tobias dybvad tour

Tobias Dybvad "Levemand" Tour 2022

05. maj kl. 19:00

Dørene åbnes kl. 18:00.

325,- kr. Kørestolsplads inkl. ledsager kan købes hos Pavillonen på tlf: 8632 1633

Pris 325 kr

Sted Centersalen

Pladser Nummererede pladser

Arrangør Pavillonen

Nu tager Ruben Søltoft hævn over Tobias Dybvad i "Verdensmænd"

LÆS OGSÅ: Ruben Søltoft er tilbage efter to år: – Jeg gik ned med stress

Ruben Søltoft blev presset ud af sin komfortzone, da han medvirkede i Tobias Dybvads program "Verdensmænd", som udover at være et rejseprogram mest af alt handler om at vise komikere – og Bo Lydmand – i skøre situationer.

Men nu er rollerne byttet om. For i en ny udgave af "Verdenmænd" er det pludselig ikke længere Tobias Dybvad ved roret. I stedet står Ruben Søltoft i front – og over tre afsnit sørger han selvfølgelig for at få skovlen under den tidligere vært og hans kammesjuk.

Programmet hedder "Verdensmænd: Ruben hævn", og ifølge TV 2 er det denne gang "Tobias Dybvad og Bo Lydmand, der får serveret en maggiterning af grænseoverskridende oplevelser, for deres rejsearrangør er en hævntørstig Ruben Søltoft".

Det er Ruben Søltofts første program, siden han vendte tilbage fra en to år lang stresssygemelding . Derudover er han netop taget på comedy tour rundt i landet med showet "Ruben: Hvorfor er der ikke nogen, der har sagt noget?", som han fortsætter ind i marts 2025.

Tobias Dybvad er i øjeblikket på barsel og har netop været aktuel i "Roasted" på Prime.

"Verdensmænd: Rubens hævn" får premiere søndag 7. juli på TV 2 og TV 2 Play.

Sponsoreret indhold

Amazing San Francisco and Wine Country Tours

Awarded 19 times from 2019-2023 by TripAdvisor, Viator, and GetYourGuide.

Including the “#7 Wine Experience in the World” and one of the “Best Food and Drink Tours”.

Our Tours in San Francisco, the Sonoma Wine Country and Beyond

Welcome to Edge of the World Tours , your gateway to exploring the vibrant and diverse regions of San Francisco and Sonoma County . Our company specializes in crafting unique and unforgettable experiences that showcase the best of what these iconic destinations have to offer. From the bustling streets of San Francisco to the rolling vineyards of Sonoma, we offer a variety of tours that cater to all interests and preferences. Our expert guides are passionate about sharing their knowledge and love for these regions with you, ensuring that you leave with a deeper understanding and appreciation for the culture, history, and natural beauty of Northern California. Join us on a journey to visit redwood forests , taste amazing Sonoma County wine , and visit San Francisco’s best neighborhoods .

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The Great Wine Tour

A fantastic way to spend a day away from the hustle & bustle of the big city. Tour the heart of wine country in beautiful Sonoma.

Great Wine Tour – Private

Grab up to twelve of your friends and take a trip to Sonoma County, one of California’s top-rated wine and food destinations.

• Hour Glass 4 Hours

Private San Francisco Half Day City Tour

Experience San Francisco like never before and embark on a half-day, private city tour with you and your group.

Private Muir Woods and Sausalito Half Day Tour

Escape the busy city life and head to Muir Woods National Monument to spend a half-day on a privately guided tour of one of the only groves of historic coastal redwoods in the area.

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Planning an event or tour with some of your closest friends, relatives, or coworkers? Check out our private custom tour options!

Why Edge Of The World Tours?

• Small, locally-owned business that highlights other small, locally-owned businesses
• Awarded as a top local tour company by TripAdvisor and Viator every year since 2014
• In 2019, received the TripAdvisor Traveler’s Choice Award as the #7 Wine Experience in the World
• In 2019, awarded GetYourGuide’s Best Food and Drink Tour in North America
• In 2022, received the Viator Experience Award which recognizes the top 150 experiences in the world

Book A Tour Today

Edge of the World Tours offers an unforgettable experience for anyone wanting to explore San Francisco and Sonoma Wine Country. From our classic day tour of the Golden City to their intimate, private winery experiences in Sonoma County, Edge of the World Tours has something for everyone looking to explore one or both remarkable areas. Our knowledgeable local tour guides and passionate wine professionals provide an educational, safe, and unforgettable experience that is truly a one-of-a-kind opportunity. Edge of the World Tours provides everything you need to make your journey through San Francisco and Wine Country special and memorable.

Our mission is simple: We take pride in creating enjoyable and memorable travel experiences for visitors to the area we call home.

Keep it simple.

We want your tour experience to be pleasant and enjoyable, so we do our best to keep the process uncomplicated and fun.

Keep It Local

We support the “buy local” movement and prioritize exposing visitors to small, locally owned and operated businesses.

We believe in integrity and treating people the way we would like to be treated. We do our best to incorporate this into everything we do.

Kindness is infectious and is at the heart of all good relationships. We celebrate this as individuals and as an organization.

Be Professional

While we don’t take ourselves too seriously, we do take the responsibility of providing a great experience seriously…

Have Fun Always

If you aren’t having fun, we haven’t done our job.

Our team of professional tour guides is passionate about creating memorable experiences, and we collectively have over 30 years of experience doing so.

An intimate and unforgettable experience with edge of the world tours.

Edge of the World Tours is the perfect choice for travelers in search of a unique, high-quality tour experience . Our tour company was founded by a San Francisco native with over 30 years of tourism and hospitality Experience. Edge of the World Tours specializes in small group tours throughout San Francisco and Sonoma Valley. The intimate experience we strive to create ensures an unforgettable outing while highlighting locally-owned businesses along the way.

Amazing San Francisco And Wine Country Tours

San Francisco and Sonoma Wine Country tours offer travelers the opportunity to experience some of the US’s most renowned vineyards. San Francisco offers a cultural experience filled with iconic landmarks, diverse neighborhoods, and world-class restaurants. Sonoma Wine Country is known worldwide for its lush vineyards, wine-tasting tours, special events, and quaint towns.

Come Join Us On A Journey Today

With over 40 combined years of local tour guiding experience on our team, we offer knowledgeable guides that are passionate about providing a five-star experience to customers. As seen from our top-rated reviews , Edge of the World Tours is sure to create an amazing journey for anyone seeking adventure in San Francisco and beyond.

Don't listen to us brag about ourselves; check out what our past customers have to say!

My mum and I went on this wine tour in November and our tour guide Anthony was great - friendly and very experienced. We visited three very different wineries and spent our lunch break in the main square of Sonoma. Even drove past the Golden Gate Bridge and through Sausalito. Lovely!

Absolutely fantastic trip! Would highly recommend it. Visited 3 wineries, all different and plenty of wines to taste. Marc our guide was great, lots of interesting history on San Fransisco and learnt a lot about wine! A great day out!

I can't say enough good things about my experience. Our tour guide, Anthony, was a delight! He was very knowledgeable about the area and even took us off-the-path to get better views of the Golden Gate bridge. The wineries were lovely. I especially appreciated the fact that we had a little time to ourselves for lunch. Great way to spend the day!

We were on a full day Sonoma tour and due to a small group and a creative guide, we had a great time exploring along the route as well as at the three amazing wineries. Anthony was funny, friendly and full of great suggestions. All three wineries were special...unique and interesting. We ended our tour in Sausalito and enjoyed a wonderful dinner.

We had such a wonderful time touring Sonoma wine country with Marc. We visited 3 unique wineries of differing sizes and in between Marc shared some great stories and taught us a lot about what makes Sonoma so unique. We had a blast and it was truly the highlight of our California trip. Marc was super professional and on time with the schedule.

This was a wonderful way to spend a day in the SF area! We were in town for a wedding and a small group of us signed up for this tour. Marc, our guide, was, friendly, knowledgable, and accommodating, and ensured that everyone had a great day. We went to three wineries and stopped in Sonoma for lunch. So much fun; I highly recommend! Thanks, Mark!!

The 15 Best San Francisco Tours you Have to Take!

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From the Lands End Trail and its amazing views of the Golden Gate Bridge to the Embarcadero and the vistas of the San Francisco- Oakland Bay Bridge, there’s much to cover on a visit to San Francisco . Since its 1776 founding, the city has been shaped over the years by the many different settlers of such diverse cultures who have called it home. 

When you tour San Francisco, you never know what you’ll discover. Each district offers something different, from the vibrancy of the Mission District to the tranquility of the Richmond District. From walking tours to boat cruises to a ride on one of San Francisco’s famous cable cars, there’s so much to do and see in this city.

There’s so much to do in San Francisco, in fact, that you may not know where to start. If you’re looking for someone to help you see all the different sides of the city, start with one of the best tours in San Francisco, which we’ve compiled for you. From food crawls to guided hikes, there’s something for everyone!

Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase or booking through one of our links we may earn a small commission (don’t worry, it’s at no extra cost to you).

The 15 Best Tours in San Francisco, CA

1. see two of san francisco’s greatest landmarks on one cruise.

Many San Francisco tours will take you around the Golden Gate Bridge, but it’s often forgotten that the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge is an equally beautiful monument. On the Bridge to Bridge Cruise , you’ll take an hour-and-a-half tour from Fisherman’s Wharf, taking you from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Bay Bridge. You’ll get the best of both worlds and see a side of San Francisco that those who just took a Golden Gate Bridge cruise wouldn’t get to see.

On your journey, you’ll get narration telling you all about San Francisco’s most famous landmarks, as well as the city’s history, architecture, and Indigenous culture. You’ll sail under the Golden Gate Bridge, cruise past the infamous Alcatraz Island, and take in the sights of San Francisco’s waterfront. Then, you’ll pass under the Bay Bridge before returning back to Fisherman’s Wharf.

Take a Relaxing Bridge to Bridge Cruise

2. Visit Alcatraz and Sail around the San Francisco Bay

Want an up-close look at Alcatraz Island? The four-hour Alcatraz Visit With Ferry and Bay Cruise gets you to take one of the city’s famous San Francisco Bay cruises while also getting you admission to explore Alcatraz. 

Alcatraz Island is best known for being the former home of the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, which once housed the US’s most infamous criminals, like Al Capone. Known as “The Rock,” the prison was best known as being inescapable. But on your visit to the island, you’ll hear plenty of stories of people who tried, as well as the few who perhaps pulled off the impossible.

In addition to your Alcatraz visit and the ferry taking you to the island, this ticket also comes with a cruise around the San Francisco Bay. Take in the sights of the San Francisco waterfront on this relaxing journey, complete with a trip around the Golden Gate Bridge.

Visit Alcatraz Island on a Cruise

3. Walk, Ride, and Cruise around San Francisco

For one of the best walking tours in San Francisco, check out the City Walking Tour and Bay Cruise With Cable Car . On this unique tour, you’ll explore the city on foot, by cable car, and by boat. 

You’ll begin your all-day tour near the Ferry Building before catching one of San Francisco’s famous cable cars. Riding on a cable car is a must-do San Francisco activity. During your tour, you’ll learn about the history of the cable car and what makes it so special.

You’ll stop off at Nob Hill for a stunning view, as well as a look at some of San Francisco’s most beautiful buildings, like the Grace Cathedral. From there, you’ll walk to Chinatown, where you’ll see hidden gems like the Tin How Buddhist Temple. You’ll see how fortune cookies are made at the legendary Golden Gate Factory and even get a custom-made cookie to take home. 

Next up, you’ll see the most crooked street in the world, Lombard Street, and venture over to Fisherman’s Wharf and Ghirardelli Square, where you’ll sample some delicious chocolate. From Fisherman’s Wharf, you’ll cap off your day with a cruise around the San Francisco Bay, complete with narration about the city’s history and landmarks. Sail around Alcatraz, cruise under the Golden Gate Bridge, and enjoy the incredible vistas of the San Francisco skyline.

Experience San Francisco’s Top Attractions 

4. Get an Aerial View of the Golden Gate Bridge from a Seaplane

Plenty of tours around San Francisco will take you under the Golden Gate Bridge. But how about one that takes you above it? On the Golden Gate Bridge Seaplane Tour , you’ll get a bird’s-eye view of some of the city’s most iconic sights.

On this half-hour tour, you’ll meet your pilot at the seaplane base in Mill Valley or take a round-trip shuttle from Fisherman’s Wharf. From there, you’ll board your plane and soar high over the San Francisco Bay. 

Take in the sights of the historic buildings, steep hills, and, of course, the famous bridge. You’ll also fly over Fisherman’s Wharf, Angel Island, and Alcatraz, as well as the scenic cities of Tiburon, Belvedere, and Sausalito, before you end your tour at the docks of Sausalito.

Fly Over the Iconic Golden Gate Bridge

5. Go Sightseeing on a Hop-On Hop-Off Tour

Looking for a flexible way to see Fog City? The Big Bus Hop-On Hop-Off Sightseeing Tour is one of the best tours in San Francisco because you get to see all of the city’s biggest and best attractions, but it’s up to you where you want to hop off. 

Climb aboard an open-air sightseeing bus and ride along for one of three distinct routes that will take you around the city. Pass through Alamo Square, Chinatown, Union Square, and much more. With your ticket purchase, you can hop on and off for a full day. The bus will also allow you to take some time for photos at the Golden Gate Bridge, regardless of which route you take.

Choose to go deeper into San Francisco’s history by opting for a 48-hour ticket instead. With your 48-hour ticket, you can choose between admission to the USS Pampanito, a WWII submarine, or a free bike rental. Cycle across the Golden Gate Bridge for incredible views and a day trip into the picturesque Sausalito.

See the Sights of San Francisco

6. Bike Over the Golden Gate Bridge

Want to experience San Francisco with the wind in your hair? The Golden Gate Bridge: 3-Hour Sausalito Cycle Tour is a biking tour that lets you get out and see San Francisco in a unique way. You’ll start your tour in Fisherman’s Wharf, where you’ll be outfitted with a bike, front handlebar bag, lock, helmet, rear gear rack, and takeaway map – everything you need to enjoy a day of riding through the San Francisco air!

Your guide will take you around the San Francisco waterfront, past Aquatic Park, Fort Mason, and into the Presidio. Take in the views from Crissy Field, enjoy one of the most unique places to see the Golden Gate Bridge at Fort Point, and then cross the bridge itself. 

Once you reach the end of the bridge, you’ll head to even more landmarks, like Old Fort Baker in the Marin Headlands. As your tour comes to a close, you’ll end your day in Sausalito, where you can enjoy the scenic city and see everything, from the famous floating houses to the many art galleries. 

The bike is yours for the day, so how you return to the bike shop before closing is up to you. Take the ferry back or enjoy riding back over the bridge if you’re not too tired from your day of exploration.

Bike Ride Across the Golden Gate Bridge

7. Discover Sausalito and the Famous Muir Woods Redwoods

If you’re visiting San Francisco, seeing the coastal redwoods belongs on your vacation bucket list. And the From San Francisco: Muir Woods and Sausalito Half-Day Trip will ensure that you get plenty of time to see these beautiful giants. Plus, you get the added benefit of getting some time in scenic Sausalito.

You’ll begin your tour with a pick-up at a central San Francisco hotel. From there, your coach bus will take you over the Golden Gate Bridge and into the Marin Headlands. Then, you’re off to Muir Woods National Monument, where you’ll be given an hour and a half to explore on your own. Enjoy a stroll through the woods, where the towering trees will soar into the sky all around you. 

After your time in the woods, you’ll hop back in the coach and be whisked off to Sausalito, with the tour offering narration about the history of the area and some tips on how to explore the Mediterranean-style town. Then, you’ll take some time to explore Downtown Sausalito, which is filled with fine dining, boutique shopping, and tons of art galleries. Or you can just sit back and enjoy the scenic views.

The tour provides round-trip transportation, so you can just hop back on the coach and be taken back to your pick-up point. But if you want to spend more time in Sausalito, you can always let the tour know you’re sticking around and take the ferry back instead. 

Explore the Muir Woods National Monument

8. Visit Locations from Your Favorite Movies

Who says Los Angeles is the only part of California that’s immersed in film history? Plenty of movies and shows have been featured and filmed in San Francisco, and the San Francisco Movie Sights City Tour will make sure you see them all. This three-hour guided tour is one of the best San Francisco tours and a must-do for film lovers.

Hop on the bus, where you’ll watch over 50 clips from the most famous movies filmed in San Francisco, with many of the filming locations just outside the bus’s windows. While many other tours around San Francisco focus on well-known landmarks, like the Golden Gate Bridge, this tour focuses more on locations that are little acknowledged but hold important places in film and TV history. 

Highlights of the tour include the family home from “Mrs. Doubtfire,” the park from the opening credits of “Full House,” the high school from “The Princess Diaries,” and the damaged park steps from the car chase in “What’s Up Doc?” You’ll still see plenty of famous landmarks, but you’ll get to see many locations that people often walk right past without knowing they were once featured in all kinds of cinema.

Your guide isn’t just a tour guide. They’re also an actor or comedian, so you know you’re in for a great time with fun and exciting narration throughout your journey. 

Match Movie Clips with Locations

9. See the Natural and Not-So-Natural Beauty of San Francisco

As a city, San Francisco is quite proud of all of its green spaces. The city takes special care to maintain its natural beauty, which is why the San Francisco 3-Hour Castro & Twin Peaks Urban Hiking Tour is one of the best San Francisco tours and an excellent choice for anyone who wants to embrace the greener side of the city.

If you’re up for a very active adventure, this tour will show you San Francisco in a new light. You’ll hike for about three hours, covering about five miles, so be sure to wear comfortable shoes and bring lots of water. 

The views are one of the biggest highlights of the hike. If you’re up for the trek, you’ll be rewarded with sweeping vistas of Golden Gate Park, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Downtown San Francisco. But you’ll also be rewarded with finding hidden gems that few know exist in the city. 

Slide down the Seward Street Slides in a park designed by a 14-year-old, hike unmarked trails that you can only find with your knowledgeable guides, find a eucalyptus forest in the center of San Francisco, and stroll through quiet streets from Acme Alley to Pemberton Place. 

Hike the Summit of Twin Peaks

10. Zip around in a GoCar

When you tour San Francisco on a tour bus, you’ll find that the massive vehicle doesn’t really fit everywhere. As a result, some of the hidden gems around San Francisco are simply unreachable. But with a GoCar, you don’t have to worry about fitting on the winding city streets.

With the Golden Gate Bridge and Lombard GoCar Tour , you can explore the city on your own terms and time, with your car as your guide. Your GoCar, which you can rent for two hours at a time, is GPS-guided and comes with narration, just like you’d get on a tour bus. However, your tiny GoCar lets you go to more places than a tour bus could. 

Drive through the city’s iconic parks, make your way to the Golden Gate Bridge, and get incredible shots as you ride along the coast of the Pacific Ocean. Then, pedal through the boutique shopping districts of Chestnut and Union Street. And because you have your own vehicle, you can stop and do some shopping on your own. 

But perhaps the biggest highlight of the tour is Russian Hill. Once you drive up Russian Hill, you can take an incredible ride down the famous crooked Lombard Street to finish out your tour.

Jump in a GoCar and Tour San Francisco

11. Eat Your Way Around North Beach

San Francisco is filled with cuisine of all kinds. One of the best areas to grab a bite to eat is North Beach, aka Little Italy. If you’re a lover of Italian food, the North Beach and Little Italy Food Tour is one of the best tours in San Francisco for you!

Just walking around North Beach is a delight for the senses, from the quaint, intimate shops filled with handcrafted local goods to the smell of fresh bread wafting through the air from the Italian bakeries and cafes. This three-hour tour isn’t just about eating incredible food. It’s about learning about the culture of the area and embracing its history.

You’ll start your tour by visiting a family of bakers, where you’ll find the freshest bread around. Then, you’ll stop by coffee shops that have made roasting fresh coffee beans into an art. Along your journey, you’ll taste everything from cappuccinos, chocolates, and pastries to olive oil, specialty meats, and breads, covering both the sweet and savory of Italian cuisine.

You’ll also discover handcrafted goods made by local artisans, Italian cathedrals, and much more. This cultural journey is one that will remind you of what makes San Francisco such a remarkable city.

Enjoy Tasting Great Local Foods

12. Go on the Ultimate Foodie Tour in Chinatown

Another area of San Francisco you definitely want to eat your way around is Chinatown, and with the San Francisco Chinatown Culinary Walking Tour , you can do just that. Eating around Chinatown is about more than finding delicious food. It’s also about exploring traditional techniques that date back centuries and celebrating the history that’s cooked into every bite of the treats you’ll find on this three-hour walking tour.

After you meet your guide, you’ll be taken to a number of different restaurants and food markets, where you’ll marvel at the flavors and aromas awaiting you. You’ll see how fortune cookies are crafted, sample dim sum, and sip teas filled with exotic flavors. 

Beyond the food portion of the tour, you’ll also peruse rare antiquities, traditional cookware, authentic pottery, rare musical instruments, and sacred ritual items. This tour is as much about culinary delights as it is about celebrating an incredible culture. 

Try Foods from San Francisco’s Chinatown

13. Discover San Francisco’s Haunted History

Discover the ghosts and ghouls of San Francisco with the San Francisco Ghosts: Gold and Ghouls Tour . Choose between the traditional one-hour tour or the extended hour-and-a-half option to learn even more about San Francisco’s hauntings. 

This walking tour will take you around Downtown San Francisco to hear about what goes bump in the night. You’ll hear about a different side of San Francisco than you typically get during a guided tour. While some struck it rich with the 1849 Gold Rush and created an affluent city, others weren’t so lucky. And while luck and prosperity shaped the city, so too did tragedy.

Learn about the not-so-happy haunts of The Westin St. Francis, the fateful night that led to Fatty Arbuckle’s blacklisting from the film industry, what happened during the 1906 earthquake, and much more. Each story is bound to send shivers down your spine and make you see San Francisco in a new light.

Journey through the Darkest Corners of SF

14. Learn About the Rich History and Activism of the Castro

Many communities of all kinds have shaped San Francisco, and the LGBTQ community greatly impacted the formation of the Castro. Considered the world’s largest LGBTQ community, the Castro is filled with people who found a home where they can be included. And they’ve worked hard to maintain the district’s inclusive roots.

The Castro LGBTQ Walking Tour invites you to join a local activist on a one-of-a-kind tour through landmarks like the Pink Triangle Park and Memorial, the AIDS Memorial Quilt and Names Project, the Rainbow Honor Walk, and much more. Step into the shoes of Harvey Milk, the LGBTQ Civil Rights leader who died advocating for the inclusive world the Castro became. 

This two-hour walking tour invites you to see a vital side of San Francisco and celebrate those who have worked so hard to make it into what it is today. The vibrant Castro is a place that you’ll love exploring. 

Explore the Diverse and Colorful Sites of the Castro

15. Become a VIP at the Aquarium of the Bay

Over on Fisherman’s Wharf, you’ll find the Aquarium of the Bay, an amazing place to discover more than 20,000 aquatic animals and learn about what you can do to help conserve their natural habitats. With the Aquarium of the Bay VIP Tour , you get admission to the aquarium, as well as a look behind the scenes that few people get to see.

With your admission ticket, you’ll enjoy access to the four main exhibit halls, where you’ll see everything from river otters to sharks. Once you’re done exploring, head to the lab to begin your VIP tour. You’ll learn about how the marine animals are taken care of when they get injured or fall ill. 

Then, you’ll head to the holding tank to see how new arrivals are readied for the aquarium. You’ll also get a look at how jellyfish go from being white specks to fully-grown majestic creatures, and you may also see how the sharks are fed by the divers.

If you’re an animal lover, this hour-and-a-half tour is easily one of the best tours in San Francisco. While exploring the aquarium is lovely on its own, going behind the scenes will give you a new appreciation for how the staff at the aquarium takes care of every animal that comes their way.

Discover the Aquarium of the Bay

There you have it! The 15 best tours in San Francisco. What’s your favorite San Francisco tour? Let us know in the comments!

Planning a trip to California? Check out our favorite books and travel guides!

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Jacqueline is a writer and editor pursuing the freelance life to explore the world. Born and raised in New Jersey, she spent her college years in Boston before settling down with her partner and puppy in Monterey, California. When she’s not writing, you can often find her planning her next trip. Road trips are her favorite, whether it’s driving across the country or simply exploring a new city in her own backyard. She loves uncovering the history of every new place she goes. Jacqueline has a restless passion for learning and makes it a goal to pick up a new skill every year. She’s picked up embroidery, crocheting, knitting, and cross-stitching, but she’s hoping to master more languages to help her in her travels. She’s also a published author, with short stories and poetry appearing in several anthologies.

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Sabrina Carpenter and Pop’s Next Gen Have a Secret Weapon: Amy Allen

The songwriter behind the summer smashes “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” is helping drive a moment of idiosyncrasy in Top 40 hits.

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By Joe Coscarelli

Reporting from Los Angeles

• Sept. 3, 2024 Updated 1:49 p.m. ET

Some well-played profanity can make a pop song sizzle.

But few expletives in recent memory have had the potentially career-altering crackle of the one let fly by Sabrina Carpenter, a former Disney Channel star, on “Please Please Please,” her Dolly Parton-meets-Abba confection that became a surprise No. 1 hit this summer.

“Heartbreak is one thing, my ego’s another,” Carpenter flutters, before a plea to a new fling: “I beg you, don’t embarrass me, little sucker” — except instead of little sucker (the radio edit), she rhymes an unprintable four-syllable term of tongue-in-cheek endearment, dropping her voice low and lathering it in a knowing hillbilly sass.

Carpenter sells it. But she had help — a playful, foul-mouthed voice in her ear insisting that a pop star these days might as well run Dolly through a TikTok-friendly system update, or sneak a Dada phrase like “that’s that me espresso” into the cultural lexicon.

“Five years ago, I would have never thought it was OK,” said Amy Allen, the hit songwriter credited on “Please Please Please,” along with “Espresso” and every other track on Carpenter’s breakout album, “Short n’ Sweet,” which debuted atop the Billboard chart this week. But Top 40, in no small part thanks to Allen, is entering a much-needed era of quirk, in which regular jolts of the unexpected are cutting through a sludge of smooth-brained content.

“Now I feel scared of generic things that sound like No. 1s,” said Allen, 32, who landed her first chart-topping hit, “Without Me” by Halsey, five years ago. “Listeners are just getting smarter and smarter now,” she added. “They want something to be odd, something to be off, something to be really catchy and unexpected about a lyric or melody. The days of really polished pop are shifting out.”

Now a fixture in pop’s A-list backrooms after years of hustling in every corner of the industry maze, Allen would know.

She has been a small-town aspirant in the coffeehouses and barrooms of Windham, Maine ; a Boston College nursing student and unsuccessful contestant on “The Voice”; a Berklee College of Music transfer fronting a pop-rock band in search of a record deal; a major label prospect as a solo performer; and today, an indie singer-songwriter releasing an eponymous debut album herself on Sept. 6.

Along the way, Allen has become the tone-setting, behind-the-scenes pop writer of the moment, aiming to join a lineage with varying degrees of staying power, name recognition and sonic trademark that includes Max Martin , Dr. Luke, Esther Dean, Sia , The-Dream, Benny Blanco , Julia Michaels and many more who never peeked out from the shadows.

In relative anonymity, Allen wrote songs for and with Selena Gomez, Lizzo, Olivia Rodrigo, Justin Timberlake, Shawn Mendes and others, winning an album of the year Grammy for her work on “Harry’s House” by Harry Styles, and earning a nomination for songwriter of the year, for tracks with King Princess and Charli XCX, at the 2023 ceremony. (The award went to Tobias Jesso Jr. , another indie singer-songwriter turned hitmaker.)

Allen’s musical fingerprints, along with her public profile, had stayed nearly unseen until they piled into an unmistakable, welcome smudge on mainstream music’s surface sheen: Starter hits for Carpenter (“Feather”) and Tate McCrae (“10:35” with Tiësto) were sugary with subtle bite (“Your signals are mixed, you act like a bitch/you fit every stereotype, ‘Send a pic’”). Those made room for stranger, vowel-heavy breakthroughs, as McCrae’s “Greedy,” and Carpenter’s “Espresso” and “Please Please Please,” made down-the-middle (notably white) pop fizzy again.

“She is an obvious master of pop, but her drive is to make something that’s a little bit more unique, always,” said Ethan Gruska, a songwriter and producer who has worked with Allen on her solo music. “What’s cool is that sometimes in the sphere of Top 40 pop, if that’s your instinct, people feel the need to dumb it down. But she just walks in and she does her instinct.”

Gruska highlighted Allen’s sense of “melodic contour” — the way she weaves unexpected notes and jumped intervals into something with an “unusual shape” — citing the swerve of that “Please Please Please” chorus. “That’s such an Amy melody,” he said. “Because Amy’s in the room, those kinds of shapes are allowed.”

Allen’s two professional modes are separate but complementary. Inspired by the “’90s girls” — Sheryl Crow, Alanis Morissette, Melissa Etheridge — and also Cocteau Twins and Edie Brickell, Allen tends to write her own moody songs longhand in a notebook as poems, starting with the verse. As a hired gun, she is more economical, usually typing into an iPhone and going chorus-first (because otherwise what’s the point?).

But both kinds of collaborative songwriting often start with the same nonmusical skill: gossiping about each other’s personal lives, or in industry parlance, being “good in the room.”

At a recent low-key writing session at a friend’s home studio after a morning walk on the Venice Boardwalk, Allen — who is petite but with alpha presence, voluble and disarmingly conspiratorial — was deciding between two strands of romantic turmoil and intrigue in her extended universe as potential topics.

She had her barefoot producer and engineer, Jake Weinberg, play “Twelve Thirty” by the Mamas & the Papas as vibe inspiration, and pulled up a rough a cappella Voice Memo she had sketched in the car.

“It’s either really cool or it sucks,” she said — a songwriter’s in-the-moment mantra.

As the pair found chords to match the melody, Allen quickly filled in the rest of the lyrics, landing on a run-on hook with indie-folk curlicues and pop punch. Within two hours, it was being recorded.

“As self-deprecating as she likes to be, it’s never been a struggle,” Weinberg said. “We’ve never been stuck — ever. The train is moving. And there’s not really any anxiety, which is so awesome.”

Jack Antonoff, the songwriter and producer who worked on Carpenter’s album with Allen, called her “just unfazed and self-possessed,” egoless in pursuit of a song. “There’s something kind of stoic about her,” he said. (Allen, who prefers to treat songwriting as a 9-to-5, in defiance of the industry-standard all-night sessions, said: “I also get ‘militant’ a lot.”)

Another collaborator on Carpenter’s album, Julia Michaels, recalled Allen lighting up in the studio when she really liked something, “moving her cute little hips around,” and invoked the character Penny Lane from “Almost Famous” “in terms of how beautiful and carefree and full of life she is.”

At the same time, said Michaels, a songwriter whose own studio hot streak led to a run as a major-label pop star, “she’s a very sturdy and capable grown woman. I have more faith in Amy navigating this moment than I would for myself.”

That Allen was afforded the opportunity to write an entire album alongside Carpenter was not a given, and her rise as a songwriter in many ways reflects the recent arc of her profession.

At first, Allen succeeded via pitch songs — demos written and recorded with producers that were then shopped around to various acts who could cut their own version. “I wasn’t in the room with artists at all,” she said. Much of the job was to stay invisible, allowing existing pop star narratives to sell the song to fans.

But the success of tracks like Selena Gomez’s “Back to You,” Allen’s first Top 40 hit, and Halsey’s “Without Me” moved Allen into an upper echelon as more pop stars were deciding that they should have a hand in their hitmaking. Allen cites the continued demystification of pop songwriting via streaming, stan culture and social media — all of which yank back the curtain — and the pandemic, which pulled acts off the road (cutting off an income stream in the process).

Spending time in the studio with Mendes and Styles “changed the game for me in terms of what it means to be a songwriter and how much of it is being a student of the artist that you’re working with,” Allen said. “There’s so much more longevity in doing it with the artist and getting to figure out how to tell their story while you’re also telling your own. And obviously if it’s something that they’ve helped create, then they’re more excited to promote it.”

The conversational specificity of her work with Carpenter could only have come from a real bond sharpened over time, the enabling that occurs between friends to be more and more idiosyncratically oneself.

The results, like “Please Please Please,” are phrasings with an off-kilter stickiness — “I might let you make me Juno,” goes another chorus, alluding to the nearly 20-year-old movie about a teen pregnancy — that “would be impossible to write in a session and pitch to an artist,” Allen said.

“When I think back on it, it’s weird, because Dolly is so much personality and quirkiness and jokes — same with John Prine,” she added. “So many of my influences have done that, and I’ve never really implemented it until meeting Sabrina. I think it took the right artist to see how they executed.”

Still, Allen remains disciplined, diplomatic and even a little paranoid about the “minefield” of claiming credit for songs, or even specific melodic or lyrical hooks. She said she couldn’t remember who among the four credited writers of “Espresso” — including Carpenter, Julian Bunetta and Steph Jones — came up with the money line: “say you can’t sleep/baby, I know/that’s that me espresso.”

“No clue,” Allen repeated with expletives. “It was just banter line after banter line in the room, people yelling things out. I wish I had a Voice Memo of that one.”

Not every song that makes it out of the room is a hit. Despite her heat, the reception to Allen’s work on the comeback album from Justin Timberlake, “Everything I Thought It Was,” was tepid, and its singles failed to spark. “Everything has to line up perfectly for something to be a hit,” Allen said. “So much of it is out of your hands.”

She said that she has probably averaged writing seven songs per week every week for the last seven years. “And we’re talking about big songs I’ve had — that’s like, what, six?” Allen said. “The batting average ain’t strong. But that’s enough to have a career.”

It also takes the pressure off Allen’s own work as an artist, a personal outlet that now allows her to “shake off the big scary pop music machine without having to compete in any way.” As a result, her solo debut, some five years in the making, is without big hooks or quippy lyrics, opting for an alternative singer-songwriter palette, like Phoebe Bridgers doing a sparer “Folklore.”

“It’s really good for my brain to work at those two different speeds,” Allen said. “I think taking on so much of other people’s emotional things every day, all the time, I almost forget I have my own things to work through.”

Allen is also aware of the risks of representing a trend cycle, noting that, outside of Diane Warren, “there’s not a lot of women that have a ton of longevity as songwriters, which is really upsetting,” she said. “I will do everything in my power to break that stereotype.”

“I would definitely never claim to have a superpower, but if I were to say that I had something that is really helpful, it’s that my stylized thing is pretty subtle,” Allen added. “I don’t feel like there’s ever going to come a time when people are listening to a bunch of different genres on the radio and they’re like, ‘ Oh, another Amy Allen song .’”

She is currently dabbling in rap, R&B and even Latin music sessions, and her name popped up recently in the credits for the new album by Koe Wetzel, a country-rock singer with Top 40 potential. There are only a few rooms left to break into.

“I’m waiting for Beyoncé and Adele to hit me up, but like, I’m getting a lot of actors who want to sing,” Allen said. “Maybe Rihanna will decide to do an album and, you know, ‘Espresso’ is on her mind.”

Joe Coscarelli is a culture reporter for The Times who focuses on popular music and a co-host of the Times podcast “Popcast (Deluxe).” More about Joe Coscarelli

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