Spoiler: We both dig deep, find hidden angles, and love a good breakthrough.
At first glance, it’s easy to assume that songwriters and hackers live on opposite ends of the human spectrum.
One works with melodies, metaphors, and moments of vulnerability. The other manipulates code, exploits systems, and probes digital weaknesses. One might spend the afternoon strumming an acoustic guitar, chasing the perfect chorus. The other might be running a penetration test, trying to find a way past a firewall.
But pull the lens back just a bit, and you’ll notice something striking: both are trying to get in.
Both songwriters and hackers study systems—whether emotional or digital. Both develop techniques to bypass barriers. And both, in their own ways, aim to trigger a reaction.
Emotional Engineering vs. Social Engineering
In cybersecurity, there’s a technique known as social engineering. It’s all about manipulating human psychology to gain access to restricted areas, data, or systems. It’s not about code—it’s about people. Phishing emails, fake tech support calls, deceptive links—all rely on emotional triggers like fear, urgency, or curiosity.
Songwriters engage in a form of social engineering too—but with a far more generous goal. Instead of using fear or manipulation, we use empathy, relatability, and storytelling to break through emotional firewalls.
When you write a lyric that gets someone to stop scrolling, or when a melody makes someone cry even though they don’t know why—that’s emotional engineering. That’s a well-crafted line acting like an exploit, slipping through the logical mind and triggering something deeper.
Songwriters aren’t trying to steal anything. We’re trying to give people something they may not even realize they need. Just like ethical hackers, we’re finding a way in—not to take, but to connect.
Why This Comparison Matters
I live in both worlds.
By day, I’m a Red Team Operator—an ethical hacker hired by companies to break into their systems and expose vulnerabilities before the bad guys do. I think like an adversary, I study how people behave, and I spend hours analyzing how systems are built—and how they can be broken.
By night, I’m a songwriter. I craft lines meant to slip past someone’s defenses—not digital ones, but emotional ones. My job is to find the phrase, the hook, the story that’ll resonate. And whether I’m writing a verse or writing a vulnerability report, I’ve noticed the same core skills coming into play:
- Empathy
- Observation
- Obsession with detail
- Curiosity about what makes people tick
At their core, both hacking and songwriting are about understanding people at a fundamental level. The better you understand the system—whether it’s a network architecture or the human heart—the better your chances of breaking through.
Understanding the Target
In cybersecurity, you don’t just attack a system randomly. You recon, you gather intelligence. You learn the habits of the people who use that system. What are their routines? What apps do they rely on? Where are they vulnerable?
Songwriters do the same. When we write, we ask:
- What is my listener going through right now?
- What have they felt but never said out loud?
- What words would speak to them in this exact moment?
We gather emotional intelligence. We listen to how people talk, how they hide their pain, what they celebrate, and what they regret. Every lyric is written with the target in mind—not to exploit, but to speak directly to them.
This is why the best songs feel like they were written just for you. Because in a way, they were.
The Vulnerability Paradox
In security, vulnerability is something to patch. It’s a weakness, a risk, an entry point that needs to be secured before it’s exploited.
But in songwriting, vulnerability is the goal.
The moment you write a lyric that tells the unfiltered truth, or admit something real and raw—that’s the magic. That’s when the listener leans in. Vulnerability isn’t a bug to fix. It’s a feature. It’s what makes songs powerful.
Think about Miranda Lambert’s “Tin Man”, Kacey Musgraves’ “Rainbow”, or Chris Stapleton’s “Whiskey and You.” These aren’t songs that put up a front—they let it all fall away. The lyrics are raw, the delivery is vulnerable, and the stories hit close to home. That’s what makes them powerful. When an artist opens up like that, the listener lets their guard down too. It’s not just a song—it’s an emotional entry point.
There’s a lesson here for both songwriters and security professionals: vulnerability is human. We can either fear it or learn from it.
The Tools of the Trade
Hackers have tools: packet sniffers, vulnerability scanners, remote shell scripts. Songwriters have tools too: rhyme schemes, melodic intervals, chord progressions, metaphors.
Both sets of tools are powerful—but only in the hands of someone who knows how to use them.
Take the minor 6 chord in a progression—it evokes a haunting feeling almost instantly. That’s emotional payload delivery. Just like a hacker might use an exploit to trigger a specific system behavior, a songwriter uses a particular melody or lyrical phrase to trigger a specific emotional response.
It’s intentional. It’s strategic. And when done well, it feels effortless.
Intent is Everything
Here’s the big difference: intent.
Hackers—especially malicious ones—seek control. They want access, power, profit, or chaos. Songwriters seek connection. We want someone to feel seen, heard, less alone. Even in our darkest songs, the goal is often to bring light through shared experience.
That’s why I love being an ethical hacker. Because in both my worlds, the mission is about helping people. Whether I’m protecting a system or writing a lyric, I’m trying to leave things better than I found them.
Bridging the Creative and Technical
For a long time, I kept these two parts of my life separate. The security world didn’t feel like it had much room for poetry. And the songwriting world didn’t exactly light up at the mention of cybersecurity protocols.
But now, I see the value in bringing these two worlds together.
We’re living in a time when musicians need to be more tech-savvy than ever. Your art is online. Your data, your demos, your DMs—all vulnerable if you’re not careful. Understanding cybersecurity isn’t just a niche hobby for artists anymore—it’s a survival skill.
Likewise, the tech world is craving more human-centered thinking. More creativity. More understanding of emotion and experience. Engineers can build secure systems—but if users don’t connect with them, they won’t use them right. That’s a storytelling problem. That’s a songwriter’s problem.
What This Blog Is About
So, what can you expect here?
This blog is a home for both sides of the brain:
- Left-brain logic: how to secure your music files, protect your accounts, use safer tools as a creative.
- Right-brain resonance: how to write better songs, decode emotional impact, and understand why music hits us the way it does.
Some days, we’ll talk about how to spot a phishing scam disguised as a Spotify email. Other days, we’ll unpack why certain lyrics hit like a freight train at 2am. And sometimes, we’ll do both—because your creative life deserves both safety and depth.
Real-World Connections
Let me give you a few practical crossovers to think about:
1. Password Hygiene = Protecting Your Demo Vault
You wouldn’t leave your unreleased tracks in an unlocked car. So why use a weak password for your cloud storage? Use a password manager. Enable two-factor authentication. Treat your creative work like the intellectual property it is.
2. Metadata Can Be a Snitch
Did you know that files you upload might include metadata—like your name, location, or software used? Hackers can use that. Songwriters, too, should be aware of what invisible data they’re sharing. Before uploading a song, clean up the metadata unless it’s meant to credit you.
3. Your Website is a Doorway
If you run a website or mailing list as an artist, you’re collecting data. Even if it’s just emails for your newsletter, you’ve got a responsibility to protect that info. Learn about SSL certificates. Keep your plugins updated. Use strong admin credentials.
All of these topics might seem technical, but they’re really about one thing: protecting your art and your audience.
Songwriting as Ethical Hacking
At the end of the day, I see songwriting as a kind of ethical hack.
We want to get in—but we’re doing it with permission, with consent, and with love. We want to be the voice someone needs in their headphones after a hard day. We want to be the lyric that helps someone cry for the first time in months. We want to make people feel.
That’s a beautiful kind of hack.
Final Thoughts: We’re All Decoders
Whether you’re parsing network packets or parsing your own heartbreak for a second verse, you’re doing the same thing: trying to understand something invisible.
Hackers and songwriters are both decoders. One is decoding signals and systems. The other, the subtleties of emotion. Both require listening closely, thinking critically, and knowing when to break the rules to find something deeper.
So maybe, just maybe, songwriters are the hackers of the heart.
And if that’s true, then the worlds of creativity and cybersecurity aren’t so far apart after all.
Let’s stay curious, creative, and secure. Whether you’re building firewalls or bridges between people, there’s a place for you here.