Red Hand Files

Once again, I wake up to a world that feels completely meaningless.

LEONIE, BERLIN, GERMANY

I’m a weary 58, but there is something in your music, Nick, that just makes me blub. In a good way! I don’t know why, but I always feel better.

DIEGO, BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA

Have you used the AI powered music generation tools? Any thoughts?

DAVID, HONOLULU, USA

Any advice for a young songwriter?

MARSHAL, ZURICH, SWITZERLAND

Dear Leonie, Diego, David and Marshal,

Among the hundreds of questions sent to The Red Hand Files each week, a few recurring themes emerge. Some of the letters, like yours, Leonie, are steeped in a sense of demoralisation and futility. “This world has no meaning or value, why bother?” they ask. They reflect a common existential attitude, characterised by a disaffection towards the world and a near-total depletion of any sense of meaning. Yet there is another repeating, more positive, theme that runs parallel to this sentiment – one that speaks of music as one of the last sources of solace and comfort for these disheartened individuals. “Thank God for music,” they say, “I don’t know what I’d do without it!”

I believe we value music so highly partly because when we listen to certain songs we perceive, on some level, the inherent human battle waged within them – the struggle of the songwriter and their triumph over that struggle. These songs reassure us by addressing the soul and spirit – concepts that have been almost entirely stripped from this materialistic, secular and degraded age. We weep, laugh, and dance not just because of the song’s rhythm or melody, but because in the music we recognise the struggle intrinsic to the act of creation and the sheer life-affirming audacity of creativity itself, that most elemental of human impulses. These songs speak in a language of inspiration and hope, telling us that we can overcome the many troubles and disillusions we face. Through their very existence, they show us that beauty and goodness can prevail.

So, as a songwriter, David, I find myself despairing over the rise of AI song generators. It’s not that they aren’t good, in fact they are – or soon will be – too good. Before long, they will be able to produce songs indistinguishable from those created by humans. And this is what grieves me. They will be identical in presentation, perhaps even superior, but entirely devoid of soul, cynically undermining the need for matters of the spirit, the sacred, the divine. “What is the purpose of the soul?” they scorn. “What is its material use?” These are the questions that ring out like a final hollow bell tolling at the end of a civilisation, where the last threads of meaning have been severed and discarded. Notions of artistic struggle, of striving, of triumph over adversity, personal pride, desire, delight, inspiration, and resilience are dismissed as mere obstacles or indulgences on the way to the new and gleaming product – the AI-generated song, perfect in its cynicism, magnificent in its emptiness.

I often wonder why musicians don’t seem more alarmed by the rise of these songwriting generators. But perhaps I am hopelessly out of touch with how the world functions, and don’t fully understand the immense positive potential they may offer. No doubt there is some truth to this, but at the same time I believe we musicians and songwriters are sleepwalking into a situation where we allow this technology to strip the world of one of the last genuine transcendent experiences left to us – man-made music – by surrendering our souls to a machine. What does this say about us, that we so passively acquiesce? Are we not the valiant knights, the truth-tellers, the beauty-makers, who journey to the dark side, slay the dragon, and bring back the dripping treasure? Are we not the guardians of the world’s soul?

You have embarked on a noble path, Marshal, and my advice to you is to fully offer up your messy, broken, limited, disastrous human self to the act of creation, and through that eternal alchemical sleight of hand, write a song that is new, beautiful, and awe-inspiring. And then go and do it again. Become the all-singing, all-dancing, all-human answer to this most dark and demoralised question: “This world has no meaning. Why bother?”

Love, Nick