Songwriting

Songwriting 101: Lovedrug

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Today I’m breaking down a song I wrote a couple of years ago called Lovedrug.
This track is a good example of how simplicity in songwriting can be extremely effective when the core ideas are clear.

It uses one of the most common harmonic patterns in popular music:

I – V – vi – IV

(If you haven’t read my earlier post on chord relationships, I recommend starting there for a deeper explanation of why these chords work so well together.)

Let’s jump in.

Key and harmony

Although the song is often described as being in D♯ major, the more standard and readable key name is:

E♭ major

All of the chords in the song are diatonic—they belong naturally to the same key. There are no borrowed or outside chords. This is one of the main reasons the harmony feels so stable and familiar.

Verse progression

E♭ – B♭ – Cm – A♭

Functionally, in E♭ major:

  • E♭ = I

  • B♭ = V

  • Cm = vi

  • A♭ = IV

So the verse follows:

I – V – vi – IV

Chorus progression

E♭ – Cm

Functionally:

  • I – vi

Reducing the harmony in the chorus helps make it feel more focused and emotionally direct compared to the verse.

Making the song easier to play on guitar (capo approach)

These chords are awkward to play in open position. To simplify things, I place a capo on the 8th fret and use open chord shapes.

With the capo on the 8th fret, I use:

Verse shapes

  • G major → sounds as E♭ major

  • D major → sounds as B♭ major

  • E minor → sounds as C minor

  • C major → sounds as A♭ major

Chorus shapes

  • G major → sounds as E♭ major

  • E minor → sounds as C minor

This allows the entire song to be played using familiar open-position shapes while sounding in E♭ major.

Why I chose this key

The reason I chose E♭ major (capo on the 8th fret) is simple:

it fit my voice best.

Choosing a key is often more about the singer than the instrument or the theory. A song can feel completely different when moved up or down by only a few semitones.

During the writing process for Lovedrug, I also experimented with the song in G major and B♭ major before settling on this final key.

Trying different keys is a great way to:

  • find a more comfortable vocal range, and

  • discover new melodic ideas.

Song structure

I would categorize the form of this song as:

A – B – A – B – C – B – B – C

Where:

  • A = verse

  • B = chorus

  • C = instrumental break / interlude

I originally labeled the “C” section as a bridge, but functionally it behaves more like an instrumental interlude. The harmony and overall feel remain very similar to the verse and chorus, and the main difference is that the vocal melody is replaced by a guitar riff.

So the structure is best understood as:

Verse → Chorus → Verse → Chorus → Instrumental break → Chorus → Chorus → Instrumental break

Emphasizing the chorus

My favorite part of Lovedrug is the chorus. Since the melody is especially catchy, I wanted to make it the emotional center of the song.

To do that, I simply made the chorus the most prominent section by:

  • repeating it more than any other part, and

  • placing it close to both the middle and the end of the song.

Lyrics and theme

Here are the lyrics:

Verse

I love to watch you squirm
Every time you lie
Feel the way it hurts

Chorus

You get me high then you bring me down
Don’t know why I ever stick around
Hate to say, hate to say it now
Just a drug, just a drug, just a drug to me

Verse

Why did the fire die?
I want to watch it burn
Every single time

Chorus

You get me high then you bring me down
Don’t know why I ever stick around
Hate to say, hate to say it now
Just a drug, just a drug, just a drug to me

Lyrical idea

The song is about staying in an unhealthy relationship and becoming emotionally addicted to the constant highs and lows.

A line like:

“You get me high then you bring me down”

directly mirrors that emotional cycle. The language is intentionally simple and repetitive to reinforce the feeling of being stuck in a loop.

For this song, clarity and emotional directness mattered more to me than metaphor or complexity.

Melody-writing approach

The melody started with a very simple idea:

  • on the word “high”, the melody walks up the scale,

  • and on the word “down”, the melody walks down the same scale.

After that, I experimented with many variations of this idea until I found one that felt natural and expressive. That version eventually became the verse melody.

From there, I created small variations of it for the rest of the song.

In practice, melody writing is often just:

trying twenty different ways to sing the same short phrase, and keeping the one that feels best.

Final thought

Lovedrug is built almost entirely from:

  • diatonic chords,

  • a very common harmonic pattern (I – V – vi – IV),

  • and a simple melodic idea.

If you take one thing away from this lesson, I hope it’s this:

simplicity can be extremely powerful when the core emotional idea is clear.

It’s very easy to add too much. Sometimes the strongest songwriting move is knowing when to stop adding and let the song breathe.

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Songwriting

The Power of 4 Chords

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If you haven’t already, watch the video above.

It feels almost unbelievable at first: dozens of famous songs, all built from the same four chords. Different melodies, different lyrics, different artists—yet the harmony underneath barely changes.

So what’s really going on?

How can just four chords work in so many situations—and why do they sound good no matter what key they’re played in?

To understand this, we only need a small amount of music theory.

The 12 notes of Western music

In Western music, there are 12 total notes. Each note is separated by a half-step, and together they form the chromatic scale.
After twelve notes, the pattern simply repeats at a higher pitch.

From this chromatic scale, we can build other scales by using specific step patterns.

Major and natural minor scales

The two most common scales in popular music are the major scale and the natural minor scale.

They are defined by patterns of:

  • W = whole step (two half steps)

  • H = half step

Major scale pattern

  • R – W – W – H – W – W – W – H

Natural minor scale pattern

  • R – W – H – W – W – H – W – W

Each scale uses 7 of the 12 available notes and begins on a root note (R).

Two simple examples

To keep things simple, here are two scales with no sharps or flats:

C major

  • C – D – E – F – G – A – B – C

A minor

  • A – B – C – D – E – F – G – A

For the purpose of this example, I’ve intentionally chosen these two keys.
You can apply the same scale formulas to any starting note, which will introduce sharps or flats as needed.

Assigning Roman numerals

Next, we assign Roman numerals to each scale degree.
These numbers tell us which chord is built on each note.

Key of C major

  • C = I

  • D = ii

  • E = iii

  • F = IV

  • G = V

  • A = vi

  • B = vii°

Key of A minor (natural minor)

  • A = i

  • B = ii°

  • C = III

  • D = iv

  • E = v

  • F = VI

  • G = VII

Upper- and lower-case numerals indicate the chord quality (major or minor), and the ° symbol indicates a diminished chord.

Where the “four chords” come from

Now we can finally look at the famous four chords.

In tonal music, the I, IV, and V chords are the three primary functional chords of a key.
Together, they form the basic foundation of most harmonic progressions.

These three chords account for three out of the four chords used in the video.

Turning scale degrees into actual chords

To go from notes to chords, we simply build a chord on each scale degree.

In C major

  • I → C major

  • IV → F major

  • V → G major

In A minor (natural minor)

  • i → A minor

  • iv → D minor

  • v → E minor

Note: In most real music written in minor keys, the V chord is often made major (for example, E major in the key of A minor) by raising the seventh scale degree.
For simplicity, this example uses the natural minor scale.

You can think of I, IV, and V like variables in math—they change depending on the key you are in.

What is transposing?

The process of changing these same Roman-numeral patterns into a different key is called transposing.

This is often done to better suit a singer’s vocal range—and it’s exactly what’s happening in the video.

Below is the key of C major transposed to several other keys:

[IMG]

The fourth chord

So what about the final chord?

The last chord in this progression is:

  • vi in a major key

  • VI in a minor key

For example:

  • In C major, vi is A minor

  • In A minor, VI is C major

This chord is especially common in pop music because it shares two notes with the I chord.
That allows it to substitute smoothly for the tonic while still creating a noticeable emotional shift.

That contrast is one of the reasons this chord works so well alongside I, IV, and V.

The famous progression

In the video, the chords are played in the same order throughout:

I – V – vi – IV

You can change the order of these chords, repeat them in different patterns, or add additional chords to create an almost endless number of possibilities.

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