How I wrote ‘Since You Been Gone’ by Russ Ballard

Russ Ballard: “It starts from that little piece of grit in the oyster that makes the pearl”

The prolific hitmaker from Hertfordshire recalls the origin story of his 70s rock classic made famous by Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow

God Gave Rock And Roll To You, You Can Do Magic, New York Groove, So You Win Again, No More The Fool, Liar… Russ Ballard’s songs are on permanent heavy rotation the world over. The Hertfordshire-born musician’s outstanding back catalogue has been mined and recorded by everyone from Hot Chocolate to America to Elkie Brooks to Three Dog Night and many, many more.

Among these gems, Since You Been Gone stands tall. Originally released as a single from Ballard’s second solo album, Winning, it was Rainbow’s treatment of the song that catapulted it to stardom when their cover version was released four years later. Driven by the electrifying vocals of Graham Bonnet and the masterful guitar work of Ritchie Blackmore, Rainbow brought their distinctive hard rock sound to Ballard’s composition, creating a hit that defined an era.

However, it wasn’t just a critical darling; Since You Been Gone was a commercial powerhouse. It stormed the charts, peaking at No 6 on the UK Singles Chart and making a significant dent on international charts.

Over to the hitmaker extraordinaire to explain how the rock classic came to be…

First published in Songwriting Magazine Autumn 2023

Released: 31 August 1979
Artist: Rainbow
Label: Polydor
Songwriter: Russ Ballard
Producer: Roger Glover
UK Chart Position: 6
US Chart Position: 57

“Initially, my mum and dad sent me to piano lessons with my brother. I wasn’t so interested in what I was learning because it was classical stuff. I quite liked some of the tunes, but I didn’t like learning theory at all – that was too much like hard work. So as soon as my mum and dad were out the door, I was playing Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Little Richard – I was interested in boogie-woogie – and that kind of stuff, so I could teach myself and by the age of 12, I was playing not-bad boogie piano.

“I was always interested in songs. My mum used to play records a lot, things like Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, Nelson Eddy and whatever, and I used to take it all on board. Once I’d sort of left the piano, I was playing the guitar at 12 years old and I wanted to concentrate more on that, so I got heavily into guitar music, and that’s when I started to make up some tunes.

“A funny thing about Since You Been Gone, thinking about it… I was in a band called The Roulettes with Adam Faith and when I was 20 years old we did four months in France, backing a French singer because we’d been doing some television shows as session musicians. And a guy was so impressed with us, that he said, ‘I’d love to take you on the road to do a tour of France.’ It ended up being France and Spain, Italy, Corsica, and everywhere… It was wonderful, we spent months there, but the very first gig was in the south of France – we were based in St Tropez, actually. Next to the dressing room, there was an upright piano and I played the middle section [to Since You Been Gone]. This was 1966. I didn’t write Since You Been Gone until 1975. So that was 11 years earlier, in ‘66, when I had those chords, I had that phrase. [The Beach Boys’ seminal album] Pet Sounds was out at the time, and I thought, ‘Oh, that sounds like something from Pet Sounds, I love it.’ So I was playing it and clocked that, and thought, ‘l’ll remember this phrase.’ I put it in this rock song and I thought, ‘It’s a bit extravagant…But it sounds right.’ And I think that that helped the song. That middle section was the element of surprise.

“I know they just sound like pop songs, but I’d written my life in those songs and there’s always a bit of my life in there. I mean with [the lyric] ‘I get the same old dreams, same time every night, fall to the ground and I wake up,’ everyone’s had that but I’d never heard it in a song before. It’s probably an anxiety dream and with, ‘These four walls are closing in,’ I’ve had that as well. The whole feeling is insecurity, and ‘I’m out of my head, can’t take it,’ is the feeling of panic.

“I released Since You Been Gone on my second solo album called Winning and it was the second single. It was in the American charts three times with three different artists, and it was a hit before Rainbow did it. I put it out and it got a few plays, but I wrote it on the piano, played it on the piano and made it softer, which was a problem. I heard a band called Head East do it – they did it first. It wasn’t a big hit but it stayed around the 30s and 40s of the Billboard chart for a long time. Then they toured with Rainbow and they heard it there. I didn’t get that from Ritchie [Blackmore, the guitarist, songwriter and founder of Rainbow] but that’s the story I got.”

“I try to work in different ways. All those songs like God Gave Rock And Roll To You and Since You Been Gone, sound like guitar songs but I wrote them on piano. In my house, I had a big music room upstairs and I had a Steinway grand piano… Actually, it was before I had the Steinway – I had an upright piano that my mother bought me for my 21st birthday.

“Now I’m sitting in the studio, I’m picking up the guitar and I’m finding all sorts of different ways to write, but I still believe in the lyric. It starts from that little piece of grit in the oyster that makes the pearl – you’re looking for that line, that title or that something ‘wow!’”

Learn more about the songwriter Russ Ballard at russballardmusic.com

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