SPOTLIGHT December 2024: DIANE WARREN, Revered and Prolific Songsmith
Another year, another Oscar season, which means perhaps yet another Oscar nomination for songwriter Diane Warren. She’s an artist who even early in her career was called “the most important songwriter in the world”. So far, Warren has been nominated for an Oscar fifteen times in five different decades, and in 2022 garnered an Academy Honorary Award. She is a part of the fabric of popular music in a way that transcends gender, with a list of accomplishments that include being the first songwriter, male or female, in the history of Billboard magazine to have seven hits by seven different artists on the charts at the same time. Thirty-three of her songs hit the top ten over the course of her career. She’s won 15 Grammy Awards, and has been inducted to the Songwriters Hall of Fame. A total genre-buster, it’s likely you know at least one of her hits. They include Cher’s If I Could Turn Back Time, Celine Dion’s Because You Loved Me, LeAnn Rimes’s How Do I Live, Aerosmith’s I Don’t Want to Miss A Thing, and Lady Gaga’s ‘Till It Happens To You. Her songs are so diverse and span so many genres, it’s hard to believe they all come from one person.
Earlier this year, Warren’s career and cultural impact were chronicled in Bess Kargman’s well-research and intimate documentary, Diane Warren: Relentless, which premiered at South by Southwest Film Festival in March. In June, Warren was honored by the Songwriters Hall of Fame. More recently, in October, AWFJ’s Leslie Combemale caught up with her at the Middleburg Film Festival for an interview for AWFJ.org . Warren was at the fest talking about her new song, The Journey, written for Netflix’s Tyler Perry film The Six Triple Eight, which releases this month. sung by H.E.R., The Journey is at the top of the list for an Oscar nomination for Best Song at the next Academy Awards. As the awards season gets into full swing, we at the Alliance of Women Film Journalists believe Diane Warren the perfect film professional to profile for our December Spotlight.
EARLY INSPIRATIONS LED TO LATER COLLABORATIONS:
Warren has a wide diversity of influences, which explains why she has written so many different kinds of songs.
“I was lucky enough to grow up in the 60s, which to me, is the golden age of pop songwriting, with the Brill Building and Motown and the Beatles. That’s my spiritual home. You have Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, Lieber and Stoller. Mike Stoller is a dear friend of mine. From that to Motown, which had just incredible song craft, to The Beatles, who would shine their influence on me. The biggest influence was The Beatles, and one of the coolest things that’s ever happened to me is, about four years ago, Ringo, who I’d worked with before, asked me for another song. I had the song called Here’s to the Nights, and I said, “Let’s get your old friends and your new friends, because it’s a real sing-along song.” All I could think of in my mind was Paul McCartney. I’m the biggest Beatles fan. When Ringo asked him, he was the first person that said yes, so I have two Beatles on my song, and that song also has everyone from Lenny Kravitz to Dave Grohl to Joe Walsh, to Sheryl Crow, to Chris Stapleton. But the cool thing also, you have the three biggest bands in the world represented on the one song, The Beatles, of course, the Eagles with Joe Walsh, Nirvana with Dave Grohl.
Here’s what I found out in my life. Sometimes people with a little success in their lives are the biggest asses. The super talented people like Ringo are really really cool.”
MUSICAL MILESTONES:
A prolific songwriter, Warren has written hundreds of songs, but when asked to choose a few that represent milestone in her career, she has this to say:
“I’ll start with The Rhythm in the Night, because that was the first hit with my words and music, and it was just a giant song for me, and the first one that made industry people take notice. The song they didn’t like two weeks ago, all of the sudden, they loved it, because I had a hit. It was how I got into getting more songs for movies, because that one was for a film. It opened lots of doors, including the door to Clive Davis, who I went on to have a lot of success with, so that song was definitely a monumental one. For different reasons, Because you Loved Me (from the 1996 film Up Close and Personal), my song for Celine Dion, because when I wrote that, I went to another level as a songwriter. I remember thinking, “This sounds better than me”, like I reached a new level of the craft, where I was surprised that it came out of me. There are so many that mean so much to me. I love the song I wrote for Beyonce called I was Here. I think that’s a monumental song. Some of these songs, I’ll say, aren’t necessarily my biggest hits. On the other hand, Only Love can Hurt Like This by Paloma faith, went completely viral on TikTok and was just huge, but it’s also a great song. Honestly, in a way, everything I’ve ever written has been a milestone for me, because it led to the next great thing.”
COLLABORATIVE TO THE CORE:
Warren is always looking for talented and expressive performers to partner with on songs, and that has led to moving across a wide diversity of genres:
“I’m in so many different worlds. I just did a song with Angelique Kidjo called Sunlight to My Soul, and then I worked with an artist named Tems, both of whom are part of the Afrobeats genre. But then I’m doing a song with David Guetta, and I just heard something of mine done by Lady A, a country band. I also have a song on Gwen Stefani’s new album. I love writing all different kinds of songs, but of course I always love my big emotional ballads.”
Although Warren says she’s insecure about a lot of other things, in music, her confidence is rock solid. She has a story about her determination and conviction about her own work, specific to If I Could Turn Back Time:
“Cher just hated it. She hated the song, but when I know, I know. I knew it would be huge for her. I couldn’t get anywhere with her. Her A&R guy kept saying, “She won’t do it. She’s in the studio doing another song.” I went to her, and said, “Cher, you have to do the song.” I got on my knees, held her leg down and said, “I’m not letting go of your leg until you say you’ll do it, because it’s your song, and it’s a life-changer.” She said, “I fucking hate it.” I told her I’d pay for it, so she tried it. Then I remember looking into the booth seeing her sing it, and her have this look, this smile on her face, and going, “Ok.” One thing I do, besides writing great songs, is figure out where they belong. When I do a song for a movie, I’m casting the artist for them. They have to be authentic. It’s just something I have a gut feeling for.”
THE POWER TO CHANGE:
Sometimes a song transcends being just a popular piece of music and becomes part of a movement. Timing, experience, and creative expression came together in the powerful anthem Until It Happens To You, which was nominated for an Oscar and Lady Gaga sang at the awards ceremony. Warren speaks about her personal experience and how she channeled that into the song:
“I think culturally, just had such a huge impact. It reflected the #MeToo movement, and it just gave people so much inspiration. I had been molested as a kid, and it gave me power. I remember, I was doing a Times Talk with Gaga, and I blurted out that my friend’s dad molested me when I was a kid. I’d never even said anything. I told my mom when she was older, but I never told my dad. That song gave power. I remember that performance at the Oscars, with all those survivors, it was so powerful, and people have written to tell me that song saved their lives. I didn’t win the Oscar for that, but for me, the power it gave back to so many people was so much better.”
H.E.R. IN THE PRESENT:
The power to change, the power of song, and the power of collaboration are all represented in Warren’s newest project, on which she collaborates with H.E.R. It’s a song for writer/director Tyler Perry’s The Six Triple Eight based on the true story of the all-female and predominately Black 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion who delivered mail to service people overseas during World War II. The film will be released by Netflix during December 2024. The way Warren came to the project and worked on the song was different than ever before:
“Usually I read a script, or I see the movie, then I write the song. In this case, it was different. Carrie Selleck was one of the producers, and is a really good friend of mine. I was at this event and she said, “I need to talk to you.” So we go in a room, and we’re there for two hours, and she shows me a sizzle reel from the movie and walked me through it scene by scene, and I visualized it from what she said. I started the song on the next day. It’s a great story. I was shocked no one had made a movie about it, and I was just proud to be a part of it.
With H.E.R., we had wanted to work together for a long time, and she sings the shit out of this song The Journey, I don’t think people have ever heard her sing like this, especially where she goes vocally at the end of the song. I met Gabby (H.E.R.’s given name, Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson) when she was 15. We met because we had the same lawyer at the time, and he told me I had to meet this artist, and she was just amazing. I knew she was going to have a huge career, because she was already that good at 15. Then we reconnected for The Journey. I can’t wait for everyone to hear it as part of the movie.”
WHY WE CHOSE HER:
Diane Warren is one of the most decorated and successful songwriters composing for film today, and is a part of film history with her many ear worms and singable songs known around the world. In fact, many of her most recognizable melodies have had a longevity not shared with the films in which they appear. Con Air’s How Do I Live, Armageddon’s I Don’t Want to Miss A Thing, and Mannequin’s Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now, all nominated for Oscars, are all arguably better than the films they represent. Warren is a quirky, straightforward, mouthy, curse-y woman who is always herself, whether she’s being interviewed on the red carpet, attending the Governor’s Ball, or she’s visiting the many rescue farm animals living on her self-financed animal sanctuary in Malibu. She never apologizes for being who she is, and celebrates her own talent as an artist. Warren steadfastly praises her own work, and why shouldn’t she? Why shouldn’t we all celebrate what we are best at, and our own unique genius? She is not only a skilled and creative musician and a talent for the ages, she is a woman who knows her own worth. That’s why we’ve chosen Diane Warren as our AWFJ Spotlight. This month, take a page from her (song)book, and celebrate your own greatness!–Leslie Combemale
