How one AI music app made possible the controversial song “Last Remaining Bullet Hole Inside Annunciation” which remembers the 2025 Minnesota church killings.

Transcript:

Announcer: So, let’s be honest here. What’s taboo for you may not be taboo for me. Your taboo is yours. Whatever you want to do with your taboo is good by me. What’s taboo for you may not be taboo for me. Let’s get started now.

Narrator: This began this AI tool to help write a song. This experience began for me when I received an email that said, there’s this new thing called Google Flow Music, and I had never heard of that.

So I clicked on it, and I found a very appealing looking interface. For me, it was easy to use. Because I had used AI tools for many things. Mostly for research, you know, where you ask a question and then you get an answer back about something that your researching. I’ve used AI tools also to create images, still images, And I’ve used AI music tools as well. But this was something new–Google Flow Music.

So I went in for the very first time, And as I said, it was easy for me. I have experience with AI tools. No problem. So I said, alright. What am I gonna do? What’s a good test? And I had been thinking about Minneapolis, Minnesota; I had been thinking about what if I was going to write a song, what would I do with the song? Bruce Springsteen very recently wrote and recorded a song about Minneapolis.

And I wanted to be different. I wanted it to be more of kind of, I guess, a Bob Dylan type of song in a protest, complexity of lyrics. A song that violates certain rules of music–chorus verse chorus verse, that kind of thing, middle eight. And other musical terms. Bob Dylan violates those rules all the time. And he can. He’s Bob Dylan. Okay?

So I thought what, let’s try this. I will write and you gotta start somewhere. I started with the lyrics. And I wrote the lyrics, and I am a storyteller. So I know how to tell a story using words. But writing lyrics is a very special thing. Because it’s not like if you write prose or even open verse poetry. It doesn’t always turn out terribly good. You know, because you gotta be really good at it. And I don’t have experience writing lyrics, but I thought, alright, I’m gonna just try this. Give it a go and see.

So I wrote the lyrics, out, typed them out on a typing keyboard, not a musical keyboard, which I also have. But this was a regular typewriter. The QWERTY typewriter connected to my desktop. So I wrote the lyrics and put the lyrics into Google Flow Music. Which all you do is copy and paste and you know, you put it in a box, and there you go.

So Google Flow Music named their AI as a producer. So I was dealing with a producer, which is a very well-known job title. We have producers that we’ve heard about in Hollywood, in television, in motion pictures, and there are producers in the music industry as well. One of the more famous ones is the late George Martin in England who produced the Beatles. So Google Flow Music says, okay, you got this producer, and it’s not a real person. They don’t breathe oxygen.

It’s just a name. For a machine or a computerized thing. Right? So I have a producer now and the producer is inside Google Flow Music. So I put the lyrics I had written about Minnesota, and then I added what I wanted the song to sound like to the listener.

And with this app, Google Flow Music, you can say things in simple language like, I want this song to be in a minor key. Now it assumes if someone were going to say that, and I did, it assumes you know what a minor key sounds like. And this is not about music. So if you wanna know what minor key sounds like, well, you gotta do a little research. But that’s what I told it. The producer inside Google Flow Music. And I told it minor key song. And other things. I said I wanted a male voice. I didn’t say I wanted a Bob Dylan voice. Because I didn’t wanna get into any intellectual property entanglements. You know? I didn’t wanna get sued.

So I didn’t think to make it sound, I didn’t want it to sound like Bob Dylan sounds. But I wanted that kind of, you know, what he is known for. And I already said, violating certain rules of music, chorus, verse, chorus verse, middle eight, blah blah blah.

And so I told the AI producer, these things I wanted the song to be once it was produced. The male voice, I gave as instructions gravelly voice, I said, gritty. What else? Well, gravely and gritty. Those are pretty specific, aren’t they?

And then I said I wanted a church organ like you hear in a church. You wouldn’t be surprised to hear a church organ, and a church choir. I said, I wanted that because, you know, you can everyone, I think, can recognize a church choir. And then I added I also want cinematic strings. Which means, you know, very well-arranged strings, not just people playing violins and cellos. And what not. It was cinematic sounding strings, which would be something like you would expect in a major Hollywood movie. You know, John Williams wrote it or other famous movie music composers have written cinematic sounding strings.

So I typed all these things in on my typewriter keyboard. Not a typewriter, but the keyboard’s connected to my laptop, and I’m plugged in using Google Flow Music. And once I was satisfied with the descriptions and text form and the lyrics, I had entered in first, then I pushed the button, and boom. A song was produced for me based on all that I had put into it. And to it meaning Google Flow Music. And it only took I swear it only took sixty seconds or maybe seventy seconds. It was very short turnaround.

And a song was produced inside Google Flow Music that the producer picked a title. The producer picked a title that was a question. “Where Are You Now?” Question mark. Which I didn’t like because I think if you’re gonna put a title of a song that’s asking a question, you know, you should make it something very interesting and very catchy.

An example would be, “Do You Know The Way to San Jose?” That’s a very catchy and very interesting song title that happens to be a question. But I did not think that the AI producer gave a very interesting title when the suggestion was, “Where Are You Now?” But I could easily change that after anyway, and I ended up changing it.

So I wanna present the world premiere of a song that I wrote and I co-produced with an AI app that is called Google Flow Music.

Once I got the song that the producer inside Google Flow Music had helped me to make possible. I listened to it, and I did certain things that a human producer would do, a music producer who breathes oxygen.

And that includes things like multitracking, like taking a voice and then playing it, the vocals, so that you have two voice instead of only one. I did that in one part of the song. I also moved some things around in the editing, switching around what the song, you know, that the AI didn’t do what you’re going to hear. It didn’t do everything. I had to work on it as well And I did you know, I made edits and I made changes. But it’s essentially, it came to be because of Google Flow Music. Along with me, my ideas, my descriptions, and this AI producer.

And I was blown away by how amazing this song sounded. And now I present the world premiere of a song that is called “The Last Remaining Bullet Hole Inside Annunciation”.

Song:

Someone shot a gun into a Catholic Church today
Oh Lord, Oh Lord. Look into my eyes
The shots cut through the statues
They are marble; they don’t bleed
Oh Lord, are you there?

Mother Mary! Show you care!
Oh Lord, oh Lord, Hear my prayer
Will anybody help to stop the dying?
Ah Lord, ah Lord, where are you?

The church in Minnesota is a faithful house of God
Where local people pray and sing each day
But then a shooter came and he acted very odd
He made the children run so far away
Oh Lord, oh Lord, are you listening?

Mother Mary! Show you care!
Oh Lord, oh Lord, hear my crying
Will anybody (anybody) help to stop the dying?
Ah Lord, ah Lord, ah Lord, ah Lord

One last remaining bullet hole inside Annunciation
Oh Lord, hear my shouting
We’ve all become like statues
We just don’t show we bleed
Ah Lord, take away our anger

Mother Mary, where are you?
Far away

Mother Mary! Show you care!
Oh Lord, oh Lord, hear my prayer
Will anybody help to stop the dying?
Ah Lord, ah Lord, where are you?

Announcer: Taboo is in the mind of the beholder. But you knew that already because you listen to this series of podcast episodes frequently. Thanks to you for joining us today to listen to the episode and be sure to tell others about what you heard here in this podcast. Thanks so much for listening.