The Hitmakers Steinberg & Kelly | The Story Behind Many Songs
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.พ. 2025
- Songwriters Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg tell the story behind the hits 'True Colors' (Cyndi Lauper), 'So Emotional' (Whitney Houston), 'Alone' (Heart), 'Eternal Flame' (The Bangles), 'I drove all night' (Roy Orbison), 'I'll stand by you' (The Pretenders). An interview from 2018.
You can watch the story behind 'Like a virgin' here: • Billy Steinberg & Tom ...
Whoa. Could not stop watching. These guys are giants.
This interview is a real treasure for me. I've been following Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly's work since their early 80s band i-Ten. Growing up in the 1980s, I always saw their names on some of my favorite 45 records. I even own the magazine that they graced the cover of called Music Connection. As a songwriter myself, they are a huge inspiration to me. I am a HUGE fan! The "Eternal Flame" that Billy speaks of here reminds me of their songs. A lot of the songs that these two composed together are now pop standards. They will live on forever like an Eternal Flame. 🎵
Great interview! Always loved their massive contributions to the music world.
For the unenlightened: Before they had hit songs, Kelly & Steinberg released an album of original material under the name "I-Ten" called "Taking a Cold Look." This was in 1983, and the most known song from this album has to be "Alone" - later covered by Heart. The album has since become known as a classic within the AOR community. Before this, Kelly was briefly in a band called "Fool's Gold" which released two albums in the mid/late 70's. Tom Kelly was also a very sought-after session vocalist, and has sung on hundreds of albums and hit songs from the mid-70's to the mid-90's. In fact, in the late 80's Kelly was supposedly going for the job as lead vocalist in the (then) new band Giant (who had a hit with the power ballad "I'll See You In My Dreams") - but he bailed out focusing on songwriting instead.
Steinberg also had a band in the late 70's called Billy Thermal.
I-Ten "Quicksand" th-cam.com/video/_4GziN4JkfU/w-d-xo.html
Fool's Gold "Wouldn't I Love to Love You" th-cam.com/video/fY_mdf1Gkck/w-d-xo.html
Billy Thermal "I'm Gonna Follow You" th-cam.com/video/362r-AkrJuU/w-d-xo.html
Pretty incredible these two dudes wrote all these classic tunes. I always thought these artists wrote them!
These two legends wrote the soundtrack to my life.
Same…seriously.
Great job! I was unaware of these guys but boy, what an incredible catalogue of work.
I have loved this channel for a long time and this video is precisely why. A touching, amazing interview. Incredible.
I love these Top 2000 a Go Go videos learning about how songs were written and this is the best one yet. Incredible!!
👑💜 wow. I love your channel because writers / lyricists get the spotlight and credit 💜 so many songs, artists, bands I love. Happy tears esp for “True Colours”. Also the Bangles, Whitney, Divynals Heart and Chrissie Hynd. Cheers to “streams of consciousness” and the power of human connection
I applaud anyone who made it through this video without crying.
Magical songwriting team
Thank you so much for this amazing interview with such talented songwriters!
These guys are true masters of composing and song writing. So many big big unforgetable everlasting hits with stunning melodies. Thanks for sharing! This documentry is worth watching every minute of it and probably over again. Cheers DimiZ
This is one of your very bests and one of the very bests TH-cam videos altogether
Geweldig, prachtig portret! Dank jullie wel.
Jij bedankt voor je compliment, Steve!
Burt Bacharach and Hal David levels of prodigious output there. I had no idea that these two were behind so many amazing songs.
Most songs by Bacharach & David are little miracles of melody and lyrics.
Dunno about the lyrics by these two , but most their melodies are pretty generic, not like I would remember, let alone , sing along. Except for Virgin & True Colours, and even the last one I need to hear the whole thing to recognize it.
Didn’t realise how many of their songs I love, awesome video!
Bravo. Well done. You captured the essence of these two songwriters perfectly. 👏👏👏🙏
That's a great compliment, Frinton!
😭I'm sooo in love with you guys for all the great songs that came into my life.
Really great interview...thank you for posting !
Wow i loved all of these …. Songs of my youth
Wonderful documentary, and the very ending is perfect, since the hidden thread of the documentary is authentic love.
This has to be the best one yet. Amazing. Just awesome 👏👏👏
Loved these songs back then, loved them now. Thanks guys!
I love those original lyrics to ‘(Your) True Colours’: “You’ve got a long list with so many choices, a ventriloquist with so many voices and your friends in high places say where the pieces fit, you’ve got so many faces in your makeup kit” I understand why it is was changed but that is a really beautiful lyric.
Awesome! More longer Top 2000 a gogo videos, please!
I'll pass on the message! ;-)
This is a great document on songwriting and composing..... thanks to Arjan Vlakveld and his crew
You can really see the collaborative creative relationship these 2 men have. Both have strong opinions of their own but also know when to be quiet and let the other guy cook.
Fascinerend, nooit geweten dat deze heren zoveel hits hebben geschreven die ik allemaal letterlijk meezing👌🎶😊
Wow incredible talent. Such amazing songwriters and so many hits. Amazing
Thank you Tom and Billy... you both wrote many memorable songs. I hope you get the good amount of royalty you deserve.
I grew up listening this hits so obviously I hate all cacophony from these days in the radio and titok. This is true art & poetry. Maestros
Two of my favourite songwriters. Thanks for sharing this great interview.
haha net wanneer ik dacht niet nog meer onder de indruk te kunnen raken van dit filmpje, zie ik aan het eind op 26:50 Noël Perdaens van het Johan Strauss orkest van André Rieu. Geweldig. Wat een minidocu. Helemaal top!
Two very talented men. Thank u! for this wonderful music. The demos are great. I would buy those.
Thanks Top2000 a gogo, finally somebody made a doc about these guys!
amazing they were able to write such different sounding songs
I really enjoyed this interview. It was really interesting. Thank you.
WOW. This was great. Loved the entire video.
Such a pleasure to watch this documentary and see these two legends chat about the "how's and why's" 💗 I did notice some great songs that weren't mentioned... "In Your Room" for The Bangles in '88 (prior to "Eternal Flame"). "Look Me In The Heart" for Tina Turner '89. "My First Night Without You" for Cyndi Lauper '89. "The Gift of Love" for Bette Midler '91. "Night In My Veins" for Pretenders '94. "Falling Into You" for Celine Dion '96. "One and One" for Robert Miles '96. 💗
Amazing writers!
Tom has got a beautiful voice too!
Wow. Fantastic interwie, so interesting to watch and here these two giants. ❤
Incredible songs!
love these 2 guys. they maken life wonderful as friends!
mooie reportage
Boy do I enjoy these features! This one is especially special. I'm a songwriter as well and if I could have just a small fraction of the success that Steinberg & Kelly have had it would be lovely.
One of the problems of these great (but relatively unknown to the big public) songwriters is that there has been created a precedent where the current artists with all of their market value and what not can be so demanding, as to get a co writing credit even when they've contributed barely anything
These VTs are so good to watch!
Wauw - stevig onder de indruk!
Mooi, Jan!
This was a great video, thanks!
How amazing would it be to get Mutt Lange on this show to talk about his hits.
But I don't imagine it will ever happen, since the guy is a recluse.
Yes good idea.
Excellent, a story played out perfectly, well done!
love the i-ten cd .
These guys are so talented, I recently got their I-Ten album and love it. And their version of Alone doesn't have Ann Wilson, but it has Steve Lukather and other members of Toto.
Steinberg & Kelly 👍
I had no idea so many pop songs I like were written by the same people.
incredible!
Such talent. I touch myself, so clever!
Fantastic.
Older generation had Leiber & Stoller. We have Steinberg & Kelly.
Hmmm I assume you're a lot older than me. Leiber and Stoller were around 30 years before Steinberg and Kelly and the 80s were 40 years ago now
Billy Steinberg seems like such a delicate soul.
Als je dit gezien hebt, ga je anders naar de muziek luisteren, en zijn de nummers veel mooier. Wat kunnen deze mensen mooie muziek maken.
Watching this makes me think "why didn't I take up songwriting for a living?" It's inspiring.
Legends.
These guys are pure talent icons
These guys are so amazing!
Wow, these guys were behind so many great songs from the late 80s and the early 90s! More long format videos please.
EDIT: Wish we could get such documentaries for Mutt Lange and Max Martin, but both are so reclusive :(
I love the True Colors demo!
I am former songwriter. I have spent nearly twenty years of my life writing songs. As I left the trade , I told my son, why I left the trade.i said to him, one can't write songs fyer his soul is corrupted. I look at this two men, and I see their souls are not corrupted..
Wow! After hearing the demo for True Colors that song would of been perfect for Paul Young
More of these, please.
23:30 How can you not smile at that tale!
Magical 💚
Not my kinda music, but it's so important to shine a light on the actual creatives... the writers... they are constantly orverlooked. When people quote these song lyrics, they always attribute the lines to the singer.
I totally agree.
I've said it many times. Over the course of history, it's been men who have written the most heartfelt love songs. I find that ironic as usually men are known for not showing feelings but again and again, think of your favourite love songs and you'll find a huge proportion of them were penned by men.
Yep, men are the romantic ones 😊 and they're very good at helping us women relax and let our hair down ❤
True, but there’s also historically been a lot more male songwriters than female writers. Some of the most beautiful love songs have also been written by women. Diane Warren is a perfect example
@Davo198 absolutely, women have also written some great love songs but if you took the 20 most well known or most loved and I would suggest the majority were written by men.
I just find it an interesting fact as men are usually portrayed as emotionless and non heartfelt but time and time again they have penned some of the most heartfelt love songs in existence
4:46 wow. That hits hard. The pacific coast highway is gone now. 😢 🔥
drove all night beautiful song. I like Roys version best
Wat een geweldige reeks!
The demos sound better than the recorded versions!
Brilliant men
Susanna Hoffs, such a beautiful woman!!
My biggest gripe with today’s music is that the majority of Pop artists seem to lack the ability to write a catchy song with a great hook and melody. So I wish these 2 talented guys were still writing today.
I would be surprised to know most today don't write their own music. Think about it these two lived a life of not being famous but still owned the music. I rather be song writer who face isn't known to the public no one bothers you. Being famous today must be hell everyone having a camera phone TMZ and others who pay these people to snap some crappy picture for tabloids.
Die gasten hebben de soundtrack van vijf jeugd geschreven ❤️
These guys are true craftsmen. Incredibly gifted people. Thank you for brightening my life guys.
cool guys
TH-cam if you disable the Dislike button, at least gives us a Super like button.
This video needs one!
i had no idea they'd written so many great songs i knew about the madonna one if they put all
these songs together you could make it into a musical
with the extra bits that didn't fit
there's an eternal flame to princess diana in paris
Subscribed. Well deserved.
I remember a video where people were compareing Rush and Aerosmith and while both are great bands, the big difference was that Rush wrote all their own songs. Most of these 'power ballads' that pseudo heavy metal bands were putting out in the eighties were written by somebody else, so essentially they are just a cover band for the songwriters. Songwriting is the hardest gig there is, you've got it or you don't. Mind you, the musical part was that many of these bands best stuff were never actually formulaic enough to be 'hits'.
Steinberg & Kelly meeting Madonna and Warren is everything.
I laughed my ass off when I heard that story for the first time.
One of the most amazing stories in pop.
I bet Madonnaa hated them, because she didn't write that huge hit herself (a mistake she never repeated again).
Boss Lady Madonna! I adore her.
2 very clever men.
Hier zit nog enigzins variatie in, Stock Aitken en Watrman waren vele malen erger..
If this is “corporate” pop…then give me more, more, more of this good stuff!!!
wtf these guys are geniuses...
They write classic songs. I occasionally write a classic but todays crowd don't really want it. Hip or Alt is all the rage now, it's a shame. Hopefully it makes a comeback. Isn't Chrissie Hynde a darling tho
She will never know the next hit they could have had together. What a classless fool!
I love the demo of true colors. No offense, Cindy’s voice is not my type
Agree. I prefer Roy Orbison's version of I Drove All Night by far!
*Especially in this day & age, the writers of songs are the folks that are one of the highest paid cogs in the 'music machine'.*
I say this because a lot of people don't realize that every time a (copyrighted) song is played commercially, the songwriters of said song are sent a check.
It's called (near) perpetual royalties. And, it's one of the sweetest deals in music.
So do you make a better deal by writing than actually singing?
What about production?
What are the percentage?
@@Jules-z4e songwriters get payed every time it’s played or performed. Defo the most royalties
@@Jules-z4e the money is ALWAYS in the writing of the songs themselves and the subsequent publishing deals. That’s why artists fight for publishing rights and songwriting credits in works that have already been written. A good example of the keyboard part of whiter shade of pale which went to court and established that the player had partially written the song as the run on the organ was so integral to the overall work.
Another example was Claire Torrey’s unforgettable, seminal, and iconic vocal on Pink Floyds “the Great Gig in the Sky”. She received paltry session fee from the vocal delivery which became one of PFs most famous songs and fought in court to try and extract some sort of remuneration for the key role she played. I don’t know what the outcome was though -
It also illustrates that bands who write together, stay together. U2 have always split their writing and publishing straight down the quarters even though mostly it’s Edge and Bono who are main songwriters. And they’re still together over 40 years later. Sorry for long entry!
Most money goes to the company owners, not to the musicians, not the writers, not the producers. The smart guys in the office, that's were you find the big cars, _and_ they don't need to hire, they _own_ m.
Them artists in this series that ended up in the good life, had their business done well. The guys that got hustled or of their rights, those old blues cats, the down and out artists you don't see m here, or, they don't want to talk, ey, John Fogerty ?
the question is: who makes the most money? The artist or the writer of the song??
Not being in the business, I would presume the writer(s) make more money because they can/should control (and profit) from the song's use by others (besides the performer who initially had success with it). The writer(s) can license it to vocal talent shows on television, various ASPCA/UNICEF commercials, and whatever niche that particular song might fill in a tribute video or something similar.
As an aside, I'm barely old enough to remember when Phil Collins and Steve Winwood caught a bunch of flak by licensing their brand new songs to Anheuser-Busch for use in Michelob commercials, but It seems like a lot of folks are doing that now.
@@GarrettWorcester exactly! The composer/writer makes more money, think Whitney Huston (Will always love), Dolly Parton made way more money then Whitney.
The writer
@@markushutto4017 I'm not so sure if early hits made them lot of money, I would bet they were sold off to labels. Those days labels had 100% control example is John Fogerty he fought for years to get writes of his own music back he wrote those songs.
Wie is de interviewer, niet Leo Blokhuis toch?
Dat klopt, dit is Arjan Vlakveld!
@@Top2000agogo leuk interview hoor, sympathieke mensen