Songtell
songtell.com
Songtell
1–10 of 83 posts
Re: Songtell
#2I spent a lot of time in the early 2000s on discussion forums and songmeanings.net learning about and contributing to interpretations and meanings of songs.
This is an interesting concept (AI lyric interpretation) and my comment is something a bit deeper than this concept itself.
Perhaps I'm showing my age, but what makes lyric interpretation so cool is that it's the intersection of two people's life experiences - the song writer and the listener.
There's often no single meaning of a song. It may mean one thing for the writer and something completely different for the listener.
What happens in online communities where people talk about what song lyrics mean to them is the creation of actual community. That's both interesting and impactful.
Re: Songtell
#3Interesting search results
Tasman Keith - My Pelopolees -> Application error: a client-side exception has occurred
Search results for Not Drowning Waving - Tabaran ->
- James Joyce - Ulysses (Chap. 15 - Circe)
- Noam Chomsky - ”What We Say Goes”: The Middle East in the New World Order
- etc.
Re: Songtell
#4Interesting stuff. I did some searches on some songs I like and the general gist was right.
I tried it on American Pie and it seemed to match my understanding of the song, but this line stood out a bit:
> Additionally, the line “Them good old boys were drinkin' whiskey ‘n’ rye/ Singin’ ‘This’ll be the day that I die’” is a direct reference to Buddy Holly’s song “American Pie” which features the same line.
I wasn't aware Buddy Holly wrote a song literally called "American Pie" as well. Did some searching and I suspect it likely meant to refer to the Buddy Holly song "That'll Be the Day", which absolutely does not feature the line "Them good old boys were drinkin' whiskey 'n' rye".
Re: Songtell
#5According to creator, he is using OpenAI and cost to run it is 200$ in 2 days https://twitter.com/flaviolivolsi/status/1603782472847822852
"Kill Dash Nine" by Monzy is a rap song in which the artist compares himself to a computer programmer. The lyrics tell a story of a battle of words between the artist and a "fool" who is challenging him and boasting about his own skills. In computer lingo, kill dash nine is a shorthand way of saying "Kill Process 9" - a command that is used by a system administrator to end a task or process that is causing a problem on the system. In the song, Monzy is using this analogy to warn his audience that if they challenge him, they will be shut down. He is using his intelligence and technical knowledge as a way to prove his superiority, constantly reminding the other challenger that he is the one in control, and that if they step out of line, he will not hesitate to "kill dash nine" them.Re: Songtell
#6Interesting stuff. I did some searches on some songs I like and the general gist was right. I tried it on American Pie and it seemed to match my understanding of the song, but this line stood out a bit: > Additionally, the line “Them good old boys were drinkin' whiskey ‘n’ rye/ Singin’ ‘This’ll be the day that I die’” is a direct reference to Buddy Holly’s song “American Pie” which features the same line. I wasn't aw…
"American Pie" is an interesting test, in that so many people have read so many explicit references into it over time (many misinformed) that it would be almost impossible for a human relying only on the internet to guess which parts of the lore were accurate. A language model could be expected to regurgitate just as much nonsense as it had read on the subject.
"Visions of Johanna" is another epic that combines personal memoir, social commentary and political manifesto, and it's even more opaque. The legendary discussions around the meanings of these songs have gone on for 50 years.
Re: Songtell
#7This stuff sits alongside horoscopes, tarot reading and those "Like,
what kind of a girl are you like?" pop personality quizzes in
Seventeen magazine.
Most of it is bland grist and filler that elaborates and associates adjacent words to create a "cold reading". There is the occasional "spot-on" moment, barely above chance, that seems significant mainly because you never though of it before. And an equal crop of the apocryphal and dangerously wrong. That's worrying because unless examined and corrected this stuff will spread like weeds.
When it comes to song lyrics there's plenty pure nonsense, and words the writer by their own admission claim not to have any significance. I wonder how the algorithm would fare with the "Ning Nang Nong" by Spike Milligan, or something subtle but exquisitely ambiguous like Bowie's "Bewlay Brothers"?
Re: Songtell
#8I would say we still don't know:
Re: Songtell
#9I gave it a spin on https://www.songtell.com/the-beautiful-south/song-for-whoeve... and nope, haha, not quite...
https://genius.com/The-beautiful-south-song-for-whoever-lyri...
Also hilarious for missing context - https://www.songtell.com/father-ted/my-lovely-horse
Re: Songtell
#10This stuff sits alongside horoscopes, tarot reading and those "Like, what kind of a girl are you like?" pop personality quizzes in Seventeen magazine. Most of it is bland grist and filler that elaborates and associates adjacent words to create a "cold reading". There is the occasional "spot-on" moment, barely above chance, that seems significant mainly because you never though of it before. And an equal crop of the a…
Hey there! Founder here, thanks for the feedback.
You're right, the whole thing as it is right now is something light hearted. I spent no more than 2-3 hours of development on this before launching and didn't expect it going so viral at all. In order to make it more reliable than it is right now I think of implementing upvote/downvote buttons and a comment system.
I'm open to ideas if you think of any other ways to improve it!