So I was at Target today, and I came across Kara DioGuardi's book, and once I saw it, I knew there had to be some mention of Hilary in there, and lo and behold, there was. There was a tiny little section about "Come Clean," and after I read it, the song began to make so much more sense. Anyway, here it is:
I had the title for this song in my back pocket, ready to pull it out when the time was right. the previous few years of writing had all been done to tracks. I stopped sitting down with musicians and just writing songs from the ground up. Instead, I was writing to "beds" of music (or tracks, as I have been referring to them), which in some ways were predestined for a certain theme or tone. I was particularly frustrated on my previous project because the tracks felt very uninspired and we had to write to them. Many had been a year or so old, which made their production value seem dated. I started to feel as if I was putting in hours at a corporation and just showing up for the paycheck, when I told everyone I thought we should write some new tracks or start a new song on acoustic guitar, nobody listened and when you are stifled, your work usually suffers.
"Come Clean" was a response to feeling that way. I decided to take a trip to California and meet some other songwriters. i was writing as if I were the artist and the songs were all about what I was feeling. I didn't know that those songs would become valuable and sought after by other artists because they were so specific to what I was going through. "Come Clean" was one such song. It represented me breaking away from the heavy hand of others and their creative vision. It was a return to me and my own creativity, and it still struck a chord with Hilary. But that's what songs do. They communicate unique perspectives in a universal way.
I always cringe in the bridge when she sings "I'm coming" - she was like thirteen. That was just wrong.
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