July 23rd marks One Direction’s 10th anniversary, the day Simon Cowell told Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, and Louis Tomlinson that they would progress on The X Factor as a group. It’s a midtempo headbanger that captures the essence of what One Direction is, and always was: One of the great rock & roll bands of the 21st century. It was never a single, but became a fan-favorite live-show staple. “Better Than Words,” closed One Direction’s third album, Midnight Memories. “And if you’re sort of winking at it, laughing at it - we were probably joking, ‘What if “More than a feeling”? Well, that would actually be tight!’” “Songs in general, you’re just sort of waiting for an idea to bonk you on the head,” Ryan says from a Los Angeles studio, with Bunetta. Singer Paulette McWilliams on Her Years With Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, and Steely Dan Most of it was mumbled - a temporary place-holder - but there was one phrase: “Better than words …” A few hours later, on the bus to another city, another show - Bunetta and Ryan can’t remember where - Liam asked, maybe having a laugh, “What if the rest of the song was just lyrics from other songs?” At one point, Liam got up to use the bathroom, and when he re-emerged, he was singing a melody. The second takes place a few years later: Another hotel room in England - this one in Manchester - where songwriters and producers Julian Bunetta and John Ryan were throwing back Cucumber Collins cocktails and tinkering with a beat. The first will be familiar to any fan: Songwriter and producer Savan Kotecha was sitting on the toilet in a London hotel room, when he heard his wife say, “I feel so ugly today.” The words that popped into his head would shape the chorus of One Direction’s unforgettable 2011 debut, “What Makes You Beautiful.” A bathroom figures significantly in the origin stories of at least two classic One Direction songs.
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