Can I Turn Dad's Old-fashioned Poem into a Song?

Old-school rhymes meet modern times.

Show Your Work

I’m focused on finishing a video for next week, but I thought it might be fun to show you a bit of the process as it comes together.

The video script is good to go, and I've scheduled a call with my daughter to get a nice audio quote about her grandpa.

What I still want for this video is some music. Inside the script, there's this poem. Oops, I just gave away the spoiler for that video. Let's just keep it between us, ok?

The poem was written by my Dad. Here it is:

The Youth's Instructor for 1943 - Vol. 91 - No. 45, Page 11

This is clearly one of his early attempts at poetry. It's sincere and heartfelt, a young man in wartime turning to his faith. And I love it for that. But rhythmically? Let's just say it's not exactly marching band material.

And here's what I wonder: could this poem be turned into a song?

I could change the words around a bit, but I don't want to do that. It's not mine to change.

If you gave me a few weeks, I could turn it into something resembling a song. It wouldn't win any Grammys. Think: Key of C, 4/4 time, and a melody you could hum on five notes or less.

AI Music Producer

This is where the latest AI Music Generation tools come into play. There are many of these, although the two I hear about most are Suno and Udio. I’ve talked about these in the past. Suno version 4.0 is out now. It is improving.

The truth: I like real music, performed by real humans, where you can feel the emotion poured into an instrument from years of practice and passion. I don't want to replace the incredible music I hear from some of my friends online, and I’m not trying to displace Karen Carpenter, Billy Joel, or the Seattle Symphony.

But I am open to replacing that stuff they play in elevators. I'm also interested in creating something that simply wouldn't exist otherwise. And that's what we're looking at here. Personalized music.

These lyrics won't work for Elton John, even if he decided to wear some outrageously fabulous glasses decorated with crosses. So it’s really up to me, and Suno.

How To Get the Music You Want

There are many places online where people claim to have the secret prompting techniques you should use with Suno. Yeah, no, maybe. I think the biggest secret is that sometimes you can provide very detailed instructions, and they may or may not be followed. Other times you might provide almost no instructions, and the results are fabulous.

I prowl around on Suno and see what other people have done, and if I like it, I copy their prompts and change them as needed. I also really like a Medium article by Travis Nicholson. It may be behind a paywall, but I'll provide the link anyway, and if you do have access, it's good article with quite a few ideas. https://travisnicholson.medium.com/complete-list-of-prompts-styles-for-suno-ai-music-2024-33ecee85f180)

You can find plenty of tutorials online, so I'm not going to provide one here. I do have a few thoughts for this version:

• The voices in version 4.0 sound much less robotic and more human than they did previously.

• They’ve also added the ability to be able to crop your song, so if it sounds like it’s winding down, but then suddenly starts up again with some sort of weird ending, you can now chop that off without downloading the song to a Digital Audio Workstation.

• I write my own lyrics (when Dad hasn’t provided them), but if you are just wanting to play, and you don’t know what to write, it will write some words for you. How good will they be? I don’t know. If you try some, let me know.

• If you're impatient or in a hurry, this app is not for you. It's a tool that rewards determination. Almost always, I have to try multiple versions of a song before I find “the one.”

Suno is also stubborn. Do you want it to leave out the drums? Good luck. I don't dislike drums, but I don't want them here. If I wanted them, it probably wouldn't give me any. (Tip: Saying “No Drums” at the very beginning of the prompt seemed to work best.)

Do you think a hymn is something played on an organ in church with people holding hymnals? Nope. Suno thinks all hymns came from Opryland.

I tried “hymn” as my entire prompt in my first run. Here is a clip:

It's not bad. It does have a definite country/gospel feel. That's not my favorite. Sorry, country lovers. It's not you, it's me. But for the style, I like it. I just don't know exactly how I can mix elements of this into my video. I'll have to think about this one.

So I decided to stay with simple, but override the Opryland vibe with: "Hymn, Classical." Here's a bit of the result.

My parents used to listen to a men's quartet called The Kings Herald quartet. I could see the quartet singing this version. So if Mom and Dad were still here to listen, I would try to get behind this one. But it feels a kind of high-brow for a general group of family descendants with mixed musical tastes. If my grandkids listened all the way through, it would only happen because they're polite.

I tried several other styles:

• Folk hymn;

• hymn with organ music;

• Solo hymn; traditional liturgical style, steady organ accompaniment, reflective tone, classic church hymnal feel

No matter what I said, I got country-infused gospel. Come on, Suno. Go to music school. Or maybe I should go to Suno school. So I turned to some advice I got from Travis Nicholson's article.

I took one of his recommendations and modified it to be more in line with what I hear in my head. "Contemporary classical, soft gentle piano, emotive compositions, dynamic range, and nuanced performance, male vocals."

This is gentle and simple. I like the voice. My parents would be OK with it. And my grandkids might listen as well. Also, I think it would be easier to use in a video.

Version one is powerful, even if you're not big on Opryland. Version two was actually very well-done. You can really tell how drammatically the voices have improved. But it's a little over the top. Version three is simple, yet contemporary.

If you were trying to choose, which one would you pick? Let me know in the comments!

The idea of using music in family history projects may seem a bit offbeat, but personalized music that tells a family story or showcases an old family poem can add so much to an audio story about the family or as the background music to a family slide show. Just remember — in Suno-land, "hymn" translates to "country gospel," "No Drums" is a negotiation, and patience is a virtue you can't afford to lose.

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Here are full versions of these songs, in case you want to hear the entire arrangements.

Hymn (hints of Opryland)

Classical (hints of highbrow)

Note: This ends abruptly. If I were to use it, I would edit and fix that.

Contemporary Classical (soft and gentle)

Corrections:

1/26/25: I updated this to reflect the corrected last name of the Medium article author: Travis Nicholson.