In this video profile, learn more about Lake Street Dive songwriter/musician and “How to Write a Song” co-instructor Bridget Kearney as she shares what has taken her a lifetime of songwriting to understand about communication through music.
“The real part of presenting a song that’s satisfying is when you’re giving someone else an experience and you’re sending them a specific message, and you realize that the message has been heard and the feeling has been felt.”
— Bridget Kearney
Taught by Kearney and Princeton professor Paul Muldoon (Rogue Oliphant), the Princeton Atelier course “How to Write a Song” introduces students to the art of writing words for music. This art lies at the core of our literary tradition from the Beowulf poet through Lord Byron and Bessie Smith to Bob Dylan and the Notorious B.I.G. Each week, the student composers, writers and performers have the opportunity to work in small songwriting teams to respond to such emotionally charged themes as gratitude, loss, protest, desire, joyousness, remorse, defiance, and more. Guest singer/songwriters and music critics visit each week, which in the past have included Sir Paul McCartney, Cautious Clay, Maggie Rogers, and Jon Pareles, among others.
Kearney and Muldoon will again lead the course when it is offered through the Princeton Atelier and Program in Creative Writing in spring 2022.