In this week’s episode of “How It Went Down,” Mike Posner sat down with Billboard to share the story of how he created his song “Song About You.”
The track first came to life when Posner was in the studio with his producer Ricky Reed and songwriter Dan Wilson. After having already written one song earlier that day, they were getting ready to wrap things up and as Wilson got up to leave, he picked up one of Reed’s guitars and started playing.
“Ricky and I both really liked that immediately,” Posner tells Billboard. “And Ricky literally took his phone out and recorded Dan playing that with his phone. And he started making the beat, and that’s the take of the guitar. Never redid that or anything.”
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As for the lyrics, Posner just started freestyle singing, scatting, and rapping over the beat, and Reed picked out the best parts and arranged them into a song.
“The rest of the song, we wrote really quickly,” Posner says. “It was the first time I saw [Reed] really get sick behind the boards. Before, we were working on songs I brought in, and this one we made from scratch, together.”
In the video, Posner also reveals that the song initially included a “long rant” on the bridge, during which he talked about his problems. “It was interesting, but it didn’t really flow with the song,” Posner explains, noting that they ultimately axed that part.
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You can hear the full story of how Mike Posner created “Song About You” in the video above.