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Ruth-Anne told DailyEdge.ie that she was invited to work on some songs for the boyband by some friends on their writing team.
I wrote Where Do Broken Hearts Go, which was co-written by Harry Styles, and No Control, which Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson contributed to. I can’t really talk about what it was like to work with them, though!
The former Billie Barry kid first started writing songs at the age of seven, saying she “just thought it was what singers did”.
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She kept it up, going on to win the 2fm Jacobs Song Contest in 2004 before flying to Los Angeles with her then-manager Eamonn Maguire to start songwriting in earnest.
Despite all this, it wasn’t until she had her first big hit with JoJo’s Too Little Too Late in 2006 that she realised she might be able to write songs for a living.
Ruth-Anne says that 50 to 100 tracks can be written for a single album, meaning there’s no guarantee that your song will be amongst the final tracks.
As a songwriter you may not have a lot of work out all the time. Artists get dropped, their albums get pushed back. It’s a highly competitive industry.
She may have made her name writing songs for other artists, but she hopes to become an singer in her own right. She’s currently in the middle of writing and recording her first album under the name Rooty, while featuring on tracks for DJs like Avicii and Cedric Gervais.
Tuesday 5 November, 2024
Tuesday 5 November, 2024
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Meet the Irish woman who penned songs for One Direction's new album
MEET RUTH-ANNE Cunningham, the Dublin woman who is slowly taking over pop music.
The Donaghmede native (now based in Los Angeles) has written songs for the likes of Britney Spears, Kelly Rowland, Pixie Lott and Professor Green.
But in perhaps her biggest coup to date, two of her songs feature on One Direction’s new album, Four.
Ruth-Anne told DailyEdge.ie that she was invited to work on some songs for the boyband by some friends on their writing team.
The former Billie Barry kid first started writing songs at the age of seven, saying she “just thought it was what singers did”.
She kept it up, going on to win the 2fm Jacobs Song Contest in 2004 before flying to Los Angeles with her then-manager Eamonn Maguire to start songwriting in earnest.
Despite all this, it wasn’t until she had her first big hit with JoJo’s Too Little Too Late in 2006 that she realised she might be able to write songs for a living.
Ruth-Anne says that 50 to 100 tracks can be written for a single album, meaning there’s no guarantee that your song will be amongst the final tracks.
She may have made her name writing songs for other artists, but she hopes to become an singer in her own right. She’s currently in the middle of writing and recording her first album under the name Rooty, while featuring on tracks for DJs like Avicii and Cedric Gervais.
She says she’s trying to carve out her own identity, after working with so many different musicians:
Follow Ruth-Anne on Twitter @iamrooty and on Facebook.
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Britney Spears One Direction rooty ruth-anne cunningham songwriter Songwriting