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As many of you know, I’ve been writing poetry all my life. What you might not have known is that many of my poems have been written as song lyrics but never put into song. I can often hear the tune inside, but I’m not a musician, so nobody hears them but me.

Over the years, I’ve been fortunate to write some lyrics for some of my musician friends, but that’s been the exception, not the rule. Understandably, most musicians prefer to write their own music and lyrics. Advances in technology have now made it possible for me to get the music I hear inside into a form that I can share with others. So, I am posting this link to my page, DunningFarm, on sonu.com. As I write this, I have 8 songs ready for listening. You’ll find that the styles include, country, folk, and medieval folk, with lots of other influences thrown in.

Regardless of which style I use, all the lyrics have contemplative, spiritual, mystical, and philosophical themes. To some folks, those themes might seem odd for country songs, but the instrumentations and vocalizations of country have been flowing through me since before I can remember. So, they tap into deep parts of me, and I find them naturally evocative of a wide range of emotions. I believe they’re also effective in communicating profound ideas.

In the monitors of Freemasonry, we can find words like these:

Music is that elevated science which affects the passions by sound. There are few who have not felt its charms and acknowledged its expressions to be intelligible to the heart. It is a language of delightful sensations, far more eloquent than words; it breathes to the ear the clearest intimations; it touches, and gently agitates the agreeable and sublime passions; it wraps us in melancholy, and elevates us in joy; it dissolves and inflames; it melts us in tenderness and excites to war. This science is truly congenial to the nature of man, for, by its powerful charms, the most discordant passions may be harmonized and brought into perfect unison, but it never sounds with such seraphic harmony as when employed in singing hymns of gratitude to the Creator of the Universe.

I hope what I’m doing lives up to that description. Now, I feel I should tell you that the technology I am using is AI. I know that will spoil it for some people, and I get that. If I were trying to make money with these songs, then I would have my own ethical issues with it. But my aim is simply to share thoughts and feelings in a more moving way than words alone. It might also be meaningful to note that each song represents not only all the genuine human inspiration and effort of crafting the lyrics, but also hours of working with the technology to form the music the way I want it.

Finally, to all you readers who are real singers, songwriters, and musicians who aren’t using AI to help craft your music, I am in awe of your talent and the labor of love through which you express it. What I am doing here pales in comparison.