What Makes A Song Strike An Emotional Chord?

What makes a song connect with an audience in an emotional sense was the question posed to a panel of four Australian songwriters, an artist manager and a national radio representative in this morning's Great Songs That Make The Emotional Connection panel.

Powderfinger's Ian Haug dropped a surprising tidbit midway through the panel, saying that he wasn't a fan of his band's song Passenger and never imagined it would be released as a single, let alone become the massive hit that it has. This fact was a perfect example of the essence of the panel; that it can often be hard to tell what songs are going to connect with audiences emotionally. Sarah Guppy, manager of I, A Man, said she had a similar experience with that band recently. Upon asking the opinions of non-musical friends, she was convinced to take a song she was very unsure about to radio and, sure enough, the song was picked up.

Gotye's Somebody That I Used To Know was discussed yet again, the panelists all offering ideas as to why the song has connected so well with so many. The male/female call and response, the childish glockenspiel line and the relatable subject matter were the strongest cases put forward in relation to the song's success.

Alexander Gow of Oh Mercy admitted that hearing U2's Desire as a 13-year-old while his mum's 20-something nurse co-worker and her boyfriend danced around the house was something of a “sexual awakening”, David Bridie said he has a problem with Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly's From Little Things Big Things Grow being used for a superannuation ad and Flynn Francis told us how he refused to let Robbie Williams take some of his songs.