Charlie Puth Says Taylor Swift ‘Nudged’ Him to Inject More ‘Storytelling’ Into His Lyrics
If you’ve ever seen video of Charlie Puth breaking down his songwriting process you know that the 32-year-old singer is a mad scientist when it comes to meticulously crafting his songs in the studio. As he works on the follow-up to his 2022 Charlie album — which topped-out at No. 10 on the Billboard 200 chart –Puth is once again turning to Taylor Swift for inspiration.
In a chat with People magazine, Puth said that as he works on his upcoming fourth studio full-length he’s thinking of changing things up thanks to some helpful tips from his fellow pop star. “You can expect what you always expect from me, which is chords and key changes and what I think are interesting kind of rhythms in production sense,” he told the magazine. “I always think about what I’ve lacked every time I start a new project and one thing that I’d like to enhance even more is the storytelling of things. And maybe that lies in the lyrics and making the lyrics a little bit more less A, B, C, D.”
In his effort to refashion his lyrics in a more personal way, Puth is leaning into Swift’s intricate, intimate lyrical style. “Taylor Swift kind of nudged me to do that as well,” he said. “And i think that’s how she approaches her songwriting and that’s how I’ll approach this next album.” For now, Puth said he’s planning to working on “the whole thing” by himself, a tactic that has made things more challenging as he sometimes spends his days “wait[ing] for the melody to appear… but it’s really, really worth it when it all comes together.”
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Back in May, Puth dropped the single “Hero,” which he described at the time as being “about when you see someone you love hurting themselves, ruining the things in their life that are good, but you just can’t save them… I’m very excited to share my next album with you, especially this song because it’s a great representation of what’s to come.”
Puth added that he decided to put the song out after Swift famously shouted him out on the title track to her The Tortured Poets Department album when she sang: “We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist.” A few weeks after that unexpected pop star plaudit, Puth teased “Hero” on TikTok.
“I’ve never put out a song like this before,” he wrote about the Swift influence on “Hero.” “It’s very different for me, but I want to thank @taylorswift for letting me know musically that I just couldn’t keep this on my hard drive any longer.” He added, “Sometimes I get a little nervous being overly honest in my music which is why this was sitting on my hard drive for awhile,. But I think someone out there was giving me a sign that I needed to release it.”
“Hero” came on the heels of Puth’s other recent singles, “Lose My Breath” with Stray Kids, “Lipstick” and “That’s Not How This Works” with Dan + Shay and Sabrina Carpenter. Puth also told People that while “Hero” won’t be on the upcoming untitled album, the LP “will make a lot of sense” once you hear the whole thing. “I want them to hear [the album] and be like, ‘Ah, I know what she was talking about,’” he says of Swift’s praise-filled lyric.
“I’m perfectly happy with the level where I’m at, but if being a bigger artist means I get to inspire more people who want to do what I do, then that’s great.”
