The Hemlock and the Cross (2025)

Genre: Singer-songwriter/AI Collaboration

[NOTE: Please listen to “The Hemlock and the Cross” before you read this blog]

Many of the tunes of the Great American Songbook were written by a collaborative team of composer and lyricist: Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, George and Ira Gershwin, Lerner and Loewe, Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg, Jerome Kern and Johnny Mercer—and that’s just a partial list. Examples from the Boomer generation are Lennon and McCartney, Burt Bacharach and Hall David, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, David Gilmour and Roger Waters, Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Elton John and Bernie Taupin, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, etc. I’m sure you get my point.

This is all preface to the full disclosure that “The Hemlock and the Cross” represents a new type of collaboration befitting the times, between a human being (me) and several AI agents.

What does this mean? First, I did not write the music (neither the melody nor the chord changes); an AI agent called Suno did. Second, I did not write the first draft of the lyrics; ChatGPT did. I served in the capacity of a “prompt crafter,” lyric editor and co-author. I mixed the final result in my digital audio workstation and provided backup vocals for a lead singer who is definitely not me.

“The Hemlock and the Cross” was a musical experiment designed to answer this question: given a sophisticated prompt and some specific instructions for format and genre, how capable is artificial intelligence of producing a piece of music that has the power to move people in the same way original, “human” music often can? I invite you to tell me what you think.

If you don’t think it measures up to a fully human production, I’ll conveniently disavow any blame for the outcome. On the other hand, if you find the words compelling and the music moving, we should all have a conversation about what lies ahead in our futures since this month’s track was created in large part by robots.

Naturally, this raises some controversial issues about the future role of human beings in the process of creation and the thorny dilemma of who should get credit for an artistic work.

Here’s how it all happened…

In the summer of 2025 I chanced upon the work of the British political philosopher, John Gray, and started reading his book The Silence of Animals. His general pessimism about human beings seemed to fit my mood. In a section called “Tlön and History Without Two Afternoons”, Gray discusses a poem by Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges called “Things that Might Have Been,” which ends with this line: “History without two afternoons: that of the hemlock, that of the Cross.”

John Gray, an atheist, starts with the assumption that religion (Christianity included) is just a convenient myth, but he goes on to argue that the very idea of human progress and perfectibility (the basis of the Western world from Greek philosophy through the Enlightenment) is also a fiction. He sums up the chapter this way:

“Borges identifies two fictions that have shaped history in the west: Jesus on the cross and Socrates taking the hemlock. Seemingly at odds, these two deaths convey the same assurance. Jesus is an incarnation of God, an eternal Being, while Socrates [as represented by Plato] has access to a realm of eternal forms…It is true that, without those two afternoons, history would surely have been different. But life would still be ruled by fictions. Finding themselves in a world they do not understand human beings will always create imaginary worlds…” [p. 130-131]

As a lapsed Christian and ever fascinated with the life of Socrates, I decided to seize upon this image of the “two afternoons.” There are other figures throughout history who have been assassinated or martyred for their cause, but none put to death by the state and so significant to the history of Western Civilization as these two men. A song was in the making.   

I decided to see what ChapGPT would be able to do with a fairly sophisticated prompt related to the issues in the book. What I’m reproducing below is the exact “conversation” I had with my AI helper [my notes in brackets].

ChatGPT: I’d love to help with that! To get started, could you tell me a bit more about the kind of song you're imagining?

[This is the verbatim prompt I gave]:

Genre: folk or folk-rock, Style: thought-provoking, Mood: questioning. Theme or Story: Two narrative stories in history are said to provide the foundation of Western thought. The first is the life of Greek philosopher Socrates, whose ideas as described by Plato provided the foundation for almost all the disciplines of Western civilization: art, music, science, literature, etc. His philosophy rested on the idea that what we see in our human world is a representation of eternal "forms" that exist outside of our perception. The second story is of Jesus, who claimed to be God in human form, who had come to give salvation to all men who believed in him. Despite being comforting notions, both ideas are myths created by man to better understand the world. Both men were put to death by other men. I would like to write a song called "The Hemlock and the Cross" that asks the question why, if humans have since adopted these fictions as their own, did they find it necessary to kill the messengers? What is it about man that they destroy their prophets, then adopt their teachings as unrefutable [sic] truths about the world? Write the verses in first person point of view of Socrates and Jesus, told in as many verses as needed to tell the stories of their deaths, then write a chorus which makes universal statements about what their killings say about mankind. The phrase "the hemlock and the cross" could be used in the body of the song.

[As a retired social studies educator with some experience with Socratic Seminar, I thought there was plenty to chew on here. Within about 15 seconds (!) the bot presented me with these lyrics:]

🎵 The Hemlock and the Cross
by [Your Name]

[Verse 1 – Socrates]
I walked the stone paths of Athens town
Asking why the sun goes up and down
Why shadows move and time won’t stay
Why men will die for what they say

They called it treason, this way I spoke
Truth wrapped in riddles, dressed in smoke
But I drank it calm, the bitter tea
The hemlock whispered, “You are free”

[Verse 2 – Socrates]
I saw eternal forms in flame
Ideas none could cage or name
They asked for lies, I gave them doubt
They sealed my lips to shut me out

No army came, no sword was drawn
Just quiet laws at quiet dawn
They feared the light behind my eyes
And so they led the sage to die

[Verse 3 – Jesus]
I walked the hills of Galilee
With dust and hunger following me
I said the poor shall wear the crown
I said the mighty must kneel down

They called me king, they called me liar
Their hearts were stone, their tongues were fire
I healed their sick, I fed their lost
They gave me nails, they gave me cross

[Verse 4 – Jesus]
I spoke of love no law could bind
Of kingdoms built inside the mind
They cursed my name to keep their throne
And left me bleeding, all alone

Forgive them, Father — still I prayed
Though every friend had fled or stayed
To twist the words, to steal the flame
Then build their churches in my name

[Chorus]
Why do we kill the ones who see
The truth that sets the spirit free?
We crown their silence with applause
We raise their names, but miss their cause
The myths we made are blood-embossed
We drink from both — the hemlock and the cross

[Bridge – Optional Spoken or Sung]
Two men stood where fire meets frost
Both paid the price, both bore the cost
Not for the sins that we confess
But for the questions we suppress

[Final Chorus]
Why do we kill the ones who see
The things we fear, the things we need?
We praise the truth once it is lost
Then build our faith on silent cost
The myths we love, the lines we gloss—
Were written first in hemlock and in cross

[ChatGPT made an additional offer of help: suggestions for chords, melody, adjustments to tone, length or style, which I declined. Obviously AI has learned to stroke the prompter’s ego, as it concluded with this:]

ChatGPT: You're very welcome — I’m glad it resonates with you. The concept you brought is rich with depth and meaning, and you’ve got the seed of something truly powerful here.

If you ever want to workshop the melody, arrangement, or tweak the lyrics further, feel free to reach out. And when you finish the song (especially if you record it), I’d love to hear how it turns out. Best of luck bringing “The Hemlock and the Cross” to life. ✍️🎶

[I’m going to reserve the next line for exclamation points:]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To repeat, I got this response to my prompt within 15 seconds. Were the lyrics perfect as is? Absolutely not. Some are generic to the point of being meaningless. But, after editing the final version, I left in many turns of phrase that were better than I could have generated short of spending hours and hours to get them right. Did ChatGPT get the gist of what I was trying to accomplish? I would argue that it did.

I went on to take the basic lyric lines provided by ChatGPT and worked them over with my rhyming dictionary as I would my own lines. I rewrote the AI-generated rhymes to better reflect the message of my song. I deleted some things (the bridge, for example) and rearranged others.

Since this was an experiment, I decided to push the boundaries even further. The next step was to use one of the AI songwriting websites currently available to assist with the melody and harmony. I subscribed to one of the better-known services, Suno.com, and inputted the edited lyrics. I asked it to generate some examples of a song in the folk/Americana/singer songwriter genre with the title “The Hemlock and the Cross.”

Suno always produces two iterations of a song request. As long as you haven’t expended your “credits” for the month, you theoretically can ask AI to continue to generate new and different versions of your song until you find one you like. I generated about 12 different versions of the song, found three of those I felt I could work with, and finally settled on one which seemed to have the most harmonic complexity. Again, each “creation” took AI about 20-30 seconds to “write.” (More exclamation points.)

From there, I performed my usual magic. I imported the individual instrument stems into Logic Pro, adjusted the volume levels, tweaked the balances, eliminated background noise, added enhancing effects, cut out unnecessary instruments, doubled others, then recorded my own voice as a backup vocal track. The “lead” vocals are exactly as they were generated by AI, minus some incidental noise I eliminated.

I’m putting this month’s offering out as a trial balloon for all the reasons I’ve already discussed.  I won’t bore you with an itemized list of all the corrections I made. You can hear for yourself what I retained and what I edited from ChatGPT’s first lyric draft. The changes I made are hopefully for the better.

What about the real issues generated by this test? The Greek philosophers (of whom Socrates was the forerunner) gave us entire systems for judging beauty and living an ethical life. The Eighth Commandment (Thou Shalt Not Steal) is part of the Judeo-Christian heritage that Jesus represents. Even though this song was generated by artificial intelligence, is it a good song? Does it qualify as art? Does it represent any standard of “beauty” that you or I recognize? Opponents of artificial intelligence claim that music generated by AI has no “soul” compared to works made by humans. Is that really true or is this just the natural defensiveness of human beings who are on the verge of losing their livelihoods?

At what point is all of this theft? I “stole” from ChatGPT and my theft was compounded by ChatGPT’s own misappropriation (since it relies on myriad data to arrive at its own output). Likewise Suno, which “borrows” from the millions of songs it has “listened to” and absorbed.

So, who should claim credit for this work? I activated AI, provided the prompt, “oversaw” its work, and edited its output; the final product reflects what I wanted it to say and my message, no matter how it was generated. How much of my original stamp has to be on a work to make it mine? Can I claim credit for it simply because I provided the prompt? If not, who can? In this changed world that AI has wrought, does the question of “authorship” even matter? Will it in the future? What do you think? Food for thought.

[Footnote: Jorge Luis Borges is not the first person to draw a comparison between Socrates and Jesus. In fact, Scottish theologian and philosopher, Geddes MacGregor, released a book in 1963 entitled The Hemlock and the Cross: Humanism, Socrates and Christ. Incidentally, titles of songs and books are not eligible to copyright, nor are chord changes to songs, which is how the AI agent Suno got away with “borrowing” from other works to create this music.]