few days after her third nomination for songwriter of the year, an award she won handily at the 2025 Grammy Awards. This is one of four nominations for Allen in the upcoming Grammys. She is also in the running for song of the year for “APT.” and “Manchild,” and album of the year for Man’s Best Friend.
It’s fascinating to hear the two discuss the behind-the-scenes of song creation, in a way exposing how the sausage is made. Sometimes this is intriguing, at other times it feels like the Twilight childbirth scene in that maybe we don’t need to know that much about how the biggest songs of the day came to be.
But Allen’s music story began long before she became the go-to songwriter with credits ranging from Sabrina Carpenter to Harry Styles, Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Halsey, and Tate McRae. She cut her musical teeth during car rides with her sisters and father, who drove them to school an hour each way, playing classic rock the entire time. She jumped into her sister’s band at the age of 10 to take on bass player duties and even auditioned for “The Voice.” She was later signed with her own band, yet when listening to their debut album at the record label, she realized, “Who the hell is going to believe in that if I don’t even think it’s that great?”
She focused on songwriting and spent time in “pitch sessions” where songs are crafted without an artist attached to them. It was from these sessions that “Back to You” was brought to Selena Gomez, and Allen’s name started to receive recognition in music circles. That early experience is in Allen’s rearview, but it is not forgotten.
She says, “I need to start from scratch every day and relearn what a great song actually is, because that’s really hard to do. Because music is so subjective and everchanging, there’s never an end. You can’t complete a level. There’s no finish line.”
There certainly seems to be no end in sight for Allen, who released a self-titled artist album last year. Here she traces back to where it all began for her with the songs that inspired her to become a songwriter.
“Wild Horses,” The Rolling Stones
My mom said that when she met my dad, all his jeans had the same faded/ripped part right on the right front pocket. She eventually realized it was because he played air guitar in the car so much while listening to his favorite band, the Rolling Stones.
Consequently, my first music memory is my dad driving me and my sisters all around rural Maine, screaming every lyric of “Start Me Up” and playing the lead riff on air guitar. I, of course, fell head over heels for the band, and so it only made sense that my first concert (at age 9) would be road-tripping to Boston to see the Stones with my family (ZZ Top and the Pretenders were the openers). To this day, I think that night is one of the strongest core memories I’ll ever have.
I probably knew the entire Stones discography front to back by the time I was 11, and the song I’d always ask my dad to put back on was “Wild Horses.” I think that song is the origin point of my love of lyrics. I didn’t know why it hit me so hard back then, but now I look at it as one of the best examples of expressing a sincere and vulnerable sentiment so uniquely and, somehow, simultaneously, so directly and conversationally. Something I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to do even half as well as Keith and Mick did.
“What the World Needs Now,” Dionne Warwick (written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David)
My grandparents’ love of dancing introduced me to this song, and eventually to the inspiring world of Burt Bacharach and Hal David.
My Nana and Chief lived on Long Island, Maine, and we’d take the ferry boat there every weekend as kids, collecting sea glass and dancing in the kitchen to an endless yet very curated collection of their favorite songs. Some of which were Frank Sinatra and the Beach Boys, and many of which were Dionne Warwick songs, including “What the World Needs Now.”
I think falling in love with that song is such a pivotal music moment for me because, as a kid, I just loved how it made me feel when I was dancing to it in the kitchen with my grandparents. I eventually grew to learn how timeless and important the sentiment is, how brilliantly Burt and Hal expressed it in their writing, and eventually learned that not all artists write their own songs and that songwriting is a profession (which, of course, was a life-changing revelation for me).
I also feel like this song opened my eyes to all the works of Burt and Hal, like “(They Long to Be) Close to You,” which is lyrically one of the best songs ever written, in my humble opinion. Also, my favorite childhood movie was My Best Friend’s Wedding, which is soundtracked almost exclusively by Dionne songs written by Burt and Hal.
“God Only Knows,” The Beach Boys
This is another song I fell in love with because of my dad and grandparents, who all continuously had Pet Sounds on constant rinse and repeat. This song is significant to me because Brian Wilson’s writing is a constant reminder that there are no boundaries in “pop” music, and of how expressive and emotional chords and melodies can be. I’ve spent the better half of my life now learning how to play (and therefore intensely studying) Beach Boys songs, and I’m continuously amazed at the genius behind all of them but “God Only Knows” was one of my first true music loves.
“Long Long Time,” Linda Ronstadt (written by Gary White)
This song breaks me every time I listen to it. I’ve known it and loved it for as long as I can remember, and no matter what season of my life I’m in, it always hits me and makes me feel painfully human in the best way.
I love how conversational yet cutting the lyric is, and the chord changes and soaring melodies just make me want to spend the rest of my life in pursuit of writing a classic like this. I learned this song on guitar when I was probably 10 or 11, and it’s still one of my favorite ones to just sit and play when I’m alone in my room.
“Strong Enough,” Sheryl Crow
Even though all the other songs so far have been from the ’60s and ’70s, I am, at the end of the day, a child of the ’90s and I wouldn’t be half the writer I am today if it weren’t for the women in music of the ’90s. And for me, that leading woman was Sheryl.
The first song I remember hearing of hers (my dad had her self-titled album in his car) was “If It Makes You Happy,” and I immediately went home and taught myself how to play it on guitar. That started my deep dive into her whole discography, and it wasn’t long before I discovered “Strong Enough” and fell deeply, madly in love with it.
It’s funny to think about how innately drawn to it I was back then, I was probably only 12 and years away from having my first boyfriend, but I felt every word of it for some reason, and I still do. You can just feel what a real and raw place that song came from, and it will always be one of my favorite songs to go back and listen to and fall in love with over and over again.
