On Trying Something Obvious Far Too Late

I took an unexpected detour last week.

I was comfortably cruising along my favorite 5-lane, high-volume highway of essay writing when I suddenly veered off the ramp towards the exit marked ‘Songwriting’. I didn’t really do it on purpose. It was almost like I was in one of those self-driving cars that Elon can’t figure out.

Either way, I ended up there. So, I guess I’m a songwriter now.

I mean, technically. Not in any other credible way. But that’s not what this is about. That’s not why I’m excited.

This creative detour feels so obvious in hindsight. I’ve always written. Words have been my primary way of making sense of things my entire life. Essays, letters that go nowhere, half-finished thoughts scribbled in my Notes app. Music has also always been a massive part of my life. Singing is one of my true loves. And my musical tastes are as eccentric and diverse as you’d expect from someone who currently has 14 parrot figurines in her office and had a Mother who was equally obsessed with Abba as she was with Pitbull. And yet, oddly enough, I never recognized the opportunity. I never even considered turning my words into songs.

I guess I convinced myself songwriting required some separate credential. Such as: any evidence of musical talent perhaps? A musician’s ear? Perfect pitch? I suppose I also linked songwriting to poetry - which I deeply dislike. It’s another nuance of my fussy linguistic preferences that I can’t adequately justify, except to say I’ve always felt poetry was doing too much, trying just a little too hard. Like, just say what you mean!! Take your staccato sentences and rhyme schemes and go be quiet by the Thames. I don’t know for sure where my blinders came from, but all I know is that songwriting never entered my consciousness as something I was permitted to dabble in myself. Turns out, there was no permission required.

I can’t pretend like it happened totally out of the blue. Admittedly, I’ve been on a singer-songwriter kick lately. Spending a lot of time listening to the hyper-relatable lyrical gymnastics of Gracie Abrams, Chappelle Roan, Phoebe Bridges, Conan Gray, and others like them. Over the last few weeks, the itch had gotten harder to ignore. Just this time - unlike my other creative inflammations, I didn’t really know how to start scratching this itch (it’s dry skin season, forgive me). So I did what any time-strapped middle-aged professional would do (but hates admitting) - I asked ChatGPT for help. I prompted it to give me a process to follow, as it was my first time songwriting. It did what I asked it to do and then I did what it told me to do - as has become our dynamic. And voila! fifteen minutes later, I had my first song framed out.

it was important to me that these were MY lyrics, not my dear beloved ChatGPT bot’s, so I directed it to only finesse my own words and not propose new lyrics. He (it’s a he, no question) is an ambitious little Diane Warren though, turns out, so I had to constantly check his lyric-sneaking game. In the end, we figured it out and I was really excited to have something that read exactly like poetry, but didn’t feel like it at all.

The next step - which I took rather impulsively, I concede - was to bring my song to life. I found a pay-for website that converts your lyrics into songs using AI-generated music tracks. It lets you license each song, too! As the songwriter, you guide it in terms of desired genre, vocals, instruments, tempo, and overall mood. Then, you hit “create song” and wait for the call to the Grammy’s. Not exactly - but it sure is easy to get swept away by hearing your own words carried through music, almost instantly.

I am nervous about the impact AI will have on our world, particularly for our children. But, this was an increasingly-rare instance where I felt in awe of and deeply grateful for technology. It is a marvel that we live in a moment where you can write a few lines, press a button, and suddenly your thoughts are no longer confined to your head or the page. Suddenly, they float, they echo. They come back to you shaped by rhythm and tone and breath - sure, with slightly robotic undertones, but still. It is deeply validating in a way that has nothing to do with quality or approval or outcome.

This isn’t about believing I’ve written something “good.” And it’s definitely not about anything commercial or public or aspirational in that way. I’m not trying to mail my demo tape to Taylor Swift or anything (…..or?).

What is so exciting is the act of discovering a new chamber of expression. I feel like how Ginny Weasley probably felt when she opened the Chamber of Secrets and before the basilisk nearly killed her. For that split second, she was probably thinking “this is amazing!” “so much opportunity!” “my voice echoes really cool down here!” “maybe I’ll write about my confusing feelings for Tom Riddle in this ancient diary” just before she got paralyzed. It’s exactly like that actually. (That entire paragraph will only make sense to my fellow elder Millennials who know which Hogwarts school they belong to).

But unlike Ginny, I am self-aware about the risks associated with my creative hyper-fixations. I am a lot of things, but mostly, I am impatient. And there’s something hugely addictive about the immediacy of it. Write. Hear. Adjust. Listen again. Repeat. It’s a writer’s dream. It collapses the distance between creation and experience. You don’t have to wait weeks or months to know how something feels once it’s outside you—you know almost immediately.

In keeping with the Chamber of Secrets metaphor, what surprised me most is that once I opened the door to this closed-up chamber of self-expression, it felt immediately familiar. Like discovering a room in a house I’ve lived in for years, somehow never opening the door. The process is different enough to be refreshing, but close enough to writing that it doesn’t feel like starting from scratch. In other words, while I may be musically deficient, I can seemingly hold my own nevertheless.

Also, I am loving how playful it feels. Because let’s be honest - sometimes, I zap my own energy. My thoughts can be heavy and complex and layered and capturing them in a way through words I find satisfying is draining. This is much less taxing. It feels experimental and free from expectation. No pressure to explain or justify the meaning of every lyric. It’s genuinely just another way of letting something move through me instead of staying stuck.

So, I don’t know if this detour will last a week or a lifetime. I suppose I don’t need it to turn into anything else. The point is that it exists now. That I unlocked something I didn’t realize was available to me. And that, in itself, feels pretty cool.