People Buy for Emotional Reasons and Justify it with Logic
Things Songwriters Can Learn From Copywriters: Lesson 11
One thing copy writers know that song writers need to have tattooed on their hearts and minds is:
People buy for emotional reasons and justify it with logic.
For song writers it changes slightly to:
People buy into a song for emotional reasons.
Springsteen, Petty, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, and John Mellencamp are all known for being steady, work-a-day artists, yet they dominated the market for decades.
How did they do it?
There are obviously many reasons, but you can’t get away from the fact that all of their songs are designed to play on the emotions. And they experimented with just how many different emotions they could create in their audiences.
Almost all young songwriters begin at the same place.
What I call the 3 “F’s.”
They want to:
- Have FUN
These are party songs.
“Dancing in the Streets”
“Rock and Roll All Night”
I am sure you have playlists filled with your favorite party tunes.
- Fight
“I Won’t Back Down”
“We’re Not Gonna Take It”
The Beastie Boys even told us to fight for our right to party — killing two birds with one tune.
Edwin Star fought against war itself, with “War.” As did U2 with “Sunday Bloody Sunday.”
- Fffff….erh…Be Romantic
“A Little Less Conversation” Elvis Presley
“Good Golly Miss Molly” Little Richard
“Do It To Me One More Time” Carly Simon
“I Wanna Hold Your Hand” The Beatles
“What’s Your Name?” Lynyrd Skynyrd
This list goes on and on and on and on and on, as well.
This is where almost everybody begins. But, the songwriters who endure learn to write about a wide range of emotions and subjects.
The great songwriters attempt to write songs about the difficult emotions like grief, illness, fear of the unknown, the struggle to raise a family, hold a marriage together, having a child that you can’t connect with, feeling like life is passing you by, fear of failure, or recovery from failure. As well as more desirable emotions like, a saved relationship, personal recovery and redemption, pride in self, accomplishment, or family, friendship, vacation, peace after long struggle.
There are a million different subjects and mixtures of emotions to experiment with being able to communicate or induce in your listeners.
The more you vary your subject matter, the more skill you will develop in this area, and the better your chances become of becoming a songwriter who lasts for decades.
Do you want a career as a songwriter?
Become skilled at inducing as many emotions as you possibly can through your songs and music.
You’ll be glad you did.
So will we, your listeners.
Have Fun & Make Music
