Valerie Simpson: I think the major benefit — if you're the songwriter — is that you don't have to wait for somebody to come up with a great idea for you and sometimes you're at the mercy of the songwriter. If he feels he has a hit record, he'll get songs to whoever is the latest and greatest artist. If you're not hot, hot, hot at the moment, you may not get that great song. If you are a person like Mariah Carey who's lucky enough to be able to write her material and she's not waiting for somebody to give her something, that's a stronger package.
Nickolas Ashford: Plus you make more money! [laughing]
How do you decide whether you're going to keep a song for yourself or give it to someone else?
Nickolas Ashford: If it's in our area, we're writing for ourselves. It's quite different. We know when we're writing for ourselves.
Valerie Simpson: Yeah, because it's always a duet.
Nickolas Ashford: Yeah, and we know we have to be careful with the lyrics because they have to fit the male and the female. When we're writing for a single artist, we know we're writing for one heartbeat, you know? It's different.
Valerie Simpson: If you get the right artist — even if the song was for you — you're willing to give it up.
Nickolas Ashford: Especially if the artist is a bigger name than you.
Has there been a moment where you thought you wanted it for yourself, and somebody came along and you said, "Oh no, go ahead and have it?"
Nickolas Ashford: I don't think that has happened to us.
Valerie Simpson: I think the closest we ever came to that was in the very beginning when we first heard "Ain't No Mountain High Enough." We knew we were going to take it to Motown. Dusty Springfield came by our house and heard it, but we told her, "We couldn't give it to you."
There are only a few male-and-female, husband-and-wife teams in the music industry. Is there a reason for that, you think?
Valerie Simpson: You don't see too many, and I'm glad! [laughing] We don't need any extra couples [laughing]. All kidding aside, when we started we weren't a couple anyway. We were just two people working together and we weren't romantically involved for eight years. The romance and the love came later. If we had started out, I don't know maybe — you have to form before you can really pull this off. That was a good time for us to really get to know each other in a real way and take care of business in a real way and then all that lovey-dovey stuff came later. I think that made it easier for us to make it all the way. It's hard.
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