This 1953 Fender Esquire belonged to Luther Perkins, who was a member of Cash’s first recording bands and played on all of the Man in Black’s foundational recordings for Sun Records—likely with this guitar. Perkins played this instrument during the period when Cash classics from “I Walk the Line” to “Folsom Prison Blues” were cut. John Carter Cash bought this 1959 Gibson Les Paul at Gruhn’s in Nashville. It has a neck that is atypically slim for its vintage and appears as part of the psychedelic guitar interplay on the Songwriter song “Drive On.”
Johnny Cash’s “Lost” Songwriter Album Arrives—30 Years After It Was First Recorded
Photo by Alan Messer
“The Man Comes Around” is a much-played song from the final album Johnny Cash recorded before his death in 2003, American IV: The Man Comes Around. Now, the Man in Black himself has come around again, as the voice and soul of a just-released album he initially cut in 1993, titled Songwriter.
John Bohlinger puts an AI tool to the test—and finds a dog that says meow.
The AI driven paradigm shift is upon us, and it’s happening much quicker than we anticipated. You’ve undoubtedly seen AI make amazing stuff, but I was shocked when I checked out AI songwriting site suno.com. When prompted, I typed: “An acoustic-rock-style song. Dog is a compassionate counselor to humans but secretly a serial killer.”
In roughly 20 seconds, Suno gave me two renditions of “The Whispering Canine.” The two-minute, three-verse versions of the song had a full-band recording, with a lead vocal bleeding with angst and well-placed harmonies. The lyrics were, for the most part, great—way better than any first draft I’ve had in a co-write.
If you want to hear “The Whispering Canine”, here’s a link: https://suno.com/song/4a8d8c14-e4b0-49db-9c33-57d36714f627
In the shadows, he hides,
A faithful companion, by your side
With empathetic eyes, he'll understand
But beware, my friend, of the murderous plan
He listens to your deepest thoughts
A compassionate counselor, never caught
But deep inside, his twisted scheme
He waits for the moment, to fulfill his dark dream
He licks your wounds, with gentle care
A loyal confidant, pretending to share
But as the night falls, he stalks his prey
A secret killer in the guise of a stray
The one glitch is that the AI used a solitary black cat in a scary alley rather than a dog. I don’t know if it mistook the image for a sinister dog or thought a cat was a better choice. Let’s face it, cats are far more likely to be serial killers than dogs. So maybe this gentle nudge from AI was a polite improvement. Of course, the title should probably be changed to “The Feline Whisper.”
“If I were still writing for a publisher, my songwriting would probably start with Suno … but I’d miss out on the journey, and that’s the best part.”
So what is Suno? Suno is a web-based, text-to-music generator that can whip up full songs in seconds from a simple text prompt. With the free version, Suno retains ownership of its masterpiece, but the sound recordings can be used for lawful, non-commercial purposes, with attribution credit to Suno. For $8 per month, Suno subscribers own the sound recording, as long as they comply with the terms of service. You can also use the songs commercially, for example, on YouTube or even uploading them to Spotify or Apple Music. The Suno site says: “Unleash Your Creativity: Dive into the world of music-making and let your imagination run wild. Happy composing!”
If this is composing, then ordering takeout is cooking dinner. AI creates songs much like humans do in a songwriting session. But instead of one to three people digging through their notes of clever words, phrases, and melodies they have heard, AI gleans the info from every song, movie, book, etc., and combines the pieces. The only ingredient missing is personal experience. AI uses the thoughts and experiences of everything that’s ever been written that makes it online.
AI is not bad for art. Art is going to be fine. AI will produce amazing work alone and in collaboration with humans, and humans will be inspired to stretch the envelope to outdo AI. But I do feel bad for my daughter’s generation. If I were still writing for a publisher, my songwriting would probably start with Suno, then I’d tweak the results, like adding a chorus to “The Whispering Canine.” But I’d miss out on the journey, and that’s the best part. Songwriting is an opportunity to deeply analyze the most interesting part of life: love, loss, heartache, compassionate serial-killer dogs, etc. Songwriting is hard and time-consuming, but it’s good for you to do hard things. The law of the universe is you get out of it what you put into it. If AI does all your heavy lifting emotionally and mentally, all you get is “The Whispering Canine,” not the experience, not the personal growth, not the challenge, not the sense of accomplishment, and, in the end, not the joy of creating something.
The Man in Black returns with the unreleased Songwriter album. John Carter Cash tells us the story.
“The Man Comes Around” is a much-played song from the final album Johnny Cash recorded before his death in 2003, American IV: The Man Comes Around. Now, the Man in Black himself has come around again, as the voice and soul of an album he initially cut in 1993, titled Songwriter. It hits the street on June 28.
For fans who know Cash only through his much-loved American Recordings series, this is a very different artist—healthy, vital, his signature baritone booming, his acoustic playing lively, percussive, and focused. This is the muscular Johnny Cash heard on his career-defining recordings, from his early Sun Records sides like “Cry! Cry! Cry!” and “Folsom Prison Blues” to “Ring of Fire” and “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” to later, less familiar hits like “The Baron” and “That Old Wheel.” In short, classic Cash—the performer who became an international icon and remains one even 21 years after his death.
I recently visited the Cash Cabin recording studio—a log cabin on the Cash family property in Hendersonville, Tennessee, that was originally built as a sanctuary where Johnny wrote songs and poetry—with PG’s video team of Chris Kies and Perry Bean to talk about Songwriter with John Carter Cash, the son of Johnny and June Carter Cash.
In addition to getting the lowdown on Songwriter from John Carter Cash, he showed us some of the iconic guitars—including original Johnny Cash lead guitarist Luther Perkin’s 1953 Fender Esquire and a Martin that was favored by the Man himself—that dwell at the busy private studio. Check out this visit.