How much input do you have over which songs are chosen for Glee?

Not that much, honestly. It’s very organic the way they do it. In the writing room they insert songs and move the story forward as they’re writing scripts more often than not, and I think Ryan Murphy has the final say on every single song. And then he’ll come to me from time to time - “I need an idea for this scene.” Or more often than not he’ll say “I need to mash something up with this song. Help me!” Stuff like that. But as a rule, when the scripts come out, there’re songs in there.

Are there ever times when the writers come to you with their finished script with the song ideas and you think to yourself “Oh, I hate that song?”

There are, but I’d have to kill you if I told you which songs they were [laughs].There’re definitely those moments, but you know what, that’s part of doing the job and being professional…music is relative, you know? One man’s turd is another man’s gold. It’s just the way it is in the music business. I might not like something, but other people connect with it, so it is what it is, and you do the best job on that song anyway.

How do you move forward with that? Do you just analyze what it is about the song that you think you can improve on, or is it just like approaching any other song that you’re asked to produce?

I think that that all comes from how the song is used. It’s really important to try and make sure it fits the moment. And sometimes we don’t have that much to go with. Sometimes we’re starting songs before the final scene is set, ‘cause scripts are changing all the time. When we have a lot of the finished script to go by, then we really can dig in and go “Okay, what’s the best way to approach this song here?” Sometimes that means a reinvention; other times, the original is the most appropriate. It just depends. But then there’re other songs where you feel like, “We’re pretty much doing it like the original, but I think we could tweak this and it’d work better for our purposes.” So it’s really organic, and it’s a case-by-case thing. It’s very fluid.

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