Catching Up With Glen
Meet Glen Burtnick. I’m sure many of you already have. He’s been around, he gets around, he stays around. He’s a lifer. Kind of like me. 😬
Glen and I go back. We were set up on a songwriting blind date in the early 90s by Warner Chappell’s David Stamm. It was old school. A recording artist wasn’t typically in the room. You created a song and then launched it into the Universe and waited for a bite. Sometimes you got one.
On a snowy winter day I fishtailed my little white Miata to Glen’s house in New Jersey. It was a trek. That never mattered. Songwriting was delicious. I lived for it. I was excited to meet a new collaborator. Especially someone who could raise my bar. I was also nervous. Glen was just coming off off a #1 smash with Patty Smyth’s “Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough.” I had yet to have anything chart. Why did he agree to work with me?
The demo of the song we wrote that day “We Could Be In Love” wasn’t quantized or autotuned. It was pretty raw but had legs. Lea Salonga, a Disney and Musical Star at the time recorded the song and it made some noise. Beginner’s luck? Perhaps. (Hear Lea’s version on Spotify. Hear it on Apple. )
(Hear Lea’s version on Spotify. Hear it on Apple. )
After that, Glen and I met on benches in Central Park to write. We convened with Carnie and Wendy Wilson for a week in my living room. (In today’s writing-with-the-artist culture you’re lucky if you get 3 hours). It wasn’t all about the songs though. It was about the hang. The laughs. The willingness to share your shit. Always is.
I moved to LA. and Glen headed down to Asbury Park. We see each other rarely these days. Miles and Pivots. Writing songs to pitch is no longer our focus. But we share a lot of nostalgia and we’ll always be connected by our history.
Lately he’s been popping up when I scroll socials. So I thought…why not catch up with Glen while at the same time share him with you. You should know him if you don’t already. He’s a veteran with a great attitude. Here we go….
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