12/9/2025 - Opposite of Expert: Songwriting
Episode 05 - Songwriting with Meghan
Welcome to Opposite of Expert, a series from The 33 Project.
Opposite of Expert is for curious generalists. Each post will tackle a new subject you may know nothing about! Instead of aiming for mastery, the goal here is modest: learn just enough to hold a relevant conversation. In other words, tickle that part of your brain that likes to learn something new. In each post, I connect with one person who is an expert on a subject and I ask them three questions. Instead of the traditional back and forth interview style, these expert guests have gone ahead and sent me either voice notes or short video responses to my questions. This way you get to hear/see it straight from the expert. Feel free to comment on subjects you want to learn more about and share feedback. Enjoy!
Hello hello! We’re back with a new ep of Opposite of Expert. Today’s a fun one. I spoke with Meghan Rose, iconic musician, songwriter and friend.
Knowing Meg, she was writing songs before she learned to walk. She plays all the instruments, though bass and piano are my favorite. She sings. She composes. She’s also played in some incredible bands over the years. She really does it all.
I’ve sent Meg my questions and she has so very kindly taken the time to respond with answers that will undoubtedly make all of us more capable of holding an informed, relevant conversation on the topic of: SONGWRITING.
Question 1. Obviously there is no one-size-fits-all creative process, but curious if you have any sort of template or specific process for how you compose a song? Walk us through it please!
I love thinking of it as a soup of ideas and a mood storm! So fun. Also here’s the breakdown of a template Meghan shared at the end of the clip:
Here are the templates I find most satisfying (and most songs you’ve ever heard fit into one of these):
Intro, verse, verse 2, chorus, verse 3, bridge, double chorus
Intro, chorus, verse, chorus, verse 2, bridge, chorus
Intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, solo, chorus
Intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus
Intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, chorus variation
Should you want to listen to some of Meg’s work, check out these links:
🤘 Listen to Damsel Trash’s, Battle Hymn of the Queerpublic, here! 🤘
🤘 Listen to Lucier&Rose, We Are Not Our Past from their musical, Xena Warrior Musical The Lost Scroll. 🤘
Question 2. I remember when you were uploading Loud Soft Loud tracks to Spotify they had a set of quality requirements and rules. What does that mean? Why can’t you just upload a basic .wav file? What does it mean to have something professionally produced?
I feel so cool now that I know what “mastering” actually is!! Also shouldn’t Meg start teaching music to students? She’s so good at explaining these things!
Question 3. Is AI going to ruin songwriting? I’ve heard some pretty remarkable AI songs that sound real since they’re based off of real voices and songs. Have you thought about incorporating or resisting AI in your songwriting?
I absolutely love thinking of AI songs as music collages. Such a clever way of categorizing it. Also, here is a the article Meg mentions in her response.
Charlie Puth agrees with Meg, btw.
Ok, that’s it! Thank you Meghan for some really incredible, thoughtful responses. I feel like I understand songwriting so much better than before. Follow Meg’s punk rock band, here and her musical theater endeavors, here. You can also hear her solo work, here.
Also, Meghan no longer uses spotify, for many admirable reasons. She wanted to share a really cool service that helps you transfer your playlists/songs/etc from any music streamer to her app of choice, Tidal. Check it out, here.
That’s it for today’s episode. See you Thursday with a regular post.