My children have been actually into sea shanties recently (my household has eclectic musical tastes.)
There are a surprisingly giant variety of trendy shanties on YouTube and TikTok. However one historic track, The Wellermen, actually spoke to me.
Taking place a rabbit gap of the track’s historical past, I discovered that it was written in 1966 by a New Zealander. However the whaling basic was impressed by a a lot older track from 1820.
Finally, I discovered the lyrics to the unique. However there was an issue–the phrases have been cryptic and the melody was misplaced to the sands of time, making it not possible to sing.
So, I made a decision to leverage in the present day’s strongest music-generating AI to deliver it again. The result’s a contemporary shanty that pulls phrase for phrase on the nineteenth century authentic.
Spoiler alert: it’s a banger.
Right here’s how I made it–and what I discovered about the way forward for AI music.
The rise of ShantyTok
Throughout the pandemic, sea shanties had an odd cultural second.
The pattern was referred to as ShantyTok. Trendy creators found centuries-old shanties, and began adapting them for younger, streaming audiences.
Shanties work surprisingly effectively on social media. They’re usually easy, repetitive songs, designed to be sung communally.
They’re dramatic. And so they’re extremely story-driven, which inspires listeners to stay round and take heed to the entire thing, relatively than swiping away. TikTok and Youtube’s algorithms love that form of engagement.
With their messages of battle and resilience, shanties have been additionally good for the Covid-addled second. The result’s that Shantytok yielded actually unbelievable trendy renditions of historical classics.
Wellerman is an ideal instance. Collected and put to music by the folks musician Neil Colquhoun in 1966, it was tailored by trendy musician Nathan Evans and went viral on social media in 2021.
The track tells the story of a ship’s captain and his crew, locked in a mortal, unending battle with an elusive and highly effective whale.
If that sounds quite a bit just like the story of Moby Dick, that’s no coincidence. The web site New Zealand Folks Music has an excellent history of Wellermen. Colquhoun apparently based mostly his trendy model on a historic 1820 whaling shanty that his schoolteacher spouse present in an outdated e book.
That shanty, titled Mocha Dick, is approach darker than Wellermen–the complete crew dies on this one, as a substitute of merely pursuing a whale for all eternity.
Mocha Dick is predicated on an actual whale that reportedly drowned 100 males off the coast of Chile whereas evading seize, and the Smithsonian says that real-life whale inspired Melville’s iconic novel.
After I lastly discovered the lyrics to Mocha Dick on New Zealand Folks Music’s web site, I used to be initially excited, after which disenchanted.
In its present type, the track is mainly unsingable. The melody has been misplaced to historical past and the lyrics are robust to interpret–darkish, missing a discernible rhyme scheme, and stuffed with nineteenth century colloquialisms like “bully boys” and a great deal of references to very particular elements of whaling ships.
I wished to deliver it again to life and sing it with my children. So, I turned to AI to see if I may revive the track–and make it as a lot of an earworm as Wellerman.
AI pirates
To deliver the shanty again from the useless, I turned to Suno, probably the most highly effective music-generating AI in the marketplace, plunking down $10 for a month of Professional entry.
I sing in a choir and may maintain my very own with a ukulele. However you need to use Suno even if in case you have zero musical talent.
Suno’s system adapts to no matter inputs you present. You can provide it one thing so simple as a written idea (“demise metallic lullaby” or “acapella Python-themed polka”) and it’ll spit out a fully-produced track, full with vocals, instrumentation and canopy artwork.
But when you already know extra about music–or have supply materials to start out from–the system can be pleased to play Elton John to your Bernie Taupin, crafting music to match your lyrics and even remixing your authentic track.
In my case, I pasted the precise, 1820 lyrics of Mocha Dick into Suno’s interface. I then specified that I wished a “rousing sea shanty.” In lower than a minute, it had produced 4 completely different track variants.
Two have been vocal-forward, Irish-inflected tunes that sounded positive, however not like something particular. I instantly fell in love with the third one, though.
After a lilting begin with a single, gravely voice, the track launches right into a vigorous ballad, full with multi-part vocal harmonies–all imagined by Suno’s generative AI. My children assume it seems like a choir of pirates.
I named it William of Tyre after the doomed ship within the authentic track, spun up a graphic with Google’s Nano Banana, and uploaded it to YouTube.
Automated bangers
There’s quite a bit to love, musically, about Suno’s creation. After its quiet and subdued begin, the track slowly swells in depth–with the pirate choir offering delicate vocal backing–till the doomed crew confront the white whale.
At that climactic second, the tempo all of a sudden quickens, echoing the velocity and drama of the chase, earlier than slowing and adopting a mournful tone because the fictional William of Tyre is finally sunk.
There’s an odd lyrical part on the finish of the unique shanty during which the whale begins talking on to the crew. Suno does a terrific job making musical sense of this, bringing in a number of voices singing in a decrease register with an virtually monastic tone to recommend the voice of a large, seafaring leviathan.
Likewise–as a result of the unique shanty lacks the form of catchy, repeating refrain you’d discover in a contemporary track–Suno turns its single repeating line (“Blow my bully boys, blow”) into a robust chorus that caps off every verse.
The unique lyrics additionally lack a transparent ending–the track simply form of stops, and there isn’t even a remaining “Blow my bully boys!” to see us off.
Once more, Suno handles this musical ambiguity surprisingly effectively, ending the piece with a collection of shouted “OY OYs!” and a climactic drum solo.
To make sure, there are issues. For no purpose in any respect, Suno’s imagined singer pauses in the course of the primary “Bully boys” line. My finest guess is that Suno noticed a comma within the authentic lyrics, and interpreted it as a spot to randomly pause.
The AI additionally makes errors {that a} human would most likely catch. There’s a line in regards to the “bow” of the ship. Anybody with rudimentary nautical information would know learn how to pronounce that phrase in a ship-y context.
However Suno makes it sound just like the “bow” in “bow and arrow”. It’s a delicate mistake, however one which’s very telling of the track’s AI origins.
The way forward for music?
Regardless of its flaws, although, there’s an odd attraction to the track. I discover myself listening to it time and again.
So, is that this good for the world of music, or not?
Suno is already infamous within the music trade for flooding streaming platforms like Spotify with hundreds of thousands of songs that established musicians describe as “slop.”
A coalition of those musicians have already launched a Say No to Suno campaign. And the RIAA has reportedly filed suit against the company over copyright allegations.
I’m certain an actual historic musicologist would take heed to my AI-generated shanty and conclude that there’s nothing in any respect genuine about it. However after listening to the track quite a bit, I’d be leery of dismissing it too rapidly.
Certain, the unique shanty most likely sounded quite a bit completely different when it was sung within the 1820s. There was doubtless no choir of pirates with electrical devices offering dramatic musical backing.
Nonetheless, there’s one thing highly effective about listening to the track’s authentic, historic lyrics set to music–even when that music is imagined by AI.
Many strains in Mocha Dick made no sense to me after I merely learn the lyrics. Listening to them carried out provides them an emotional energy and resonance I by no means thought I’d discover within the two-century-old authentic.
A line that reads “Come increase your hand/My bully boys/And swear you’ll not flinch or worry/Whereas there’s a spar to maintain afloat” doesn’t hit very onerous once you first learn it.
However when it’s sung in a pleading but resolute tone by overlapping, harmonizing voices (even imagined ones) you all of a sudden notice that the fictional crew is aware of the grim destiny that awaits them as they confront the whale, but chooses to proceed anyway. It utterly adjustments the track.
That’s the actual energy of platforms like Suno. Creating AI-powered bangers is sweet. However the capability to breathe new life right into a long-forgotten set of lyrics–and to create an emotional bridge throughout centuries of time–is an impactful one.
Maybe William of Tyre isn’t traditionally correct or genuine to the unique. However all music has a novel and magical capability to stir the soul, lending resonance and energy to our frail, human phrases and struggles.
As I discovered from my experiment, that applies even when it’s written by a pc.
