How can I make my own song like “Burn It To The Ground” by Nickelback?

Hey everyone. First off, thank you all for your continued support with my website, business, and now with the launch for Inner Urge’s debut album “Consume and Waste”. You guys have already helped to push the plays on Spotify alone to over 16,000 since the 27th of October when the album was released. Thank you!

Now, on to this week’s post. There was a lot of interest generated regarding the previous Nickelback post I made and requests for another so here it is. Let’s listen to the song I wrote called “Firin’ Shots” before moving on.

Listen here

I wrote this song a little while back for that project (that has fallen through) I mentioned in the last article about writing a heavier Nickelback song of your own. The way I put it together was actually just by listening to about 30 seconds of about 10 different Nickelback songs and then throwing together some riffs and material. Having worked on “Dad Metal” this helped me in being able to pump out some of this material a with more efficiency and confidence.

Here’s the form I used for this track:

• Intro – variation on chorus
• Chorus – only time with no vocals
• Open chord break
• Verse – Call and response with vocals and guitars
• Chorus
• Post Chorus – variation on chorus
• Verse – guitars are playing along with the bass
• Chorus
• Post chorus
• Solo – chords are a variation of the chorus
• Chorus x2
• Post chorus

This is, as usual, a pretty common progression you can use for writing your own music in any style/genre. A typical aspect of a lot of music these days (and of the past) is to use the music for the chorus as the intro to immediately build continuity and familiarity of material for the rest of the song. Another thing is basing much of your material in the song off of that opening chorus so everything fits together as a piece of music rather than sounding like a series of riffs that don’t necessarily fit together as a song.

They aren’t in the same neck of the woods as we’re talking about here, however, Pink Floyd would often play all of the music for a song without the vocals and then just repeat it with vocals for a lot of their songs. Take a look at “Breathe” by Pink Floyd and notice that they play the verse and chorus as the intro and then just repeat it with vocals on top. They don’t make any new progressions or anything in that track after introducing the vocals.

Speaking of vocals, let’s take a look at the lyrics I made for this track.

Lyrics

Verse

Already high as we head to the bar
My head is swimmin’ in the back of your car
Blow through a stop sign and a red light
The cops are on our asses tonight

Chorus

We got the pedal down pushin’ to the limit
Gonna take it all cause we’re in it to win it
Takin’ no prisoners they’re firin’ shots
We’re gonna make it a way givin’ it everything we got, oh yeah
Everything we got, oh yeah

Verse

We can’t ever stop, they’re on our back side
We gotta either outrun or find a place to hide
They called the chopper and they’re catchin’ up quick
We’re gonna have to clap back with our own click click

Chorus

We got the pedal down pushin’ to the limit
Gonna take it all cause we’re in it to win it
Takin’ no prisoners they’re firin’ shots
We’re gonna make it a way givin’ it everything we got, oh yeah
Everything we got, oh yeah

The lyrics for this song are about outrunning the police who are all too happy to open fire on them in their pursuit. Like “Nail In The Coffin” in the previous Nickelback post, these lyrics are notably not making anybody an object or anything and are just about the story of being on the run.

Parting thoughts

You can include your own gang vocal sections like the “click click” spot in “Firin’ Shots” which help with both crowd participation and with adding different elements/layers to your music. I did the gang vocals for that just by recording 10 tracks where I sang/said/yelled “click click” and placing them each in their own spot by panning them differently. This gives the sound that there are a lot of people when, in reality, it’s just a lot of me.

I hope you enjoyed this track and post! It was fun to write and I’m happy to get to assist you in your musical journeys by providing my own examples of what you can do with your own music and how you can do it by providing the form as well.

If you’re interested in learning more in-depth about writing your own music, want some help with your own songs you’re working on, or just want to take some lessons then contact me or send me an email at [email protected] at your convenience. If you’re looking to see what I can offer and for how much then just check out my services page; everything is right there for your ease of access.

If you haven’t already, hop over and check out Inner Urge’s debut album “Consume and Waste” by clicking here to see a list of some services it’s on. Alternatively, just look it up on any streaming platform and you’ll see it there.

Thank you so much for your time and I look forward to hearing any feedback and questions you have moving forward. Keep your head up, keep practicing, and have an amazing week.

All the best,

– Matt