One sunny spring afternoon in Hollywood on the third floor of the office building she owns, the songwriter Diane Warren sits at the long console of her dark, windowless recording studio. Behind her chair is a shelf arrayed with several items that reflect her personal ethos — there are two statues of hands flipping the bird, a service call bell labeled “Shut the Fuck Up,” and a trucker hat that says “Don’t Be a Little Bitch.” She shows a visitor a new addition — a mug a friend had gifted her the night before, a pretty ceramic number with her favorite four-letter word spelled out in teeny letters designed to be revealed when you finish your coffee. “It’s a subtle ‘cunt,’” she says.
Warren’s sensibility might suggest punk rock drill sergeant, but her life’s work hardly reflects this. She has spent four decades at the top of her field, writing romantic, PG-rated pop songs; she and Lionel Richie are tied for having the most No. 1 songs as the sole writer in Billboard history. Warren has no living peer in the writing of a certain kind of hit ballad, and it’s easier to name the one major recording star she hasn’t written for (Madonna) than to list all the Swifts and Streisands who have recorded her compositions. The songs — among them “If I Could Turn Back Time,” “Un-Break My Heart,” “How Do I Live,” and “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” — are unapologetically commercial. If you have listened to the radio in the past 40 years, you certainly know them and have probably sung along to them at the top of your lungs; if you’re one of those pointy-headed rock critics who love to run her down, you have likely used the words cheese or schmaltz to describe them.
At 68, while still writing every day — her work ethic since age 14 could best be described as compulsive — she’s enjoying a grande-dame appreciation phase. Last year, she joined the likes of Leiber and Stoller, Paul Simon, and Stephen Sondheim when the Songwriters Hall of Fame awarded her its highest honor: the Johnny Mercer Award. But Warren is also, as of March, now tied as the losingest nominee in Oscars history. This could explain why, despite her success, she might be a tad fragile. Simon Cowell once described Warren as possessing a “weird combination of arrogance and crippling insecurity,” an assessment that she only partly accepts. “Not crippling,” Warren says. “But I think artists are all insecure. What’s weird is I’m not confident in me as a person. But with my music, I’m super confident. When I believe, I believe.”
In my research, I found a number cruncher on Reddit who five years ago computed the most successful songwriters in the more than 60-year history of the Hot 100, based on position and number of weeks charting. You were at the very top. Paul McCartney was No. 3 and Prince No. 6. But I also saw that in 2015, Rolling Stone published a list of the top 100 songwriters of all time.
I probably wasn’t in there. Right?
Well, I was curious where they would put you on the list. So I’m scrolling and see Taylor Swift, and I’m thinking you must be higher than her. And then I go past Babyface, Kanye, Ashford and Simpson, Björk, R. Kelly, James Taylor, Morrissey and Johnny Marr, Madonna, Kurt Cobain, and Max Martin. I get all the way to the top and you’re nowhere to be found. I was shocked.
I honestly don’t care.
I would.
I like that other list, the Hot 100. That’s facts. It’s not opinions. There’s that saying, “What you think about me is none of my business.”
You grew up middle class in Van Nuys, California, and started writing songs at 11. Your late father was supportive of your songwriting, driving you around when you were 15 to music publishers, where you’d drop off demos. But I gather your mother, Flora, who died in 2002, was very discouraging of your dream. You’ve said she would always tell you to forget about music and become a secretary or a teacher like your sisters, but you seem not to have held on to any anger about it.
I understand it. She wasn’t doing that to be mean or saying, “Your songs aren’t good.” My mom was a realist, right? She’s like, “You’re from Van Nuys; your dad sells insurance. What are the chances?” It was a legitimate concern. At the time, I was like, Yeah, fuck you, Mom. I’m going to show you. But I know in my heart I’m one in a billion to have this career starting where I started. Because no matter how talented you or how hardworking you are, some things have to line up. And they did for me, but I can’t be mad at my mom. There’s something cool about having to prove people wrong.
So do you think that her disapproval was motivating?
Yeah, of course it was.
I have two teenage sons who I try to encourage to find a dream and pursue it. Do you think discouraging them from pursuing their dreams might be a more effective parenting technique?
Who am I to say? I’m the parent of a cat. I don’t know what parenting technique is. It worked for me. I mean, I had my dad really believing in me, taking me to publishers and all that. And then I had my mom going, “Don’t encourage her!” to my dad.
I picture you having two little figures on your shoulders: a Lennon and a McCartney. Little McCartney’s cheering you on, and Little Lennon’s telling you to pack it in.
Exactly. But they’re both maybe equally important. Maybe the John Lennon one’s more important.
You’ve mentioned that you were bullied as a kid. What did kids bully you about?
Everything. Kids are fucking mean. But I found my little crowd of broken toys, and I’m still friends with them to this day. We weren’t the cool kids. We were the weirdos. But I’m proud to be in that club.
You ran away from home at 14, and it made the local papers, right?
Yeah. Missing teen.
What were you hoping for? What was so miserable at home?
Well, I wasn’t happy, and I had just gotten kicked out of another school that day, my second junior-high school. I’m like, “Oh, my parents are going to kill me.” And my friend goes, “You could stay with my friends.” Well, they were junkie bank robbers on the run. And I was kind of an innocent kid. I remember one guy having me hold something on his arm; he was shooting up, and I almost fainted. I don’t like needles. I’ll never be a junkie. I’m lucky I’m alive, because who knows what could have happened to me there? They were clearly not upstanding citizens.
What did you do to get kicked out of two junior highs in a row?
I was pretty good at getting kicked out. A teacher turned her head and I went, “Fu…” with my finger up. I was about to say, “Fuck you,” and she saw me right when I said it. I had to see the principal, and I knew I was getting kicked out. I hated school. School didn’t give me anything I needed. School to me was listening to the radio and reading Billboard. And I studied like a motherfucker.
From what I’ve read, your mother was very eccentric. Light-fingered, right?
Yeah. She was definitely light-fingered. She’d steal salt and pepper shakers and basically anything that wasn’t nailed down in a restaurant. And she would change price tags. Depression-era Jewish stuff.
In 2022, you received an honorary Oscar, the first pop songwriter to get one. In your speech, you shook your trophy in the air and said, “Mom, I finally found a man.” Did she often bug you about finding a man?
Well, yeah. “Find a man.” “Settle down.” I didn’t care about that. I just cared about my music.
When did you see your mother proudest of you?
When I got my star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She brought Tupperware, and she and my sisters took all kinds of food from the dedication lunch after. And then my mom has a picture of her purse with a red pepper in it. It’s an awesome picture. I think I have it in my room somewhere.
Where on Hollywood Boulevard is your star?
It’s by the Chinese Theatre, but a little west. So right now, someone’s walking all over me or shitting on me right now. I put a fake dog turd on it and took a picture once.
In March, you had your 16th loss in the Best Original Song category when Emilia Pérez’s “El Mal” beat your song “The Journey,” from Tyler Perry’s The Six Triple Eight. I’m kind of fascinated with your relationship to the Oscar. I have a theory. Hear me out. By denying you the award 16 times, the Oscars have, by definition, withheld.
Oh, like my withholding mom. That’s interesting. I want to win my mom’s love. I didn’t think of it like that.
Despite losing over and over at the Oscars, you’ve shown up every time. David Ehrlich in IndieWire wrote this: “Anyone who loves to hate — or hates to love — the Oscars as much as I do has surely wondered why this singularly brilliant pop icon … continues to participate in a sadomasochistic ritual that threatens to recast her as an industry punchline.” Why do you do it?
Would it be great to win? Fuck yeah, it would be. Honestly, I’m not cynical about that. Just like when I’m voting for Costume Design, I’m voting for things that I don’t know a lot about. Your peers nominate you. And then once you’re nominated, everybody votes. So then they’ll see a title of a song, and maybe they don’t know the movie or whatever.
Clive Davis has said that he has accompanied you to the Oscars several times and it’s not a fun night when you lose.
Well, there were a couple that hurt. One time, with Clive, was for “Because You Loved Me,” from 1996’s Up Close & Personal. I can really recall eating two big orders of French fries at Jerry’s Deli with Clive just to drown the pain.
I admire that you don’t act when you lose. The loss for “Til It Happens to You,” to Sam Smith’s Spectre Bond theme, in 2016 seemed especially hard. Everybody thought you were going to win it, and you were quite visibly stricken in your chair when you didn’t.
Yeah, I was. It’s kind of hard to go, Yay, I just lost. I’m just honest in my feelings. I think they were as shocked about winning as we were about losing.
You’d approached Lady Gaga about recording that song for the 2015 documentary The Hunting Ground, about sexual assault on American college campuses, after you heard that she’d been on Howard Stern talking about being raped as a teenager.
Yeah. I’d written the song, and I’m like, Okay, I’m going to take a chance here. I’m going to call Gaga, because we had talked about doing something together for three years before that. I said, “I really want to play you something.” I played it for her. She was crying when I picked the phone up, and she goes, “I have to do this song.”
You revealed at a TimesTalks event for The Hunting Ground in 2015 that you too were molested as a kid.
Yeah. By a friend’s dad. Gross. And I’d never said anything about it in public before. I didn’t even tell my friends about it.
But sometimes people make assumptions about what your songs are about and they’re often about other things. You’ve said that “How Do I Live” is a love song not just to a person but to being able to write music. Is “Til It Happens to You” about your sexual assault? Because I look at the lyrics and I think it could just as easily be about the loss of a pet, given how hard you took the death of your beloved cat, Mouse, a few years ago.
I do that on purpose. First and foremost, the most important thing is that the song has to fit that movie, right? When you’re hearing “Til It Happens to You” in that movie, it’s about that, and it was inspired by my sexual assault, but it could also be about 20 other things. I’d never say what “it” is. It could be if you’re bullied or if you’ve lost a job and everybody goes, “Oh, you’re going to be okay.” That song’s basically saying, “Fuck you. What do you know till it happens to you?” I wrote “Stand Up for Something” for Marshall and it fits in that movie but I’d never say what ‘something’ is. It could be animal rights, which I’m passionate about. It could be whatever you want it to be about.
My theory is all of your love songs are either to music or animals.
It could be. Again, I don’t analyze, I just do it. But there must be some truth to that.
Do you still have your parrot, Buttwings?
He died a couple of Octobers ago on Friday the 13th. It was the worst ever. I was looking everywhere in my office and I couldn’t find him. I didn’t hear him. And someone goes, “Look under the chairs.” I saw something that looked green and I went hysterical.
Was it a surprise?
Yes. A rat must’ve attacked him in my office. It was horrible and horrifying. I mean, Buttwings was kind of an asshole. He started out really nice and I would take him everywhere on my shoulder. Then I went to kiss him one time, and he tried to bite my lip off. It got infected. And then I’m like, Okay, I’m going to love you from a distance. I had that bird for 29 years. Parrots are like a person.
I get the sense that, like your pets, you think of your songs as your children. You’re a helicopter parent, making sure that they succeed. “Til It Happens to You” is a perfect example. It seems like you willed it to be heard. It almost became just a song from a documentary nobody saw.
You want to hear the story? Bobby Campbell, Gaga’s manager, said, “No, we’re not going to put the song out.” And they wouldn’t let us do anything with it. The rights were only to be in the movie. It couldn’t come out as a single. It couldn’t be a video. So I did the ultimate workaround. I called Paul Blavin, who’s a very wealthy guy who financed The Hunting Ground, and said, “Gaga’s team’s not going to put the song out; we need a video.” And he goes, “I’ll finance it.” And I go, “Okay, and I’ll put in some of my own money,” which I did.
The press release called it a public service announcement.
Yeah, it was some kind of thing to get around all that. I called Catherine Hardwicke, who is a really good friend of mine. She directed Thirteen and of course Twilight. I said, “You got to do this video.” She goes, “I have no time.” I go, “I’m driving to your house! I’m going to play you this fucking song.” And I played it for her, and she had almost the same reaction Gaga did. She was crying. She goes, “I’m going to do it.” So the video got done, and all these actors did it for free, basically. It was a two-day shoot. It wasn’t a cheap video. You notice Gaga’s not in that video.
Did she even know it was happening?
No. No one knew! We’re doing this all top secret. Like I said, the ultimate workaround because Gaga’s team would probably shoot it down. Then the Huffington Post posted it online and I sent it to Oprah because at the time I had her email, and I go, “This might speak to you.” And it did! She shared it and it got millions of views. And Gaga’s manager calls and starts yelling at me, going, “We know that was you!” I go, “Well, yeah.” I mean, you should be happy. This is a good thing. And then Gaga called me. She was really happy. [According to representatives for Lady Gaga, she and her team always intended to release “Til It Happens to You” as a single with a music video and “collaborated strategically” with Warren prior to the single’s release. “There’s no ‘workaround,’” they added. “There’s nothing released without Gaga’s approval and input.”]
Was your motivation to do that video to bring awareness to the issue of sexual violence on college campuses or to save your song that otherwise might have disappeared without a trace?
My motivation was I wanted people to hear that song.
Many people have said every time you write a song, you’ll say it’s the best song you’ve ever written.
Well, I feel it. I just wrote something yesterday. I think it’s one of my best songs. I know it is. But then I’m going to write something that maybe I like more.
You’ve written over 1,500 songs. Surely you must’ve written a few duds.
Well, yeah, duh. I mean, I try not to write ’em, but of course.
You’re known as someone who doesn’t collaborate with artists or other writers on songs.
I don’t do it much. No. On occasion I will, but it’s not my thing. I do better sitting in a room by myself and just wrestling that song to the ground.
I read that a songwriter might not want to collaborate with a performer because if for whatever reason they don’t end up releasing the song, you are left with a song with a performer’s name on it that’s obviously been cast off by them.
Well, that’s part of why. That’s another reason I don’t do it. If I’m going to write a song with an artist, I’m probably going to end up doing most of the work anyway, to be honest. And then if they don’t use the song, I have their name on it for something I wrote or I wrote a lot of, and I’d probably be a lot more likely to care more about something that wasn’t that song.
Is it about caring, or is it about getting somebody to actually record it?
You’re right. Well, if someone doesn’t do a song I wrote, it’s easy. I can just give it to somebody else. But if someone’s name is on it and they didn’t do it, some people go, “Oh, why didn’t they do it if it’s such a great song?”
I get the sense it’s often hard to sell artists on songs when they first hear the demo. I’m curious what you think their hesitation is in recording it.
Sometimes people feel something, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes you have to know when to push. Sometimes I won’t push. Sometimes I’ll be sitting in a room with somebody and they’re not feeling something. Okay, let’s come up with something else, let’s try this other song. But I’m relentless if I really believe. I’m lucky that people come in and usually I find the right song for them. Someone called me the Song Whisperer.
It seems that artists are often unable to recognize great songs.
Toni Braxton hated “Un-Break My Heart.”
Right. You played it for Clive Davis, who thought it would be perfect for her, but she didn’t want to record it. But Clive gave her an ultimatum?
I heard that he wasn’t going to put her album out if that song wasn’t on there. So she sang it. David Foster produced it, and it was like, Holy shit. And supposedly she still didn’t want it. Now, of course, she called her book Unbreak My Heart, and I think everything she does has “Un-Break My Heart” on it.
Cher also didn’t initially want “If I Could Turn Back Time,” right?
John Kalodner, the A&R man, had played her the song, and she hated it. And I was so convinced that it was Cher’s song that I came down to the studio. She was at Village Recorders recording another song of mine that day, and she was in the lounge. She goes, “Yeah, I hate that fucking song. I’m not doing it.” I literally held her leg down, said, “I’m not going to let go of your leg until you try it.” And then when I said I’d pay for the track, she goes, “Okay, I’ll try it.”
She said that she was so shocked because she couldn’t believe you’d pay for the track …
… because I’m so cheap. But how does she even know? I didn’t even know Cher that well. How does she know I’m cheap? But okay …
Cher loves talking about you being cheap.
I know. It’s weird.
I don’t know a lot of songwriters. If I talked to a bunch of them, would they tell me it’s not uncommon to track down an artist and detain them until they promise to record a song?
No, I don’t think a lot of songwriters would go and grab Cher’s leg in a recording studio. You can get arrested for that.
I spoke to your close friend, the voice coach Eric Vetro. He said the days of holding legs to get artists to perform your songs is pretty much over. That young artists now insist on writing or co-writing any songs they perform.
I mean, a lot of them do, but even when they do, if I play them the right song, they’re going to do it.
Eric told me that he was talking to an artist who did a song of yours that became a big hit in Europe and Australia, and she told him, “I would rather write my own songs and represent myself in songs that don’t become smash hits than I would taking a song that becomes a smash hit.”
She said that after she had a big fucking smash hit of mine.
Who?
It was Paloma Faith, “Only Love Can Hurt Like This.” That became probably my biggest hit ever. And by the way, I am working with her again. So she is doing another song of mine.
I was looking at the biggest female artists of the past few years. Taylor Swift, Chappell Roan, Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter — they are either listed as writer or co-writer of all the original songs they record. I imagine it’s hard for someone like you who, as a rule, doesn’t collaborate.
I mean, I would for the right thing. I’m not saying I wouldn’t write with some of these people. It’s “Never say never.” As long as they’re a real writer, and as long as it’s something they’re serious about.
Are your lyrics sacred to you? Do you feel like if an artist comes back and says, “Oh, I have a better idea for that line,” are you resistant?
Well, if someone has a better idea, I’m open to it. When an artist does a song of mine, it becomes their record. So it’s my song and their record. I know that there’s compromises you have to make.
Is there any song that you listen to where a lyric was changed and you can hear it every time and you think to yourself, God, I liked what I wrote better?
I remember a hundred years ago, Cyndi Lauper did this song I wrote called “I Don’t Want to Be Your Friend.” And there’s this line that really makes that chorus so emotional when it goes, “I’m not over you yet,” and there’s a pause and then “I don’t want to be your friend.” And she goes, “Well, I want to say, ‘I don’t want to be your friend,’ and then ‘I’m not over you yet.’” I’m like, “Okay, but that makes no sense. You just took all the emotion, the part that really gets you in the song.” Anyway, she did it her way. It wasn’t a hit.
Do you think that one line getting changed is related to it not becoming a hit?
I don’t know. I mean, who knows?
I get a kick out of thinking about your song that Aerosmith recorded for the Armageddon soundtrack, “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing.” It was inspired by an interview with James Brolin and Barbra Streisand. He apparently once said to her, “Honey, I don’t want to go to sleep because I don’t want to miss anything.” Look, it’s a great song. It’s a romantic thing to say. But based on everything that I’ve read about you, I would think that you would find that sentiment ridiculous.
Wait, hold on. [On her phone, Warren shows a meme that she’s reposted to Instagram. “I could stay awake just to hear you breathing … Watch you smile while you’re sleeping … Aerosmith=Romantic. Rest of us=Restraining order.”] Of course I had to post that.
I could see both sides of it. I’m writing and it’s romantic and I’m in it, but I’m also going, Really? I don’t want you to fucking listen to me fucking breathe. I could maybe listen to my cat purr. “I kiss your eyes and thank God we’re together.” Why do you kiss someone’s eyes? I mean, I’ve never really thought about that until just now.
I’ve heard that it’s now very common for artists to insist on a co-writing credit regardless of how much they actually contribute to a song. “Change a word …”
“… get a third.” Yeah, people have tried that with me a couple times. You just have to be strong. It’s something that’s been going on a while, to be honest.
So what do they say? Is it about money, or is it about reputation? Can they no longer make any money in selling records, so they need to take a portion of the publishing rights?
Well, I mean, nobody’s making the kind of money that they made because of streaming. Say you’re a beginning songwriter that’s on a big record. I’m not talking about myself. If an artist takes that song from them, that one song could really be such a big thing for that one writer. So I always feel bad if someone’s credited and they didn’t really write a song.
Who’s tried it with you?
I’m not going to say.
Back in 2016 when you and Lady Gaga were up for a songwriting Oscar for “Til It Happens to You,” the songwriter Linda Perry tweeted that she had heard your demo and it was nearly identical to the final song. But somehow, Gaga got a writing credit.
Yeah, I mean, her credit was more for producing the record.
Okay, but she got a writing credit.
Yeah. Her name is on that, but I don’t want to … like … oh my God. She really produced a great record, and I was okay with that.
It seems like Linda was trying to defend you.
Yeah. She’s cool. I think she meant well. I’ve talked to her. I’m friends with her. But I wish she hadn’t done it.
Back when you wrote your first hit, DeBarge’s “Rhythm of the Night” in 1985, you were working for a German music publisher named Jack White, who you’ve said was paying you a couple hundred dollars a week and offering no share of music publishing. You sued him to get out of your contract, and rather than signing with a big publisher who would have taken half of your publishing, you started your company Realsongs and kept 100 percent of your songs. Can you tell me how much money that decision meant for your net worth?
That would be half of my money.
How much is half your money?
I mean, my catalogue’s really valuable, but I’m not selling it or anything.
Many artists of your generation are selling their song catalogues.
I can’t judge other people because maybe it’s about their kids; I don’t know. And I’ve been offered stupid money. What I’ve been offered is as much as the biggest deals that you are reading about, if not more.
Dylan got $300 million. Bowie’s estate got more than $250. Neil Young, I think, got $150 million for a 50 percent share. Paul Simon, $250 million. Springsteen, $550 million. What were you offered?
I’m not saying. Honestly, I don’t even like talking about shit like this — but a lot. Definitely in that ballpark. But my soul’s not for sale.
In your MasterClass documentary released last year, Diane Warren: Relentless, the producer David Foster said something to the effect of, “God, if I had Diane’s money, I would just be like, ‘Screw it, I’m going to go live on a yacht.’”
Yeah, what do you do on a fucking yacht? It’s the last thing I’d want to do. I don’t really drink much, so I’m going to sit there and watch people drink? Go on a cruise and watch people eat?
You bought David Geffen’s former home in the Hollywood Hills in 1995.
Well, his little, small house. It wasn’t like a mansion or anything. When I was trying to negotiate the price of his house, he goes, “You’re crazy.”
What did you do that was so crazy?
I don’t think it was that crazy. It was a lot of money at the time for me. A little over $2.5 million. I didn’t have that. But it was a good deal at the end of the day.
So were you trying to talk him down?
It was two Jews together. He just goes, “I’m not going to lower the price. You’re getting a deal. You’re stealing the house, basically. You are crazy to try to negotiate.” And he said to me, “You need to talk to my shrink.” And I ended up going to her for a while. Beatrice Foster.
Now, you haven’t officially been diagnosed as having Asperger’s, correct?
Well, she’s the one who said I have it.
Why did she say that you have it?
I guess we all are kind of on the spectrum, right? I remember her going, “You’re 38 years old, your best friend’s a parrot, and you’ve never been in a relationship, and you don’t want one.”
Do you think that you could have had this career that you’ve had with this new streaming model?
Honestly, I don’t know how some people make a living as a songwriter. If you’re one of eight writers on a song with streaming, how are you making money on that?
Back in 2022, you tweeted, “How can there be 24 writers on a song?” and then, “This isn’t meant as shade, I’m just curious.” It was taken to be about Beyoncé’s song “Alien Superstar,” which had 24 credited writers.
Yeah. I know it’s sampling, and if you sample, you’ve got to pay the songwriters of the songs you sample, but how many songs did you sample? Well, I saw 24, and I’m just kind of curious what people do. Right? If it’s not all samples, what did those people do to get that credit on the song? And then, oh my God, the Beyhive came after me. It was like, what the fuck did I do? I just said an opinion. But by the way, real songwriters I know are texting me, “Thank you so much. That’s so great that you said that.” Well, it kind of freaked me out. This was nothing against Beyoncé. I love Beyoncé.
It seemed to become an issue about race. The-Dream tweeted, “How’s does our (Black) culture have so many writers, well it started because we couldn’t afford certain things starting out, so we started sampling.”
He’s an asshole.
What makes him an asshole?
I mean, he beat up a woman. [He has denied the allegations.] That makes him an asshole. Okay, so I want to say this: A guitar is probably cheaper than some of the sampling equipment.
And you know, how was that racist? The best musicians and writers and artists are Black. It wasn’t a racial thing. It was stupid. He was just an asshole.
Do you ever hear a song with many songwriters and think that it sounds like it was written by committee?
Yeah. And I’m not going to say what songs. But I’ll hear something that’s maybe an okay song and I’ll look and see who wrote it, and it’ll have eight writers. I’m like, Really? Wow. What did you guys do? But I’m not going to judge anybody.
On April 28 at Carnegie Hall, the New York Pops will host “Words and Music: Diane Warren” at its annual birthday gala featuring performances of her hits.
More From Our 'In Conversation' Series
- David Lynch on His Memoir Room to Dream and Clues to His Films
- Willem Dafoe on the Art of Surrender
- Emily Watson: ‘I’m Blessed With a Readable Face’
