They Write the Songs

In a revealing moment during the Netflix docuseries Song Exploder, host Hrishikesh Hirway asks Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails about the lyrics of his hauntingly melancholic hit "Hurt."

Reznor, an Emmy-winning composer, at first demurs. "The reason I like to shy away from talking about lyrics is, it can shed too much light on what my intent was," he says, his face filling the screen. "To me, it's about your experience with that song, and what it means to you, and how it feels to you."

Undeterred, Hirway takes a different tack: "But was it hard to figure out how you wanted to sing those words?" Sure enough, Reznor describes in intimate detail the feelings of pain and alienation behind "Hurt," as well as his reason for ditching the piano he used to write the song when Nine Inch Nails finally recorded it for their second studio album.

The exchange is one of many highlights in the series, which mixes original interviews and archival footage to show how top musicians create hit songs.

The first two seasons, released late last year, feature an eclectic array of artists, from R.E.M. and Alicia Keys to the Killers and Ty Dolla $ign.

Hirway, who is also an executive producer, maintains a low profile on the show and aims to keep the focus on the artists. The Yale-educated son of Indian immigrants and a musician himself, he created the "Song Exploder" podcast in 2014 in part to learn more about the craft of songwriting. To bring the show to Netflix, he teamed with Morgan Neville, the Oscar-winning producer- director behind 20 Feet from Stardom.

"What I think is interesting about these conversations," Neville says, "is that even though some of these people have been interviewed a thousand times, they probably haven't been interviewed about something like this: the process stuff, not the star stuff, or the music industry stuff. Just the creative process."

The results can be magical. In one particularly compelling episode, Lin-Manuel Miranda recounts writing the chorus to Hamilton's "Wait for It" while riding a train through Brooklyn. In fact, he remembers recording a voice memo of himself singing the lines after he stepped off the train and walked through Williamsburg to a friend's birthday party. "Do you think you still have that voice memo?" Hirway asks.

Cut to a close-up of Miranda, his brow duly furrowed as he listens to the recording, clearly pained and amused by his a capella street performance. He recalls that he made a swift exit from his friend's party. "I had exactly half a beer," Miranda says. "I shook his hand and said, 'I have to go home.' And I wrote the rest on the way home."

Hirway, who continues to host the podcast, says he's ready if the opportunity arises to produce another season of the show. "I feel like I've just scratched the surface. And in terms of artists I'd like to interview, the wish list is so long."

This article originally appeared in emmy magazine, Issue No. 6, 2021