Amy Allen Wrote (At Least) One of Your Favorite Songs This Year
From ‘Please Please Please’ to ‘APT.’
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Some musicians take the Grammys as an opportunity to brush shoulders with their heroes. Not Amy Allen. “I’m the number-one worst schmoozer of all time,” says the 32-year-old artist, who’s written songs with Harry Styles, Lizzo, and Olivia Rodrigo. “If I see somebody I’m a fan of, the last thing I’m gonna do is go say hi. I’m like, What table can I hide under right now?”
But after the year Allen’s had, it’s the other artists who are going to be approaching her. The Maine native has been one of pop’s steadier hired hands since 2018, when she co-wrote Selena Gomez’s “Back to You” and Halsey’s “Without Me.” But that pales in comparison to Allen’s 2024. It kicked off in January, when her sexy Tate McRae co-write “Greedy” peaked at No. 3 on the Hot 100. She later proved crucial to the rise of Sabrina Carpenter, co-writing every song on her breakout album Short n’ Sweet, including the slick earworm “Espresso” and dreamy “Please Please Please.” And, as the year comes to a close, two more Allen cuts are flourishing: Rosé and Bruno Mars’ high-energy “APT.” has topped the Billboard Global 200 for weeks, while Koe Wetzel and Jessie Murph’s couple-on-the-rocks anthem “High Road” is closing in on a Country Airplay No. 1. Allen even found time to release her own solo album, written entirely by herself. All that work was enough to earn her four nominations at the 2025 Grammys, including a second nod for Songwriter of the Year. When she heard the news, she was, of course, in the studio, working on another song.
As a writer, Allen doesn’t shy away from winding, complex melodies, and she has a knack for quirky one-liners (none more quoted than “That’s that me espresso”). But she prides herself on trying to show all sides of the artist she’s working with. “Long gone are the days of people wanting to listen to the artist taking themselves seriously on every track,” says Allen, while breaking down a few of the hits she worked on this year. “Listeners love to hear an artist be self-aware and to laugh at themselves, but also be honest.”
‘Please Please Please,’ Sabrina Carpenter
Step 1: Set the mood (with coconuts in January)
This is the first time in my career I’ve gotten to be a part of every song on an album. We bounced around a lot. We did days in New York with Jack Antonoff, and then we did days in France and a lot of days in L.A. So we were in all these different atmospheres, which helped the album have so many chapters. “Please Please Please” was in New York, at Electric Lady, where Jack has a room. I think we did “Slim Pickins,” “Lie to Girls,” and “Please Please Please” in the same day. It was in January, right after the New Year, and Sabrina and I were excited to catch up. I remember it was snowing that day, and we were drinking coconuts, which makes no sense in fucking freezing weather in New York. We were just laughing about shared experiences that so many women have with dating.
Step 2: Leave the rulebook at the door
Sabrina and I were on the same wavelength, throwing lines back and forth. It was like your dream day, where everything just fell into place. I don’t remember getting stuck on a section at all. The “motherfucker” line, I remember us laughing about it and not thinking much of it at the time. We were not following any rules of what a pop song should be. There’s not many key changes on pop radio right now, that’s for sure. When Jack proposed it, it was like, Of course. Normally, if a producer would propose a key change, I’d be like, Where are we going with this? But when he said it, we were just like, Yeah, definitely.
Step 3: Have a laugh — but don’t make it a joke
Sabrina’s so witty and self-aware. We can meet in that place easily, where she’s saying all these really funny things, but she’s also able to be so raw and emotional about it. We both approach songwriting from a place of wanting to say something honest. So it’s never coming from a joking place — that’s just the crazy cherry on top. We’re wanting to write beautiful music, it just so happens that she’s hilarious.
“Selfish,” Justin Timberlake
Step 1: Follow J.T.’s lead
He’s such a veteran. He is so grounded in who he is as a writer and artist. If Justin is in the session, it’s gonna go where it’s gonna go. I was happy to be along for the ride and be with somebody that I was influenced by, who’s changed the face of pop music. So many of my instincts are because I grew up on *NSYNC and Justin. So to have those happening in the room in real time and creating together was such a mindfuck, in the best way. He’s an amazing listener as well, and it felt really validating and cathartic to have somebody that I respect be interested in what I have to say.
Step 2: Go past the “flex songs”
I was really excited to be part of a song that felt intimate and really honest and vulnerable, because he’s also the king of the flex song, where he is confident and has so much swag. To get to see him in a light here he’s saying something really honest and vulnerable to his wife, I felt grateful to be part of that moment. And it didn’t need to be this hit-you-over-the-head-with-the-production song, it needed to just be the sentiment.
“High Road,” Koe Wetzel featuring Jessie Murph
Step 1: Don’t make assumptions
I grew up a die-hard fan of Dolly Parton and John Prine. I am a student of the country method of writing a song because it’s honest and story-based. And I love how, instrumentally, it’s still so organic. But I hadn’t spent a lot of time in Nashville or working with country artists before. So when I got asked to go to Texas for Koe, I was like, I don’t know how this is gonna go. I had listened to Koe’s music, but it’s different than sitting with a young female country artist and writing about our breakups. I was like, I’m probably going to have fewer touchpoints with him. But the second I got there, and we sat down for two minutes, I was like, I love him. We are so similar. The way he wants to be honest and tell a story is exactly the way I want to be honest and tell a story. He has this superpower of being heartfelt and then also being funny and witty and self-aware, just like Sabrina is.
Step 2: Make your own double entendre
“High Road” happened a few months later, in Nashville. We were joking about this concept of taking the high road — meaning, I’m gonna get high and let you go crazy. Like, we’re in an argument, and I’m just gonna let you spiral over there, and I’m gonna get high and not stoop down to this level of craziness. And it’s a very real thing. I think anybody that’s ever been in a relationship can relate. It’s so fun to talk about it in a way that is authentic with Koe, where he’s like, I’m just gonna go get a little fucked up over here and let that happen. We had so much fun writing it. It was a late night. It was my birthday. My friend Carrie was also in the room that day, and her and I went to get tattoos and go mechanical bull riding after. Lots of tequila consumption. [Laughs]
“reason to forgive,” Amy Allen
Step 1: Turn off Top Chef
I just wrote it in my bedroom, which is exactly how I started writing songs when I was little. I probably wrote it within 30 minutes of sitting down. I was going through a breakup at the time and I had a lot on my mind, and for some reason, I decided to pick up the guitar that day instead of watching Top Chef. [Laughs] And it fully just came right out of me, which makes me think I should do it a lot more.
Step 2: Start at the beginning
When I write for myself, I always start at the beginning of the song, which helps me tell the story authentically. I’m not having to bring anybody else into the equation, I’m not worrying that the chorus maybe isn’t the most palatable pop-radio thing in the world, ‘cause that’s not my aspirations with my own music. I feel like I’m working this muscle that I don’t work all the time, but when I get to the other side of it, I always end up having a very cathartic experience.
Step 3: Don’t just write it for you
Every woman in my life that I aspire to be like, the thing that I love about them is that they are selfless and loving and would do anything for anyone. I’m thinking of my mom and my grandmothers and my aunts and my sisters. On one hand, that is the best trait anybody could ever have. But this trait that I love and admire so much in other people, the way it sometimes manifests within myself is holding onto love when it’s not love anymore. I’ve had a lot of long relationships that, if I wasn’t always trying to give the benefit of the doubt, even at my own expense, I wouldn’t have been in for so long. So “reason to forgive” feels like a song that I wrote for myself, but I also wrote it for so many women in my life.
“APT.,” Rosé & Bruno Mars
Step 1: Turn your pre-session antics into a song
Rosie was teaching me the drinking game before our other cowriter, Theron Thomas, got there. I don’t even know why it came up. Theron came in, and he’s such a musical genius. He said, “Stop — what are you guys playing?” And Rosie was like, “Oh, it’s this Korean drinking game.” And he said, “No no no no no, whatever you guys are doing, we’re writing that song today.” That just wouldn’t have crossed my brain, to try to interpolate that into a song.
Step 2: Add contrast
I was like, How are we gonna make this work? My instinct was that the pre-chorus should be very musical — big movements, big notes, kind of soaring — so that when you drop into this percussive thing, it’s this full departure and it feels really good. If the whole song had been percussive like that, the chorus wouldn’t have stood out. We needed to contrast it with some big, lofty pop part leading into it. And I think it’s so smart what the producers of the song did, which is, the first time you hear the chorus, there’s not really any chordal information going on under it. You just hear the song in its raw form, how the game would be played. And then the second time you hear the chorus, they put chords underneath it, so now, all of a sudden, it’s this very musical chorus. So the song keeps building, and then it gets to the bridge which is big and lofty again as well.
Step 3: Forget what you think you know about the artist
I don’t usually factor in the other places an artist has been — I just try to stay as in the moment as possible. Coming from a group, there’s so many different personalities and stories that everybody always has to be filtering through to make a cohesive group like Blackpink massively successful. Rosie doing her own project freed her up to have space to say whatever she wanted. From day one, she was very clear with me: “I love storytelling and I love soft and intentional, vulnerable music, and I also still love massive pop songs.” So it was so cool to do the breadth of “number one girl,” which is very emotional and internal, and then to do something like “APT.,” which is such a big swing of a pop hit.
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