Strike While The Iron Is Hot - A Case Study On Inspiration

So I was sitting in the airport the other day, waiting on a flight out to see my son in Los Angeles. Lo and behold, I found myself sitting at a gate in the Houston airport, and the number was 48. And that got me thinking about a song idea: "Gate 48." That could be a chorus hook.

So then I thought, what could this song possibly be about? I imagined it would be about a relationship between a man and a woman. They had been having issues throughout their life, and he had left home and gone away for a while. However, they had patched things up and were looking to possibly get back together.

He was at the airport, waiting at his gate (which happened to be number 48), and the flight was delayed. He had some time to kill, so he went and had a couple of glasses of wine and watched people walking back and forth through the airport.

This whole story started coming to me, and I thought it could be a great idea for a song. So, I started working on the song right there in the airport, calling it "Gate 48."

I put together the song mostly by myself, but I do use AI (Perplexity) to help me with lyric ideas. I use AI as a collaborator, not as a creator, per se. I think of AI as having one of the smartest but dumbest people in the room with you while you write. It needs your direction, but when it finally starts talking, you go, "Wow, that's pretty cool!" So, you can either accept it or reject it. No one gets their feelings hurt if you say, "nah, that stinks."

I kept working on it and came up with a good top line. I felt that I had a really strong top line because without a great top line, nobody's going to keep listening. I kept developing verse one and the chorus pretty quickly because that's where I started. I felt like, "Wow, okay, this is a pretty solid idea. I like it."

I kept honing it in, came up with verse one, and worked on it for about half an hour. My flight was delayed some more, so I went to verse two. The flight was delayed again, so I moved to the bridge, thinking I should try to change it up a little bit. Then, of course, I went back into the chorus and an outro. After a couple of hours of sitting there waiting on my flight, I thought the lyrics came out pretty strong.

I went over to my favorite music app, Suno, and prompted it for a country song since that's the style I write in. I asked Suno for a country song with a male baritone vocal because I like to pitch my songs to male singers. After a few passes back and forth, I finally started locking in on something I liked.

The cool thing about using Suno is that for every generation it creates, you can re-work your lyrics to make sure the AI sings them exactly how you envision. I like to think of myself as a producer in the studio with a vocalist and a band looking at me, asking, "What do you want us to do, boss?"

It's kind of like George Martin with The Beatles or Rick Rubin with all the bands he worked with. George was a fantastic musician and contributed to The Beatles' songs quite a bit. He had a vision and would tell the guys, "Why don't you do this? How about that?" If they couldn't do it, he did. George was actually prompting George, Paul, John and Ringo like they were stoned ChatGPTs (haha, they were sometimes, lol). The same goes for Rick and producers like Phil Spector and Brian Wilson back in the day.

Some did not play instruments, some did. But they all understood music and what made a song a great song. That's what I do with AI. As it gives me different generations, I hone the lyrics even more. I want it to sing a certain way, with a certain cadence and delivery. It's not just a one-button push to take the first thing that comes out.

Thankfully, my plane kept being delayed longer and longer (I've never ben happy about a delayed flight until this flight:). I eventually made it to Los Angeles, but it was about four hours delayed, which gave me enough time to put this entire song together.

You just never know when inspiration will hit you. I believe receiving inspiration is like playing catch with a higher power. That higher power to me is God, because let's face it, He's a pretty good creator! Inspiration continually falls like fluffy snowflakes. But if you're not looking for them, they will drop all around you, and you'll miss them. You have to be in a place to catch those inspiration flakes, looking up and looking out at your world.

If we're so focused on our own world and inside our own minds, we're going to miss them. I'm constantly looking up for inspiration and looking out for things that will inspire me for song ideas.

I hope you enjoyed Gate 48. Check it out. I hope it speaks to you like it spoke to me, and maybe it'll get cut one day.

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