Emotions (Brenda Lee song)
1960 song performed by Brenda Lee
"Emotions" is a song written by Ramsey Kearney and Mel Tillis which became a Top Ten hit for Brenda Lee in 1961.
The original version of "Emotions" was a solo composition by Ramsey Kearney: in 1957 Kearney recorded a demo of the song with which he approached the Nashville music publishers where Mel Tillis was a staff writer. Tillis would recall: "I really liked the song and I told him...'You know, I think that I can get the song recorded by Carl Smith.'" Carl Smith did indeed record the song with the track serving as B-side to his #2 C&W hit "Why, Why".
In the summer of 1960 Tillis amended the lyrics to Kearney's original lyric for "Emotions" and successfully pitched the song for Brenda Lee to record. Lee recorded "Emotions" in an August 16, 1960 session at Bradley Film and Recording Studio in Nashville, Tennessee: the session - produced and arranged by Owen Bradley and featuring Floyd Cramer on piano - also produced Lee's #1 hit "I Want to Be Wanted" which was the precedent single to "Emotions". With the B-side "I'm Learning About Love" - recorded with the same personnel at an August 19, 1960 session at Bradley Film & Recording Studio - "Emotions" was issued as a single in December 1960 and rose to a #7 peak in February 1961. "I'm Learning About Love" also became a Top 40 hit for Lee peaking at #33.
A major hit in Australia (#20) and Flemish Belgium (#6), "Emotions" also afforded Lee a lower chart item in France (#56), Germany (#47), and the UK (#45).
An Emotions album by Brenda Lee - featuring both the title cut and "I'm Learning About Love" - was issued April 3, 1961.
“Emotions (Brenda Lee song)” enters the record as 1960 song performed by Brenda Lee. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Emotions, Brenda and song can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 8, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q17002636. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1961, 1957 and 1960.
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This entry incorporates text from “Emotions (Brenda Lee song)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.