While everyone else was chasing whatever was plastered across the commercial charts, he was knee-deep in the strange, obscure, and wonderfully alternative sounds of early-1980s UK post-punk and indie.
This was the era before the internet, MP3s, or streaming services. Back then, currency came in the form of Maxell cassettes. He would hand me tapes filled with dark, atmospheric tracks that lived light-years away from the mainstream hit parades. Through those scratchy cassettes, my world opened up. I fell head over heels for bands like Joy Division, Soft Cell, The Teardrop Explodes, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Cure, and most importantly, The Smiths at a remarkably early age.
That music grabbed hold of me and never let go. Decades later, those sounds still echo in my chest.
Recreating the Ghost in the Machine
When I discovered that modern AI tools could help translate the music swirling inside my head into actual audio, I knew I had to try it. I wanted to chase the vibes, the moody atmospheres, and the distinct soundscapes of that golden era.
I’ve had varying degrees of success along the way. But with my latest track, “WHICH SUICIDE ARE YOU ON”, I’ve finally come remarkably close.
This is a song I poured a tremendous amount of time and care into. And I’ll admit it: it’s finally ready for the world, and I am immensely proud of it. To my ears, it oozes everything I fell in love with about early-80s British alternative music. The driving dynamics, the sparse yet piercing instrumentation, the heavy atmosphere—it’s all there. Just listen to that pitch-perfect, utterly period-authentic guitar line right around the 45-second mark. It is completely spot on.
Words Born from the Underground
I feel equally good about how the lyrics turned out.
The lyrics could easily have been written by a British alternative band in the first half of the 1980s. Its combination of melancholy, alienation, dry humour and social observation is strongly rooted in the post-punk and emerging indie scene of the period.
I honestly don’t know what you’ll think when you hear it, but I genuinely believe this is the absolute best piece of music I’ve managed to pull together in the two and a half years I’ve been experimenting with AI music production.
It sounds coming out of the speakers precisely the way I heard it inside my head the very first time. It took a long time to drag it out into reality, but looking back? Every second of the work was worth it.
Listen to “Which Suicide are You On?” on Spotify.
Listen to “Which Suicide are You On?” on Suno.
Listen to “Which Suicide are You On? (Album Version)” on Suno.
Which Suicide are You On? – Lyrics
You arrived late
With your hospital smile
And a cigarette balanced
Like bad news with style
The barmaid sighed
“Oh no, not him again…”
As if disappointment
Could be a lifelong friend
And you said:
“Love is merely theatre
For the badly dressed”
Then adjusted your collar
And asked for the rest
So tell me—
Which suicide are you on?
The glamorous one?
The one done for fun?
The poetic collapse
In a second-hand room?
Or the slow little death
Of permanent gloom?
You quote dead French writers
To girls who sell shoes
And they nod sympathetically
Without reading the news
Your laughter sounds like
A train leaving town
Full of people with futures
While you stand around
Mother says
“You could’ve been something respectable”
But respectable people
Seem clinically unbearable
And your friends all vanished
Into mortgages and soup
While you remained faithfully
Outside the loop
So tell me—
Which suicide are you on?
The dramatic affair?
The invisible one?
The nightly performance
Of “I’m perfectly fine”
With your shoes full of rain
And cheap supermarket wine
The DJ plays happy songs
For unhappy men
And everyone dances
To forget themselves again
You lean toward me softly
Like a beautiful mistake
And whisper:
“I don’t want to die…
I just don’t wish to participate.”
