5000 Streams, My Songwriting Process, and Perspective on AI

Hey Darklings!

With your support, in its first week, "Driftwood Doesn't Drown" now has over 5000 streams on Spotify alone!

You're SO awesome! Keep sharing links and spreading the word to keep the momentum going! (After all, I absolutely suck at this whole self-promotion/engaging with social media thing! haha)

I feel like this is the perfect opportunity let you in on a little behind-the-scenes look into my songwriting process! (I've also added in a little philosophy for good measure)

Starting in 2012, I started writing poetry; one-part experience in the real-world to one part looking up rhyming words on RhymeZone.com. 26 poems and 13 years later, I now have enough content to put out a coffee-table-art-book by the end of 2025, featuring my poems AND 3 future albums!

Then I took those poems and wrote all my own lyrics from them using the same process; sometimes reusing a lot of the words, sometimes just keeping the mental imagery, other times a full rewrite using just the pure unaltered emotion I remember feeling at the time. To me, lyrics are the heartbeat of a song, meant to spill forth from the heartbeats inside of us as a result of our raw, beautiful - and sometimes damaging - experiences.

Finally, I took advantage of modern songwriting technology to help with the instrument playing and vocals, because I believe the message contained in every song needs to be shared. In a world where the airwaves and the internet are flooded with catchy - but ultimately empty or overly explicit - lyrics, I wanted to contribute my part to the music industry. Like how music used to be written in scattered moments throughout music history where you have deep stories and heart. Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle". Clapton's "Tears in Heaven". Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”. Guns N Roses' "November Rain". Fastball's "The Way". The Eagles' "Hotel California"... the list is long and impactful. These songs have changed lives and challenged belief systems for influential and non-influential people alike that, in line with the butterfly effect, continues to shape our current world in unknown ways as a result of how those words resonated with each and every person who heard those songs.

I know my perspective is controversial, but in today's day-and-age AI assistance is a tool, like a hammer is a tool; it can be used to build or to harm all the same - just depends who's using it. Musically, some artists have been known to heavily rely on autotune; or how we can “bend” and alter soundwaves and studio environments and sounds in programs like Audacity or Audition. Visually, others create an AI images of themselves. And it’s is not all that different than putting on makeup, or getting facelifts. People change their look and we're better off as a society for not hating or alienating or shaming those people for it. After all, society has it's expectations and people are constantly trying to live up to them.

For me in the music industry, I use AI as a tool - a crutch or prosthetic - that opens doors and presents opportunities to shape the world for the better. To create what would otherwise not have been created; to allow the soul a louder voice to be heard, to influence the morality and ethics of current and future generations for the better through lyrics that show strength in morality and perseverance. These tools allow visions that would have died with their creators - to live. Visions that would have never reached hearts and minds, simply because the creators didn't have the means - maybe the time, or the money - to invest in all the aspects to bring that vision to life.

Maybe someone had children early in life and never got to learn to play the guitar or piano. Maybe someone was brought up in a family that had no money, and so they had to spend their time contributing to the family, keeping it afloat - or a roof over their head - through getting jobs or doing tasks instead of being granted the chance to live as a privileged child in a home of means and abundance. Maybe you belong to a socioeconomic class where you're just getting by from paycheque-to-paycheque such that renting recording studio space is difficult. Sometimes “the impossible” is simply learning to exist with your inner rockstar, while at the same time realizing you don't have many friends, let alone ones who have the skills to start a band with.

Ultimately, my message in all of this is that no matter the circumstances life throws at you, don't let it stop you from pursuing your dreams. Don't let anyone make you feel like less for wearing a prosthetic when you're missing a limb or skill. Or using a crutch to get around because you're temporarily broken... life is too short to allow obstacles to end your dreams. You are blessed to be living in an era where more "help" is available to you than ever before, yet alongside technology's help - also growing - is society's "pitchfork" mentality of cancel-culture and iron-fisted judgement. The whole world can be your friend one moment, and turn on you the next. Johnny Depp, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”… the Western world’s dichotomic division on the Charlie Kirk situation. We need to get back to a position of love, acceptance, and chances of reformation/rehabilitation where necessary; to see most others (within reason) as worthy of forgiveness and correction, rather than as enemies. Like the message in my song "The Road Taken".

Live like Peter Pumpkinhead. Love fully. And as Mr. Feeny said in the Boy Meets World finale "Believe in yourselves. Dream. Try. Do good."

Thanks for listening! To listen to "The Road Taken" and follow along with the words, check out my lyric video and read its description on my YouTube Channel and let me know what you think!

Your Emissary of Eloquence,

- A. J. Darkholme