AI still hasn't made a tune nearly on the level of Visions Of Johanna
Purple Haze
Wild Horses
I Would Die For You
Anything by Marvin Gaye
Nina Simone. Or Dolly Parton (rip)
It's reductive by its art by committee nature
Genius is something different. It expands through a kind of insane wildness computers Cant touch.
I mean i hear all the doom predictions of human productivity becoming irrelevant
But it's got all the classics in its computer brain already
And all it spits out is decent to mediocre
Some of its fun. It's hella impressive but so far nothing makes me sweat that the robots are taking over.
It's a super clean and fancy super hack
But we artists write our mediocre shite to get to the gems.
Where are the AI gems ?
Ain't heard one yet.
For the hell of it i fed that thesis into Claude.
Heres it's response.
I think you're mostly right, and the reason is built in. A model like me is trained to predict what's likely, which pulls everything toward the center of what's already been done. "Visions of Johanna" works because it's unlikely. Dylan breaks rules no committee would sign off on: the song runs too long, the imagery doesn't resolve, and the voice is weird. Hendrix pushing feedback into melody was a mistake he chose to keep. Statistical averaging tends to sand off exactly that kind of thing.
The other missing piece is that those songs come from someone who had something on the line. Nina Simone singing "Mississippi Goddam" was dangerous for her. Marvin making What's Going On meant fighting his own label. I don't have a life, a body, or a reputation that I'm risking, so there's no wound for anything to come out of. The ache comes through in the music, and you can hear when it's missing.
I'd push back on one point, though. The interesting stuff probably won't be "AI writes a Dylan-level song." It'll be some strange human using it like Hendrix used a Marshall stack, as a tool that gets abused in ways nobody intended. Hip-hop came from people misusing turntables. So far most people use AI to get the average faster, which is why it all sounds like a clean, fancy hack. But your point about writing the mediocre shite to get to the gems is the key difference. You keep walking the road and you change along the way. The machine just generates the next draft.
Being a dad
Isn’t easy
But not for the reasons I thought
It’s not the sacrifice of time that makes it tough
Taking care of someone is like a trapdoor
Out of the bondage of self
It’s actually a relief to have days mapped out that are basically about serving another
And it’s not some saintly spirit you become
Because it’s just necessity
That shapes you into a more selfless state
But the benefits still arrive
You don’t have to look for purpose
You wake up most days with an urgent purpose on your lap
Helping guide a little being into and through the complex scenario of life on planet earth
And at the same time
Feeding
Cleaning
Playing
Loving
And giving the most valuable resource you have
Attention
My daughter is at the age where her own independence is beginning to blossom
Which helps me see this more clearly now
At times she wants to be left alone
She wants her own space and her own room
And all the healthy things an almost five year old would want
These days I can even go into my studio and record some guitar parts or do a blast of light work
But that was totally impossible not long ago and the distinction is revealing
And the odd thing is I find myself mourning slightly the change
Not that I would want it to be different because if she wasn’t becoming more independent that would obviously be bad
But you would think having more of your own time given back to you would be nothing but a relief or a good thing and it’s more layered than that.
The hard part of being a dad is more like what happened last night
On the way home from the slide park
Where often we slide and play together
But also often she makes friends and runs off to play with them which of course we love to see
Making friends in kid land is huge
Toy Story 5 is all about it actually which was nice to see
And yesterday she was having a great day of new friendships
She made two at the pool in the morning
And one more in the afternoon
(Summers in Arizona means we spend lots of time there)
But on the way home from the slide park
She told me in a low voice that she got into a fight with a girl
I asked what happened
And her communication wasn’t clear
And as I asked her more questions she quickly didn’t want to talk about it
And this was at the end of a very long day
She fell asleep before we even got home
What I did ascertain is that she got frustrated and touched another girl on her shoulder
Who said “don’t touch me like that”
Which she responded by saying
I don’t want to be friends anymore
In kid land friendships begin and end all the time
In the land of play kids join each other in the playground of the imagination
And in that realm anything can happen
The hard part is communicating the destructive force of anger and how to take a breath
How to not take things personally
And how to live and work through the various rejections that come with life in our world
How do you be a guide through these complications
There is no instruction manual that comes with the nuances of all the particulars
Guiding an exhausted almost five year old out of a breakdown
And communicating the complexities in a language that she can understand
And keeping yourself in a healthy state so that you can remain tapped into the higher source where wisdom and how to impart it actually comes from
That’s the hard part of being a dad in my view
The part where the dad becomes a father
Being aligned with the father
Who hopefully whispers loud enough for you to hear
The right words to relieve and guide
This morning we got up and she drew a picture of a rainbow smiling
A blue sky
She said she was the star
And when I asked her what was the smiling face she said
That’s God
And then she said it was me and her and God all together
I told her it was beautiful and put it up on the wall
Whatever the difficult parts of this journey are
They are all worth it
God is smiling in a rainbow
Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers figuring it out one day at a time
Lots of exciting things happening behind the scenes in prepping the next phase of You’re Not A Ghost Anymore
As Faith percolates
Heart is getting orchestral arrangements made for some of the stand out tracks
Including this one
This morning I received an 80 piece arrangement from Prague written and directed by the brilliant Alexander Livitsanos
This song holds a special place because when my ex girlfriend (from back in the 90’s!) heard it she said
“That song is gonna help people”
I was happy the intent of it came through
And the weird thing about music or being a songwriter is I had almost forgotten what the intention actually was
Or I was surprised at her reaction.
When times are tough we have to pull through and lean into the optimism that life will indeed turn itself around and that some kind of grace and mercy will step in
I guess I was surprised about her reaction because after a song is written on some level they become these technical things you have to perform but can be detached from what they actually say
I had forgotten what the song was about until she reminded me
Maybe that sounds strange but it’s the truth
I think of it as her song now. Funny that.
It’s called Without Hesitation
And I like the title
For the reference to hesitation
Often associated with suicide. Hesitation marks
Find the hope and the optimism before hesitation even comes into consideration
The verses may be a tad throwaway lyrically but lyrics become like tattoos on the skin of a song
They can be changed but it will take lasers and pain
And sometimes bad tattoos are the best tattoos
(Especially singing falsetto)
Anyway if you are struggling. You are far from alone
And it will turn around.
You’re gonna dance til you’re overwhelmed by joy
And
You’re gonna love til you can’t give anymore of yourself to the crowd.
Simple light is a song I wrote for my daughter.
'I will be your simple light you were mine from the very first night'
Kids give you purpose or redirect you towards purpose when you go adrift
We went swimming today. Arizona summers tend to start at the pool. Even at 8am it's 100 degrees and the sun ain't exactly being subtle.
We played Barbie's.
In her world there are mean Barbie's
And happy Barbie's and fleets of ken dolls
Named
Kevin
Arthur
Black bird
Race car
Dolphin
We basically dive into her imagination and swim around in there as the networks of dreams are developing into a personality coming into being.
These moments are incredibly special
But also normal
Fleeting but droning on
And then one day all of it will be gone
The worlds we blossomed together
Simple light is a song in celebration of that. The parental journey where we can never be enough. We can never really match the responsibility afforded us as parents. Even Jung said that the needs of the child can't possibly be fulfilled by the parent
And there is the birth of the human condition
Wayward spirits
Having a temporary celebration in the Arizona morning
Between two infinities
But beyond this what is there?
Not much
Love and expression
And an exhaustion that hopefully has us leaning towards God.
Simple Light is one of the lead off singles for the upcoming
"You're Not A Ghost Anymore - Heart"
New album
Dropping at midnight
We danced with the Gods
Long and hard to get here
There were months where the music stopped
My feet just moved to the beat of crickets
Screaming like crickets
In meditation’s wind
False starts
Betrayals
Even lies scattered like locusts
Revealing the masks of the nonbelievers
But faith has its own will
And a strength that sweeps like strings
Played by the orchestra of the ages
Of years going by
Mostly I was just a dad
And that’s been the best
Nothing comes close to those days
On playgrounds
And out of the reach of madness
And yet its time for music once again
I even uttered the devil’s name
And he flew me to his ancient home for a sit down
I said have I got a song for you
And he led me to a courtyard where his strings were tuning
The sheet music already laid out before them
The conductor
Smiling and then disappearing into the old walls
And his stick fell
And the music stopped suddenly
A voice within whispered
“What will they say? What will they think?”
Who knows I thought
Then he tapped me on the shoulder and said
You’re not a ghost anymore 📸 Alexandros Livitsanos
Bold action changes everything.
New Supernatural Genius episode with Chris Koehn.
We talk creativity, risk, and moving before you feel ready. youtu.be/RLWwHcHoThk
New single out today.
I wrote I Wanna Know You after a conversation with a stranger on a bus in Puerto Rico about faith, sacrifice, and whether redemption is actually possible.
More questions than answers. Always.
Listen: orcd.co/iwannaknowyou