Why Oh Why?

I’ve been writing songs for years, most of them bad, and only managed to get three mostly finished. Along the way I’ve collected heaps of scratchy acoustic recordings that never really went anywhere.

A few months ago, I started experimenting with AI to turn some of those rough demos into something a little more shareable. In what will probably end up being a very embarrassing move, I’ve uploaded the first 35 of them to my site. There are still more to go. Each one has a bit of background and the lyrics, and I’ll add the chords soon.

Why am I doing this? Honestly, I don’t really know. What do I hope to achieve? I’m not sure about that either. Maybe it’s just about finally getting them out into the world instead of letting them sit unfinished on a hard drive. The long term goal is to find the best songs and actually make them end-to-end. Not sure if or when that might happen.

They’re all pretty personal, circling around a few recurring themes that keep showing up in my writing. From time to time, I might post one here as well. If you see that cat “Church,” you’ll know it’s another Nine Lives Lost post sneaking into your feed. And just for the record, don’t blame AI for the chord progressions. I’ve always used pretty standard progressions in pretty standard keys.

If you’re curious about how I’m actually using AI in the process, the AI page explains it in more detail.