Her Name Was Xtina
January 1, 2020 marked the 20th anniversary of “What A Girl Wants” becoming the first No.1 song of the century. Quite a thrill for a songwriter. I thought this would be an opportune time to share with you the story of how the song came to be. Ready? Here goes…
HOLLYWOOD IS FILLED with thousands of WannaBes. Good singers who will never be great. Great singers who will never be stars. As a songwriter, it helps to be able to tell the difference.
As I’ve said before, remarkable things can happen on ordinary days. On one of those ordinary days, Todd Chapman, a fellow songwriter, called to say he was working with an amazing singer. Her name was Christina Agya-something. He wanted me to come over and check her out. That’s what was ordinary. I got that call a lot, like once a week. “This girl can really sing.” Yeah Yeah Yeah.
Layla was a few months old at the time. My nipples were sore. My sleep was deprived. Our nanny, Reina, was part time. I didn’t have the energy or the freedom to drop everything and go everywhere. But if I had a hankering to spend time with a particular writing partner, or let’s face it, if I had heard a buzz on an amazing singer from other songwriters, I’d find a way. I wasn’t quitting. I was simply adjusting my gears.
Thankfully, I went. Todd lived in a nondescript two-story apartment complex in North Hollywood. The block was lined with them. A vacancy sign out front, a wrought iron entrance gate with a lock that wasn’t locked, a swimming pool in a concrete courtyard surrounded by plastic chairs and inexpensive potted plants. Poorly lit hallways led to countless doors of studio and one-bedroom units.
I rang a bell and when Todd opened the door, I saw her standing at a mic, her hair un-styled, a Big Mac, fries and a Diet Coke on a table a few feet away. There was nothing particularly striking or glamorous about her. We said, “Hi I’m Shelly/Hi I’m Christina, nice to meet you,” and then I plopped myself on the sofa while she and Todd finished recording the song they’d been working on. She was soft spoken and didn’t express much of an opinion; But when she opened her mouth to sing, on a scale of 1 to 10 — this girl was a 20!
Todd had a relationship with A&R Exec Ron Fair who intended to make an album with Christina, an ex-Mouseketeer. It wasn’t uncommon for labels to ask aspiring producers to work with prospective artists to get an idea of how compatible they’d be and to see if the potential signee had real studio chops. As it turned out, this ex-Mouseketeer was was extremely composed and had studio chops on steroids.
Over the next month or so, Christina graced a few songs that Todd and I wrote with her amazing voice. We kept the McDonalds coming.
Meanwhile, on another very ordinary day, I pumped some milk, waited for Reina, and then went over to The Banana Boat Recording Studio, about a mile away from Todd’s place, to work with Guy Roche, another up and coming producer and go-to collaborator. There was no artist in particular we were writing for. We were writing simply for the joy of SongSex. We’d deal with the casting later.
I pressed record on my handheld cassette player and Guy started free styling on a keyboard, which prompted me to excavate for a receipt from my wallet, because I remembered scribbling some words on it the day before. They were about Adam giving me space when I wasn’t sure about moving to L.A. Like a rock, he waited patiently while I got it together and figured it out. Sound familiar? I wish I were the kind of writer who could make stuff up day after day and turn it into hits. For me, the best material has always been inspired by real life.
As we were playing around with the hook-in-progress, I got disoriented and sang the first line in a slightly different pocket the second time through: on the downbeat instead of as a pickup. When we listened back to our work tape, we liked that mistake. Let’s see if it still feels hooky in the morning. That’s always a good test. Is it the first thing you think about before coffee or a kiss? (The Morning Test.)
I went home, paid Reina, gave Layla a bath, blew raspberries on her belly, her tush, her feet, delighted in her giggle, pumped some more milk and handed her over to Adam who gave her a bottle, read her Goodnight Moon, rocked her until her eyes closed, and then, very carefully so as not to wake her up, lowered our sleeping baby into her crib. I made us some dinner, watched Sex In The City and then, like an eager puppy, jumped onto the bed where Adam was reading. I tossed him a pair of headphones and asked him to have a listen. He was not a pushover, and he wasn’t that into Top 40. That’s why it mattered. He agreed. Hooky.
That was enough for me. The next week, Guy and I recorded a demo of our song, “What a Girl Needs.” In retrospect, it was rather lethargic. We must have pitched it to at least 25 A&R departments. They all passed. But when Guy’s manager played that demo for Ron Fair, he heard the potential and thought Christina should record it for her debut album.
But Uh-oh…What do I tell Todd? He was the one who called me to work on this. I felt kind of guilty pitching Ron a song I wrote with another man. But not guilty enough!
Ron dug it. His only request was that we change the order of the “What A Girl Needs,” — which came first at the time — and the “What A Girl Wants.” His feeling was that the “needs” was needy and the alliteration of the “whats” and the “wants” was ear candy. He had a point. But if I made that swap, I’d have to change the whole rhyme scheme. But that girl could really sing so…I made the swap.
I’m not sure eighteen-year-old Christina realized what was ahead of her at the time, but she didn’t seem fazed about stepping into the spotlight…going from mouse ears to bustiers. She came out of the bottle, I mean the gate, with her first single, “Genie in a Bottle,” which went straight to No. 1. I was so envious of my friend, Pam Sheyne, one of the writers of “Genie,” I could have died. But I’m glad I didn’t because the momentum of “Genie”propelled the second single, “What a Girl Wants” (not needs) onto the Hot 100 where it spent 24 weeks.
Years later I watched a polished and articulate Christina radiate as a judge on The Voice and couldn’t believe she was the same shy young woman in Todd’s apartment. The one with the thin blonde hair. The one with a soft opinion. The one I never could have imagined, when I opened the door on that very ordinary day, would be the driver who would escort my little ditty to the top of the charts. 💜
Guy and I reminiscing
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