Is "Write From the Heart" Good Songwriting Advice?

“Write from the heart.”

If you’ve ever asked for songwriting advice, you’ve heard it. Amateurs say it. Some songwriting coaches say it too.

I think it’s half of the right advice. And the half that gets left off kept my songs stuck for years.

What the heart is good at

Your heart matters. A song has to feel true to you before it can feel true to anybody else.

So I’m not telling you to write songs you don’t believe in.

But here’s what nobody mentions. Your heart only knows what you feel. It has no idea what a stranger wants to hear.

Those are two different jobs.

What stopping there cost me

Before I built a real process, my hit-potential rate was under 10%. Most of what I wrote from the heart never left my hard drive. The few songs that did went nowhere.

I saw the same thing on a bigger scale. After the hits with Shaggy, two friends and I started our own label. We made whatever music we liked. We never once asked who it was for.

It completely flopped. None of it was made for anyone but us.

We’d been writing from the heart the whole time. That was never the problem. Stopping there was.

The second question

Now I ask every song two questions, not one.

1. Does this feel true to me?
2. Would a stranger care?

The first question keeps the song honest. The second makes it worth someone else’s time.

Once I started asking both, my hit-potential rate climbed to around 30 or 40%. Same heart. Bigger job.

How to ask “would a stranger care?”

A stranger doesn’t know you. They don’t know who the song is about or what that night meant to you. All they get is what’s on the recording, usually with half their attention.

So decide who the song is for before you write a word. Choosing the audience is the first thing I do, and the chorus comes right after. (Here’s why I always start with the chorus.)

Then, once you’ve got a chorus, play it for someone who owes you nothing and watch their face. Friends and family are usually too kind to be much help. (Four tests I use on every chorus.)

Shaggy has a saying: “We work for rewards, not awards.” Awards are great. But what we were really after was sales and paid shows, and those come from making music for bigger and bigger audiences.

A song only you love can’t get you there.

Try this on your next song

1. Write the feeling down first. What’s true about this for you?
2. Name one listener who isn’t you. Who are they, and what are they listening to right now?
3. Read your chorus as that person. Would they care with zero backstory?
4. Rewrite until both answers are yes.

Keep writing from the heart. Just don’t let it be the last question you ask. Pick one song in your notes app tonight and ask it the second one.