Songwriter Spotlight: Maggie Chapman

maggie chapman

Dressed in black, dolled up with bold, red lips, the young and beautiful Maggie Chapman rocks a classic look that supports her maturely constructed music.

Chapman makes music that is beyond her 18 years.

In her dark and enchanting song, “Rockstar,” Chapman expresses the anguish of falling for a musician on the road.

“This is why you’re not supposed to fall in love with a rockstar / He’ll take your heart and wreck it in the backseat of one of his fast cars / Girls will fall all over him, your world will fall apart / You’ll break and get replaced just like the strings on his guitar.”

Her lyrics pull you into an intriguing storyline that then hold you captive when coupled with her haunting melody.

“His bags are packed he’s giving you that last kiss, no I love you on his lips, and you just hope, he feels a little bit of what you feel for him / And you’ll feel crazy, miss him like hell / Even when he’s gone you’re under his spell / He’s living the dream, you’re living the nightmare / Thinkin’ whose got their fingers through his hair.”

“I can honestly say that it’s different every time,” Chapman says of her writing process. “I get ideas a lot when I’m driving late at night or in the rain and then I’ll quickly try to get a voice memo down on my phone before it slips my mind. That’s how I wrote the chorus to “Rockstar”… I was driving around at midnight and I just started singing this melody. I wasn’t really sure what it meant to me at first.”

“I went home to my beloved $50 flea market guitar and started to visualize this guy that everyone tells you not to fall in love with,” she continues. “The guy that sees girls as just another object he desires… (such as fast cars, guitars etc.)”

“The irony is, I ended up dating a guy that fits this description exactly after I’d already written “Rockstar.” Stupid me. Not only did I know better, yet I wrote a song listing out all the reasons not to get romantically involved with a guy like him. I feel this deep connection to that song in particular now, because I’ve lived it.”

There is an admirable quality to the goals she holds as a writer and an artist, especially engulfed in an era where radio drives a lot of sales for music and can fast track breaking an artist.

“My ultimate goal would be for my music to be timeless and classified as something that can stand on its own rather than being defined by a single decade or certain time that we’re in musically.”

She continues, “writing music is like breathing for me. I’m not sure that I could live my life and not process everything through the outlet of songwriting.”

Chapman is published by Creative Nation, an independent publishing company in Nashville, which has let her grow and continue to become more of who she is as a writer.

“Being with an independent publishing company has been an absolutely incredible experience,” she says. “I wouldn’t be the artist or person I am if I hadn’t grown into my own at Creative Nation. The staff and roster of writers there are not only my co-workers; they’re my family. They have always encouraged me to be myself while stretching me to be the best songwriter I can be and for that I am so grateful.” 

Check out Chapman’s Vignette, and connect with her on her website and YouTube channel.

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