We tested the latest AI Content Creation tools to analyze their interpretation of famous lyrics.
Some of the best songwriters in the 60 years have written lyrics that have beguiled millions of music lovers around the world. It has set them apart as genuine artists, and elevated many to legendary status in popular culture. We decided to challenge AI tools for an ‘AI Content Creation Challenge’, to visually interpret ten sets of lyrics, with no additional prompt guidance or descriptions. The selected songs are by a range of artists, and bands that particularly transcended generations, including Taylor Swift, The Clash, Kate Bush, David Bowie and of course, The Beatles. In this challenge, lyrics were used as prompts, through Midjourney, and analyzed the output. We were genuinely surprised by the results.
Radiohead – “Paranoid Android”
Credits : Radiohead
Please could you stop the noise?
I’m tryna get some rest
From all the unborn chicken
Voices in my head
What’s that? (I may be paranoid, but not an android)
When I am king. You will be first against the wall,
With your opinion, Which is of no consequence at all
“Paranoid Android”- generated in Midjourney.
Analysis: The principal character of an android reflects the anxiety that Radiohead’s lead singer, Thom Yorke felt of being isolated in a bar in LA, that inspired the lyrics. The squalor of the environment reflects the overriding feeling of emotional isolation and the texture on the walls, and the character help back that up that feeling of despair and hopelessness. What also works is the fact that the red paint on the walls is consistent with the coloring of the red chair. Therefore the composition is significantly more artfully considered, especially with the focal character offset to the right of frame, rather than being in the center.
AI Content Creation – Score – 8/10
David Bowie – “Lazarus”
Credits : David Bowie
Look up here, I’m in heaven
I’ve got scars that can’t be seen
I’ve got drama, can’t be stolen
Everybody knows me now
Look up here, man, I’m in danger
I’ve got nothing left to lose
I’m so high it makes my brain whirl
Dropped my cell phone down below
Ain’t that just like me?
Analysis: Immediately, what is poignant is that the output here is in black and white. If you use AI tools, you’ll know that the output tends to vary despite the same prompts, and specifically, in full color.
Bowie was acutely aware of his own impending demise as he wrote the lyrics, and the black and white rendering helps give this image a timeless quality. The AI algorithm has picked on the first noun, “Heaven”, and has therefore shown the popular depiction of heaven being set in the sky. As befitting for Bowie, the character has an element of showmanship but it is curious that the view is from above the subject, rather than looking up towards the sky. It is good to see the right hand has five fingers, as we know AI currently has issue with that. The last thought though – why does the left foot only have a shoe?
AI Content Creation – Score – 7/10
AI Content Creation Challenge – The Beatles – “Across the Universe”
Credits: Lennon/McCartney
Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup
They slither wildly as they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my opened mind
Possessing and caressing me
Jai guru deva, om
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Analysis: This is surprising. It is more painterly and more stylistic image. Perhaps this a reflection of the surreal imagery described in the lyrics. It is far less gratuitous than was expected from Midjourney. There is a focal point, the figure sitting crosslegged looking over the view. It’s a good focal point in the composition. Has Midjourney made the connection between the Sanskrit mantra that the Beatles were taught, and that John Lennon sang. There is no paper cup, and no rain, and much less of the physical items that are mentioned. What has been created, has been derived more from a feeling, conjuring an emotional response, which is altogether more intriguing and unexpected.
AI Content Creation – Score 8/10
Kate Bush – “Wuthering Heights“
Credits : Lyrics by Kate Bush
Out on the wily, windy moors
We’d roll and fall in green
You had a temper like my jealousy
Too hot, too greedy
How could you leave me
When I needed to possess you?
I hated you, I loved you, too
Bad dreams in the night
They told me I was going to lose the fight
Leave behind my Wuthering, Wuthering
Wuthering Heights
Analysis: Ultimately, this seems quite expected and there is nothing too surprising about the output. The ‘wily, windy moors’ are the key trigger here. There is no obvious suggestion of male or female in this section of Kate’s Bush’s lyrics. What is interesting is that it chooses a woman in a period costume, as opposed to any other character. It’s almost as if this AI has been trained to reflect the content of the book ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Bronte.
AI Content Creation – 4/10
Tim Buckley – “Song For a Siren”
Credits : Lyrics by Tim Buckley
Long afloat on shipless oceans
I did all my best to smile
’til your singing eyes and fingers
Drew me loving to your isle
And you sang “Sail to me, Sail to me, Let me enfold you
Here I am, Here I am, Waiting to hold you”
Did I dream you dreamed about me?
Were you hare when I was fox?
Now my foolish boat is leaning
Broken lovelorn on your rocks
Analysis: This feels like an elevated illustration from a book on fables. This resonates with knowing that the origin story stems from the ancient Greek myth of sea nymphs luring sailors onto rocks by their singing. Tim Buckley’s lyrics are a total evolution of that myth, however. The song itself, has been covered many times, and has been described by many artists as one of the best ballads ever written. AI Score 8/10
Taylor Swift – “The Lakes” (Folklore bonus track)
Credits: Taylor Swift
I want auroras and sad prose
I want to watch wisteria grow right over my bare feet
‘Cause I haven’t moved in years
And I want you right here
A red rose grew up out of ice frozen ground
With no one around to tweet it
While I bathe in cliffside pools
With my calamitous love and insurmountable grief
Take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die
I don’t belong, and my beloved, neither do you
Those Windermere peaks look like a perfect place to cry
I’m setting off, but not without my muse
No, not without you
Analysis: Yes, this was a less obvious Taylor song to pick. But her lyrics here are enticing and deliberately poetic. This is however, another painterly animated interpretation. “Wisteria growing around a pair of bare feet” seemed to be a more obvious visual that we thought AI would respond to. In some of the other visual tested here, AI imagined a image that picked up of the first strongest noun in the lyrics. It’s not until the fifth line of the lyrics that “the rose and ice frozen ground” is mentioned. This is without doubt, the words that impact the image the most. What is telling by now, is that we are being provided with reasonably pleasing compositions, a main character or focus, and not an image that is scattered, confused and visually incorrect.
AI Content Creation – Score 5/10
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – “Into My Arms”
Credits: Lyrics by Nick Cave
I don’t believe in an interventionist God
But I know, darling, that you do
But if I did I would kneel down and ask Him
Not to intervene when it came to you
Oh, not to touch a hair on your head
Leave you as you are
And if He felt He had to direct you
Then direct you into my arms
Into my arms, O Lord
Analysis: There is a deeper sensibility and thoughtfulness that is evoked from using this imagery, and subsequently rendered as a pure photographic-style result. Lingering on the image for a longer time, you begin to question what is the character sitting on in the water. But the lighting is powerful, the character backlit despite being central to the composition. If the interpretation of the haunting lyrics is trying to depict the emotional feeling only, then this is successful, and ultimately, a very pleasing result for Nick Cave’s sorrowful love song.
AI Content Creation – Score 9/10
AI Content Creation Challenge – Gorillaz – “Up on Melancholy HIll”
Credits : Lyrics by Damon Albarn
Up on Melancholy Hill, there’s a plastic tree, Are you here with me?
Just looking out on the day, Of another dream,
Well you can’t get what you want, But you can get me,
So let’s set out to sea, love ‘Cause you are my medicine
When you’re close to me, When you’re close to me,
So call in the submarines, ‘Round the world we’ll go,
Does anybody know, love If we’re looking out on the day
Of another dream? If you can’t get what you want
Then come with me, Up on Melancholy Hill, Sits a manatee
Analysis: This undoubtedly feels like a still from a Studio Ghibli animation film. The lighting is positive and inviting. Do lyrics that include ‘plastic trees’ and ‘submarines’ encourage this stylistic render, as opposed to a photographic feel? It most definitely is a result of a ‘dream’ being mentioned in the lyrics twice. And possibly the actual video for the song. Which animation style do you want? Answer – all of them. Given this approach, it is a shame that we don’t see a manatee sitting on the hill, as the lyrics describe. Is that a flying manatee in the middle distance instead?
AI Content Creation – Score 7/10
(AI Challenge) The Clash – “London Calling”
Credits : Joe Strummer and Mick Jones
London Calling to the faraway towns
Now war is declared, and battle come down
London calling to the underworld
Come out of the cupboard, you boys and girls
London calling, now don’t look to us
Phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust
London calling, see we ain’t got no swing
Except for the ring of that truncheon thingThe ice age is coming, the sun’s zooming in
Meltdown expected, the wheat is growing thin
Engines stop running, but I have no fear
‘Cause London is drowning, and I live by the river
Analysis: This feels like a mash up of a deranged modern John Anderson painting and Monet’s Houses of Parliament painting. London specifically, is not correct as the tower for “Big Ben”, the Great Bell of the Great Clock of Westminster and the Houses of Parliament, are actually the same side of the River Thames. This is where AI is shown to be a crude tool at times. It pounces on an obvious London theme but it seems to ignore lines like “Come out of the cupboard, you boys and girls” totally. What it does do well is amplify the vitriol of the messaging, the rage, the passion and anger of Mick Jones and Joe Strummer’s lyrics.
AI Content Creation – Score 3/10
David Bowie – “Always Crashing the Same Car”
Credits : David Bowie
Every chance, Every chance that I take
I take it on the road, Those kilometers and the red lights
I was always looking left and right
Oh, but I’m always crashing, In the same car
Jasmine, I saw you peeping
As I pushed my foot down to the floor
I was going round and round the hotel garage
Must have been touching close to 94
Oh, but I’m always crashing, In the same car
Analysis: There is energy and passion here, and a great contrast between the red and green palettes. You feel the speed and the car shown seems to be halfway off the ground. The tunnel is unquestionably triggered by the lyric prompt of ‘hotel garage’. It conjures up the brutal coloring of Nicholas Winding Refn’s film ‘Drive’. It is radical in feeling to the other David Bowie visual in this series and it’s actually at odds with this reasonably mellow and reflective song.
AI Content Creation – Score 6/10
AI Content Creation Conclusion
This collection showcases a diverse array of visual styles, ranging from photography and animation to hyperrealistic, surreal, and painterly representations. With no specific guidelines or additional prompts in place, the images span from black and white to heavily saturated compositions. Familiar users of Midjourney are well aware of its wide-ranging outputs, which can vary significantly despite identical prompts on any given day. This variability underscores both the inconsistency of the program and its continuous adaptation to new visual reference sourced from the internet.
It has served as an intriguing experiment, offering insights into both the capabilities and limitations of this AI tool. This is much like the exploratory approach and experimental mindset discussed in other articles on AI tools. However, while the results may not always align with what we imagine in our heads, some creatives have found that using AI tools as an elevated ‘stock shot search’ can be rewarding. By refining prompts through trial and error, you can derive some satisfactory results, providing valuable reference or illustrative examples that help conceptual exploration.
Ultimately, this AI Content Creation Challenge, served as a test of leveraging poetic lyrics instead of calculated prompts to elicit a broad spectrum of imagery, each with its own degree of success.
Next we’ll be trying another AI tool to put to the test.
