Bridging the Gap
Transmuting Sonnets into Songs
Lately, I’ve been studying how poems become songs, how some syllabic sequences lend themselves to music while others fall flat. With a computer science background and a love of English, I endeavor to understand the mechanics of language as a medium for memetic transmission. What if melody could transform a forgettable poem into a memorable piece of music?
In my previous post, I used Gemini to compose a rendition of an old sonnet of mine, something that resembles an alternative rock song from the 90s. With about 57% fidelity to the original, it generated a set of lyrics that I proceeded to edit for quality. The resulting song synthesized by suno and another free song generator was a decent rendition that’s entirely listenable, bordering on above-average to my ear.
For this exercise, I set out to use the lyrics from ”Puzzled Expressions” as a template for the “B-side”. Again, I cannibalize an old sonnet I wrote in college to establish the body of the work. From there, I edit and refine the lyrics extrapolated by Gemini. For the sake of my A-B test, I modify each line with input from Gemini playing the role of a critical commentator. The result is a song that consists of 95% human writing.
You could say the following is a poet’s emulation of an LLM’s rendition of their original observation:
Some say life’s all about a state of bliss,
And I confess
It’s awfully hard to miss
That sweet seductiveness
Enticing us just to console
The ego that has taken full control,
Holding us in place like a psychic glue
To bind us to a broken point of view,
[Chorus]
But we are starving at the feast
Feeding the nature of the beast
We trade our spirit for this stuff
But it is never quite enough
No, it’s never quite enough
To fill the empty space
New rose without a vase
[Verse 2]
But when you think it through, it’s just the same
As claiming we’re entitled to the frame
Of mind that hews the world up for this use
Producing what’s been chosen as our muse,
Burnt money on the altar in pursuit
Of little things intended to subdue;
Whatever makes us swoon
‘Til it’s our turn to be hewn
[Chorus]
Yeah, we are starving at the feast
Feeding the nature of the beast
We trade our spirit for this stuff
But it is never quite enough
No, it’s never quite enough
To fill the empty space
New rose without a vase
[Bridge]
Is the spring in your step just a nervous tic?
Is the carrot on the stick making you feel sick?
We own the frame, but we lost the picture
We wrote the law, then rewrote the scripture.
[Guitar Solo]
[Chorus]
We are starving at the feast
Feeding the nature of the beast
We trade our spirit for this stuff
But it is never quite enough
No, it’s never quite enough
To fill the empty space
New rose without a vase
[Outro]
It’s all about a state of bliss...
(Just broken views)
Life’s for our own happiness...
(What will you choose?)
Another crack at broken views?
Gemini helped me with the initial adaptation of this sonnet I wrote:
They say it is about our happiness
And I confess that such attractiveness
Entices us to reassess our goal
Of having more in order to console
The ego that society has used
As glue to bind us to its broken views,
But when you think it through it’s just the same
As claiming we’re entitled to the frame
Of mind that hews the world up for this use,
Producing what we’ve chosen as our muse
And legal tender to pursue each thing
That may just bring about that missing spring.
The music video:
While I still appreciate the intellectual challenge of writing sonnets in a single sentence, I am now equally intrigued by lyric composition. It seems we found another door with a letter-shaped keyhole.
What should we study next?