Using AI to Give Myself a Theme Song

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Sanjay Says on 
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Blown away.

The first time I typed a search query into Google. The first time I pressed the accelerator in a Tesla, the first time Siri told me a joke, and the first time I used chatGPT. 

And now, the first time I asked AI to write a theme song for me. I know, I know. This is not something you readers have asked for, but as Steve Jobs or somebody else once said, “Never ask the customer what they want or they’ll ask for faster horses and shorter newsletters.”

I used AI music generation engine Udio.com, and it was completely free. Here is what I typed into the text window:

A song to inspire people to read a newsletter called “Sanjay Says” about how to improve their lives by learning from the mistakes of Sanjay, uplifting, style of Def Leppard, pop song, rock.

Here’s the first verse Udio delivered: 

Word by word (gotta hear)
He drops knowledge like a wave
Turn the noise (loud and clear)
Sanjay’s voice will make you brave

As with ChatGPT, it’s impressive as hell until you look closely. I love ‘He drops knowledge like a wave’, but ‘Turn the noise, loud and clear’? Still, I believe it gets the message across, and it took all of 20 seconds to generate, with accompanying vocals and instrumentation. 

I was impressed, my family less so. I was sitting in our living room playing with the Udio website, adding sections to my song, when my teenage son came in from the next room and asked me, “What is this? Are you creating a song about yourself?”

“Yes, isn’t it awesome?” I smiled and turned up the volume on the chorus.

Raise your voice, let’s make some noise
Sanjay’s spirit, hard to ignore

“Does your ego have no bounds?” he exclaimed in frustration, then stomped up the stairs to his bedroom.

“It’s for research,” I mumbled to myself as he disappeared. 

“Turn down that racket or close the door!” My wife yelled from the upstairs bedroom where she was trying to read a book. 

I live in cultural squalor, my talent is unappreciated. So I doubled down, went into my office and recorded a music video of my song. No AI. Just raw talent. That’ll show them.

I proudly played the video for my wife the next morning. 

“You’re not going to show this to anyone else are you?” was her only comment.

I choose defiance. Here is the music video.

1. Link to the Udio.com website with my full song + lyrics, and video on TikTok.

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