Creating Randy Tucker and Whiskey Rodeo Part 3

Making Music

 on 2025-04-19 in Insights | ,

Thanks for joining me on my creative journey! As the creator behind “Randy Tucker” and “Whiskey Rodeo”, I’m excited to share my workflow with you! You can find other parts in this series of articles at the links below:

Developing the Album: Refining Song Concepts

With the album concept “Corporate Cowboy” in place, the real work began. As mentioned in the previous article, many aligned Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT or Claude.AI tend to lack the “edge” required for impactful songwriting. At this stage, you should have a solid album concept and preliminary track listing that seems reasonable. However, it’s not uncommon for some song concepts to just miss the mark.

Sample Song Concept

Here’s the initial concept that led to the song “Liquidation Sale” on “Corporate Cowboy”. You’ll be able to see how this changed later in the article.

"Big Box Funeral"
- Concept: A darkly humorous track about how small-town businesses are killed off by big box stores, leaving empty storefronts and ghost towns.
- Musical Style: Cowpunk with a gothic twist, eerie organ, frenetic bass, brooding lyrics.

Re-evaluating Song Concepts

If a song concept doesn’t resonate, my recommendation is to take a few days to consider different angles or approaches you could take with the concept. I often like to look ahead to the next song on an album and do this anyway. In my experience you’ll find one of the following:

  1. Clarity of Action: You’ll come up with some ideas that will adapt the concept to your broader creative vision, often making the concept more compelling and nuanced.
  2. An Entirely New Concept: By thinking about the concept, you’ll discover a completely new idea that resonates with you more strongly, allowing you to pivot towards this new song concept.

The Importance of Resonance and Creative Integrity

It’s important to recognize that AI tools eliminate writer’s block. Normally if an idea isn’t very good, you won’t be very enthusiastic about working on it. AI has no such reservations. While it might just be tempting to force an idea, I suggest avoiding this as much as possible. Writing a good song becomes significantly easier and more fulfilling when the underlying concept genuinely resonates with you. This authenticity is really important and can be felt in the final product.

Collaborating with AI for Deeper Insights

If you do find yourself feeling stuck and uninspired, don’t hesitate to discuss it with the AI. LLMs make great “rubber ducks” and are a good way to come up with new ideas. The important thing is to feel confident about the song concept before moving onto the next stage in the workflow.

Generating Song Drafts

Now that you have a solid song concept to work on, let’s set the context for the LLM. We will paste in all the relevant background info we have worked to develop so that the AI has a better understanding of what we want. Here’s an example of the prompting and the initial output I used to create the song “Liquidation Sale” from “Corporate Cowboy”:

Establishing the Persona

Can you help me with some songs for an AI-Generated music project I am working on? These songs are intended for the following character:

< Your character's name. >

- Bio: < Your character's bio. >
- Physical Description: < Your character's physical description. >
- Personality: < Your character's personality. >

Can I tell you a bit about the album we will be working on?

Explaining The Album Concept

The songs we will be working on are for the following album:

Corporate Cowboys

- Theme: A biting critique of corporate culture and the tension between rural life and the creeping influence of big business. This album explores the way that small towns and blue-collar communities get swallowed up by faceless conglomerates, but also how folks adapt, resist, and find moments of dark humor amidst it all.
- Musical Direction: A mix of cowpunk and Americana with distorted, reverb-heavy guitar riffs and honky-tonk piano, creating a feeling of gritty rebellion. Expect fast-paced, raucous tracks balanced by slower, more reflective songs that evoke the loneliness of rural landscapes.
- Lyric Ideas: Tracks might touch on topics like working dead-end jobs, surviving on cheap whiskey and cigarettes, watching family-owned businesses get turned into chain stores, and the absurdity of corporate-speak invading everyday life.

Can I tell you a bit about how I like to structure songs?

Describing the Desired Song Structure

I suppose this is similar to a popular rock structure, but this typically works for most songs I work on:

[intro]

[verse 1 - 8 lines]

[chorus - 4 lines]

[verse 2 - 8 lines]

[chorus - 4 lines]

[breakdown - 8 bars]

[bridge - 4 lines]

[solo - 16 bars]

[chorus - 8 lines]

[chorus - 8 lines]

[end]

There is no need to generate duplicate sections or instrumental portions of songs. I will be providing song titles and concept descriptions. Can I have you write some lyrics for different song ideas now?

Song Prompt

Can you draft lyrics with a similar song structure for Whiskey's next idea?

"Big Box Funeral"

- Concept: A darkly humorous track about how online retailers kill off big box stores with prices too good to be true, an ironic echo of the way those very big box stores displaced small local businesses. The song subtly examines the contradictions of late stage capitalism through the lens of a Kafkaesque economy where folks struggling to save a dime play a role in their own downward spiral, working grueling fulfillment center and gig jobs leaving empty storefronts and ghost towns residents can no longer afford to live in. In an unsustainable story of consolidation and Capitalism eating its own tail.
- Musical Style: Cowpunk with a psychobilly twist, eerie organ, frenetic bass, reverb guitar, brooding baritone gravel

Initial Output

[Verse 1]
Empty parking lot where giants used to roam
Now the weeds grow wild through cracking foam
Blue vest ghosts still haunt these aisles
Replaced by brown truck drivers running miles

Used to kill the Mom and Pops with lower costs
Now the robots dance on everything we lost
Working graveyard shifts in fulfillment hell
To afford the deals that rang our funeral bell

[Chorus]
Big Box Funeral, ain't it grand?
Capitalism's eating its own brand
Click-click-buying our way down
To another boarded up ghost town

[Verse 2]
Door-to-door delivery of our own demise
While the algorithms optimize
Gig economy vultures picking clean
The bones of every retail dream

Find it cheaper online, they say
While Main Street fades another day
Living in our cars to pack their shelves
Digging graves we ordered for ourselves

[Bridge]
The screen says "buy now"
While the town says "die now"
One-click convenience
Is our planned obsolescence

[Final Chorus]
Big Box Funeral, ain't it grand?
Capitalism's eating its own brand
Click-click-buying our way down
To another boarded up ghost town

Prime delivery of decay
While the jobs all float away
Digital coffins, virtual flowers
For the retail graveyard we call ours

Refining the Lyrics

Creating compelling lyrics is probably the most crucial step in this workflow. While AI-generated lyrics serve as a valuable starting point, they often require significant refinement to achieve the desired impact.

If you’re like me, you might find that initial drafts produced by LLMs like ChatGPT or Claude.AI fall short. That’s OK! We’re only using these drafts as a foundation to help us build more nuanced and powerful songs.

Common Challenges with AI-Generated Lyrics

AI-generated lyrics often lack the depth and authenticity that come from human experience and emotion, even with all the added context we have provided. Some typical issues you might encounter when working with AI-generated lyrics include:

Tips for Revising Lyrics

Consider the following strategies when revising AI-generated lyrics:

  1. Addressing Structural Concerns
    • Align with genre conventions: Different music genres have distinct song structures. Consider what is typical of the genre you are working with and consider whether the AI-generated lyrics fit. Suno has difficulty with unusual song structures, but the pop format used above works well for Suno and many different genres though.
    • Manage syllable count: Consistent syllable counts per line help maintain smooth rhythm and flow. Aim for eight to ten syllables for most lines, which is ideal for many songwriters and compatible with Suno.
    • Establish consistent meter: Decide on a metrical pattern for your lyrics. Whether you choose a fixed (e.g., eight syllables every line) or alternating pattern (e.g., ten syllables one line, eight the next), consistency is key. Additionally, consider whether you will use contrasting meters in different sections of the song like verses, choruses, and the bridge.
  2. Enhancing Creative Vision
    • Ensure creative alignment: Do the AI-generated lyrics align with your creative vision? If they fall short, don’t hesitate to rewrite or adjust portions of the song. Ask how can I make it my own?
    • Develop a rhyming scheme: A well-crafted rhyming scheme is integral to most songs. As you revise the lyrics of the song, use a rhyming dicitionary to ensure that alterations or rewrites sound natural and cohesive.
  3. Maintaining Authenticity and Impact
    • Infuse personal experience: Think about how your own personal experiences and emotions relate to the lyrics. A good song will resonate with a broad audience, so chances are you have something inside you that you can add to the song. It doesn’t have to be big, sometimes subtle changes have outsized impacts.
    • Try to keep it relatable: Try to use storytelling or adapt personal anecdotes to keep songs relatable. I tend towards overbearing lyrics but I think that using AI in the creative process helps to mitigate this somewhat.

Generating Music

At this point, you should be well prepared to produce high-quality songs in a music generation tool like Suno. As of version 4.0, Suno can generate audio clips up to 4 minutes long, with the option to extend clips in two minute increments if needed. It’s worth noting that Suno may perform better with certain genres than others, and achieving the best results may require subtle adjustments. Don’t be afraid to experiment to find out what works best for you.

Tips for Maximizing Suno’s Potential

  1. Understand Genre Compatibility
    • Genre Suitability: Some genres generally seem more difficult to work with in Suno. In my experience these seem to be genres that might be poorly defined or underrepresented in training data sets. To my ear Suno isn’t very good with metal or specific subgenres like say, “post punk”. It’s clear that this is something Suno is working on, so this does change from update to update. I would recommend experimenting in your target genre to see if you are happy with the results before committing to a large project.
    • Adjusting for Genre: Sometimes you can work around genre limitations to achieve desired results. For example, Suno tends to have a bit of trouble with traditional blues and bluegrass song structures. Adding a bridge to replace one of the verses can help the song to fit into more of a popular song structure. Another technique is to try and use multiple genre tags if a sub-genre tag doesn’t seem to have good representation in the training data.
  2. Aim for Multiple Versions
    • Version goals: Typically I aim to generate at least four “good” versions for any given songs. Sometimes, I produce as many as eight or more to ensure I have plenty of options for the final cut of the album.
    • Quality over quantity: Focus on creating multiple high-quality versions rather than inundating your workspace with numerous low-quality clips. If I can’t salvage a clip to form a high-quality version of the song, I delete it.
  3. Maintain a Clean Workspace
    • Immediate deletion: Suno’s workspace can quickly become cluttered. I recommend deleting clips you don’t like immediately to keep the workspace organized and manageable.
    • Focused refinement: When you extend or edit a clip, concentrate on refining that specific version until you achieve a final version of the song you are happy with. This focused approach helps to ensure you don’t end up trying to juggle multiple song variants at one time.
    • Organize final versions: Upvote the final versions you’re satisfied with to ensure they are easy to locate for download. Promptly remove any unsatisfactory or intermediate clips to maintain a clean and efficient workspace.
  4. Embrace Iterative Refinement
    • Continuous improvement: Don’t hesitate to revisit or tweak existing versions of songs. Starting with Suno 4.0, you can “remaster” and regenerate segments of existing tracks. If I find later on that the quality of a song is sub-par, sometimes it can be salvaged using these new tools.
    • Leverage AI strengths: Suno seems to receive updates approximately every 6 months. A lot changed in 2024 alone. Pay close attention to your outputs. Suno 4.0 brought a huge improvement in output fidelity but I have also noticed that certain artifacts appear more prevalent in heavier music. Try to pay attention to the AI’s strengths if you are looking for best results.

Suno Prompt with Revised Lyrics for “Liquidation Sale” on “Corporate Cowboy”

title: Liquidation Sale

style of music: cowpunk shuffle, crisp high quality production, frenetic bass, jangly guitar, dusty narrative twang, searing alienated critique

(note: A custom "Randy Tucker" Suno persona was used to augment the musical style.)

Lyrics:

[modal shift 2025]

[Intro, instrumental]

[Verse 1]
Empty parking lots full of weeds
Just another stage of disease
The blue vests that roamed these aisles
Swapped with brown trucks lined up for miles

Killed Mom and Pop with lower costs
Now robots dance on what they lost
Graveyard shifts in fulfillment hell
For the deals ringing our death bells

[Chorus]
Well it's a Big Box Liquidation Sale!
Poetic Justice (poetic justice)
Capitalism eating its tail
Thought you were safe? Everyone's for sell!

[Verse 2]
Door-to-door our own demise
While algorithms optimize
Gig economy snakes that feed
On dying American Dreams

Find it cheaper online, they say
While Main Street's fading away
Living in cars, picking their shelves
Digging graves we bought for ourselves

[Chorus]
Well it's a Big Box Liquidation Sale!
Poetic Justice (poetic justice)
Capitalism eating its tail
Thought you were safe? Everyone's for sell!

[Breakdown]

[Bridge]
You think this is bad?
(It's all part of the plan)
The rich get richer
(Don't misunderstand)

Today you're on top
(It's all part of the plan)
Tomorrow you're gone
(Don't misunderstand)

[Solo]

[Chorus]
Well it's a Big Box Liquidation Sale!
Poetic Justice (poetic justice)
Capitalism eating its tail
Thought you were safe? Everyone's for sell!

[Final Chorus]
Well it's a Big Box Liquidation Sale!
Poetic Justice (poetic justice)
Capitalism eating its tail
Thought you were safe? Everyone's for sell!

Don't you know (Don't you know)
Don't you know (Don't you know)
Don't you know (Don't you know)
Don't you know everyone's for sell?

[End]

Next Steps

Wow! This has been a long article! 😅 Join me next time for some insight on how I cut and mastered the album “Corporate Cowboy”. We’ll talk more about that in the next article. In the meantime, don’t forget to check out the Modal Shift Media YouTube channel for a selection of our AI-generated tracks, including “Liquidation Sale” which is live now!

✒️ Modal Shift | ⚙️ ChatGPT