Jesse McCartney Plans "Idol" Tunes, Tour, TV Projects

Jesse McCartney co-wrote one of the most successful pop songs of the year (Leona Lewis' "Bleeding Love"), so you can't blame his summer tourmate, American Idol season six winner Jordin Sparks, for wanting a piece of the action. "Write something for me, write something for me!" Sparks told McCartney backstage at one of their sold-out U.S. shows last week.

Relaxing in his dressing room after their set at the Nokia Theatre in Times Square last night, McCartney decided: "I'm gonna take her up on that."

But the 21-year-old has a lot on his plate these days. Between balancing a sold-out tour, a new record and a group of songs he's submitting for David Cook's new record, the singer is also starring in independent film Keith this fall, and earning first-time producing credits for a reality show following a group of custom soundsystem engineers. "I could see it on a Bravo or Spike or E!" he says. To top things off, McCartney recently got an unexpected offer from none other than American Idol's Simon Cowell. "Simon's people approached me and said, 'We'd love for you to get back in the studio with Ryan (Tedder of OneRepublic) and write for our Idols,'" McCartney says.

And that works for him. Says McCartney, "I obviously write with other people in mind."

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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