 There's a correlation to why many of the songs that affect the world are written by people who have gone through a lot of pain. It's that expressing the things that hurt you the most and tapping into the inspiration to find the musical notes that sound the way you felt in the moment of pain is what feels intense to us all, since when you've felt immense pain and expressed it a relatable way, it can really, really connect with the world. In this episode, I'm going to talk about how exposing your most intense emotions helps make songs other people connect with. Hi, I'm Jesse Kadd, this is Muse Formation. Charles Maggio is not only a member of Rorschach, one of the most influential metal and hardcore bands ever, but he also runs one of the best indie labels to ever release music, Gerd Bladston. There's a quote from him that stuck with me for over a decade and a half. Someone asked him why he no longer sings for a band, and he replied, I'm healthy, my parents love me, and have a great family, what do I have to write about? While there are plenty of great writers that experience the same stability that still manage to make great art, he kind of has a point. A great deal of the most emotionally-resident art is about a painful or passionate experience in the creator's life. One of the songs Charles is most known for is called bone marrow biopsy. After having to undergo the procedure twice during a battle with Hodgkin's disease during the early years of his life. Not very fun. There's a reason Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, and Jess Joplin are some of the most emotionally-resident artists we've ever known. If you watched any of the recent documentaries about them, you could see that they felt more pain than the average person. It's often said that the greatest creators are more sensitive than others, and these sensitivities allow them to hone in to how to express this deep feeling that they have inside themselves. Their translation of their sensitivity to pain is so extreme that anyone can empathize, but not from feeling the same as them. Instead, this pain is so much greater than most that it spans a wide breadth of relatability. We're able to connect with them since when we felt pain, it's often a grain of salt compared to the authentic emotional resonance that they express. We return to their songs consistently because when we feel pain, theirs is so much more intense than ours, so it's easy to connect with their painful expression of vulnerability. They have so much emotional resonance, we can easily find ways to connect to the broad and powerful way they feel. As Natalie Maine said of Rick Rubin that we talked about in the last episode, finding what's emotionally potent will be the best arrow for your emotional bow. The pain in our lives becomes what's forcing itself out of us when it comes time to express ourselves since it's constantly on our mind. Author Brett Easton Ellis says, pain drives many of the great artists much more than joy. When we feel passionate about a thought, we get flooded with the need to perspire, which is the clue that we should be letting this spill over into our music. The reason the most intense emotions we experience make for the most potent subjects for our music is because they're authentic experiences that motivate a passion that guides us to create. With that said, plenty of songwriters and healthy relationships can observe others' troubles and feel passionate towards them that turn into an emotionally resonant perspiration. You need to be brave enough to say your most emotionally potent truth. If you want to hide how you feel yet still talk to an audience about it, there's never been a greater way to disguise it than song lyrics. But this veiling in the name of covering how you feel doesn't allow others to relate to you. Writing about what's comfortable or veiled in complexity so that you can be safe from critique isn't relatable. The lack of authenticity when you hide what you really feel is the ultimate dilution of the potency of emotional resonance. Ambiguity can feel safe, but it hinders you from authentically expressing yourself to make a connection through music. If you want to express yourself, you need to do so without fear of judgment from your audience, friends, family, or anyone else. The evidence of having to write about what you feel most passionate about can be found throughout all genres of music in your record collection if you take the time to find it. James Alex of Beach Slag talks about this being the change he made in music before starting his band. Seeing as he's the only example I know of, of a musician who appeals to teens on up to those in their 40s who found success with a new band at 38 years old, the example speaks volumes to me. For those looking for a less niche example, take Beyonce's Lemonade. The emotionally potent subject in her life was Jay-Z's infidelity. While it would be far easier to keep this grievance out of the public eye, she needed to voice what was most resonant with her by making Lemonade when life handed her lemons. Songwriter Bonnie McKee, who's co-written a number of Katy Perry's hits, tells it like this. When we're writing with her, we sit down and talk to her and try to find out what's going on in her life and find out the kernel of truth. I want her to sing about something she cares about, so we talk about her life and what she's going through and try to weave it into something powerful and visual. Popstar Dio has said when he hears the right song for him to sing, it has to be an emotion he's already been feeling. Mark Ronson says, when it came time to write Rehab for Amy Winehouse, we were walking down the street. We had just started working. We were three days in and she was telling me a story about some stuff that had gone down in her life. She said, yeah, my family came over and they tried to make me go to Rehab and I was like, pfft, no, no, no. And I thought, oh shit, that's quite hooky you said that. If you're not opposed to it, we should go back into the studio and mess around with it. For many artists talking about something so personal could be scary, it was only one of the countless examples of it paying off with a song that connected with millions of people. That's it. Am I missing anything? Did you not understand something? Please let me know in the comments if there's anything else on this subject that I can go over. I also need to know what your questions are for future videos, so please leave those in the comments as well. I hope you liked this video and if you did, please subscribe, get notified and like it. I'm going to be breaking down the concepts in this video along with many others on promoting your music and making music you're happy with in future videos. As well, I have a Facebook group that's linked below that has only helpful information for musicians. No one tried to sell you anything, no Playlist or Connors, only artists having helpful discussions with each other. If you want to learn more about me, make a record with me, or check out any of my books, podcasts, or anything else I do, go to jessecanon.com and at jessecanon.com on all the socials. See you in the next video.