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Written by J. Simpson and Benjamin Groff
Just because someone’s a talented musician doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a gifted lyricist. We can’t all be Bob Dylan or Kendrick Lamar. And let’s face it, people who can really pair both moving, insightful lyrics with catchy chord changes and memorable melodies are often a once-in-a-decade talent.
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As is the case with everything in 2023, AI is shaking up the world of lyric writing. In fact, we might be within the last generation of songwriters / artists who “don’t” use AI to assist in writing songs.
That’s right. Following the recent breakthroughs with ChatGPT, you can now use AI to automatically generate lyrics. As with everything having to do with AI art, creating AI lyrics is an artform in-and-of-itself.
Different AI lyric generators work differently. Some will produce whole songs. Others respond to prompts. Still others will write lyrics in the style of a particular artist. With that in mind, we’ve pulled together 5 of the best lyrics AIs to let you try them out for yourself and see which works best for you and your creative process.
The 5 Best Lyrics AI
Keyword To Lyrics
Keyword To Lyrics appears deceptively simple for whatever it has going on under the hood. It lets you input keywords to guide the output. You can also specify a ‘creativity level’, to let you fine-tune how out there and surreal the results are. You can also specify whether or not you want repetition.
Plugging in a series of nature-oriented words as a prompt yields:
“I’m out of here somewhere in outer space
There are no words to this song
So the future needs a better name
You’re the first to know”
or
“Carry on carry on
As the days grow long
The nights will go on
As the days grow long
I miss you…”
Earlier attempts yielded such gold as:
“I’m just gonna have another blow out like a pizza
I’ll probably be a stripper too, cause I’m a mix-a-d”
Making us wonder what they’re modeling their lyrics on. Whatever it is, it’s definitely a sign that you’ll need to tweak Keywords To Lyrics to get usable results.
These Lyrics Do Not Exist
These Lyrics Do Not Exist is more of an automated AI lyric generator. It’s got a slicker interface than Keywords To Lyrics, which is a plus. It’s not as customizable, though, which makes it not quite as useful as other lyrics AIs on our list.
These Lyrics Do Not Exist lets you pick between six different musical styles and five different moods. You can generate lyrics for a very happy EDM song, for example. You can also provide a topic for your song.
When asked to create a very sad metal song about a forest, we get:
Verse 2
The winter has come
The forest is full of wolf
The soil is sick
The soil is bare
Pre-Chorus
Look to the woods as far as you fear man
The damnation of the forest people began
Not bad, right? You can start to hear the blastbeats and scorching lead guitar from these six short lines. We’ll let you decide if “That appears like a forest burning, smelling of smoke/You gotta burn it down to get higher!” is inspired or not.
Like Keywords To Lyrics, These Lyrics Do Not Exist is mostly useful as a creative prompt to spark some inspiration. You’ll most likely need to tweak the results a bit, or flesh them out with some of your own words. There’s definitely inspiration to be had, however!
Masterpiece Generator
Masterpiece Generator is close to living up to its name. It’s one of the most inspiring, impressive and, most notable of all, useful lyric AIs on our list.
Masterpiece Generator is extensively customizable, which is its main selling point. You can specify if you want a line-by-line song, a rhyming song, or various moods and styles. Even more impressively, Masterpiece Generator can create lyrics in the style of popular artists. You just have to fill in its prompts and it will create your very own Taylor Swift or Adele song (if only!).
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This Love is Lovely But It’s Luminous
By dessicant (AI Generated)
In the style of Taylor Swift
We were both sweet when I first saw you.
You fly and the flashback starts:
Venus is where I’m standing in the autumn air.
What are you doing with that new lover?
Who wears that inspiring leather jacket,
When I wear a shining sunglasses,
Dreaming about the day when you wake up and find
That what you’re looking for is my brilliant eyes.
So this is me running,
Standing in front of you saying, “You’re the finest!”
And I go back to autumn all the time.
It turns out freedom ain’t nothing but climbing lovingly,
Wishing I’d realised it’s night.
I’d go back to autumn, turn around and do some falling.
I go back to autumn quite often.
Love, let’s do some laughing,
This love is lovely but it’s luminous.
It’s a love story, love,
Just be my liberating fox.
We are never ever ever going to try collapsing happily together,
We are never ever ever going to try collapsing happily together,
You go talk to your sister, talk to my mother, talk to me,
But we are never ever ever ever going to try collapsing happily together,
Just imploding brilliantly forever.
you’re the finest love, you’re the finest.
Not bad, right! Again, probably needs some fine-tuning to be totally useful. “Just imploding brilliantly forever” is, indeed, rather brilliant though.
Bored Humans
Bored Humans is the truest example of a true lyric AI on our list. It creates an entire, original song with the push of one button. That also means it’s one of the least customizable lyric AIs on our list, though.
Bored Humans is trained on a database containing thousands of lyrics. This library makes Bored Humans’ output impressively musical. Musical does not necessarily mean sensible, keep in mind.
Our experiments with Bored Humans yielded the following:
In Your World
Verse 1
My eyes have found
Wherever you might hide
My mind has heard it heard
You’re the one who’s lost
In your world
Your eyes have found
Chorus
Wherever you might hide
‘Til your eyes have heard it heard
You’re the one who’s lost
In your world
Verse 2
Your eyes have found
Wherever you might hide
‘Til your eyes have heard it heard
You’re the one who’s lost
In your world
You’re the one who’s lost
Chorus
Wherever you might hide
‘Til your eyes have heard it heard
You’re the one who’s lost
In your world
“You’re the one who’s lost” is giving some Evanescence vibes perhaps? You can practically hear some cello and some slamming palm-muted guitars while Amy Lee gives it her all. “‘Til Your eyes have heard it heard” is gibberish, but it’s not the least grammatically sensible thing we’ve ever heard in metal.
Freshbots
At the beginning of this article, we mentioned how a talent like Bob Dylan’s comes along only once in a generation. With Freshbots, it can come twice in ten minutes (sarcastically typed – but hey, you never know).
Freshbots is trained on a large dataset of many of the world’s most talented lyricists, who can be used as models in Freshbot’s AI lyrics generator. You can choose from everyone from Dylan to Christina Aguilera to Gucci Mane or Rihanna, You can also choose between 8, 16, and 24 bars.
When we selected the Bob Dylan bot with 8 bars, we got:
And he shuffled down the highway 51.
And then the greek appears on the highway 51.
Now when I’ll treat the way we all want what’s his
When my time it is,
Come on, give it all away.
Her color shall be blue.
Why you don’t believe in mercy
I’m on the doorpost
I got a covenant too.
But if you want to.
I make the yule-tide gay
But to me than my heart
And i tried them all for the show
If the poor immigrant
Well, i’ve spent my money on you
You can play with guns
I went out all around it
So i look your eyes
I’m gonna do what i’m trying to say?
Lawman on your hands.
I’ll always hear my sad complaint
Looking at my service
I know you’re gonna raise the roof until the day
Locked in a blaze
And when the moon and empty skies
Oh, me and frown
Now, for recreation, we went into the east
You can come up where the stars
I went down to the bowery slums
If you could go under,
And gives it to the corner,
Next to come together
“And then the Greek appears on Highway 51” feels more Doors than Dylan. “I went down to the bowery slums/if you could go under/And gives it to the corner,/Next to come together” is fairly inspired, though, and barely needs any polishing.
Final Thoughts On Lyrics AI
Preliminary investigations into lyric AIs illustrate that these emerging tools are worthy of a look, even if they’re still fully coming into their own. We might not yet be at a point where you can reveal some timeless truth about the human condition with the push of a button.
That might not ever be possible. AI and machine learning has a long way to go until that’s a reality.
Even so, AI lyric generators are a useful and inspiring tool to have in your toolkit. They’re perfect for when you’re feeling stuck and just need a jolt of inspiration. They’re great for helping you to get outside of yourself, your comfort zone, and break you out of habits and ruts you might find yourself stuck in.
As musicians and artists, we can never have too many tools at our disposal. Everything is worth looking at, even if it doesn’t end up sticking. We have a feeling at least one of the lyric AIs will stick with you, though, becoming a regular source of ideas and inspiration.
