Hold onto my hand (til death)

by @hidalgo

There is no demo for this song.

Liner Notes

I wrote my first song.

Inspired by the prodigious output of my girlfriend @theodamus and their family @jongoldie and @carolga, I thought I would attempt a move from enthusiastic lurker to contributor.

I read half of a book recently - it got me thinking about how technology will allow us to create digital copies of our loved ones. How do you grieve someone who isn't completely gone? What does love look like in the uncanny valley? It's twisting my melon!

#lyricsonly

Lyrics

Give me your soul on a flash drive
Files, folders, cascading and planned
When nothings forever
Could I be your keeper
Will your hologram keep hold of my hand?

Slop stinking swill, it's drowning you out
A digital double, shrouded by doubt
Every detail rendered, with eerie precision
Programmed to speak, not able to listen

Your binary code lays cold in my palm
I'm uploading your soul to the cloud
Not real, but enough
But what's real when it's rough?
In death will we part? So I vowed...

Machine learning, training on love notes and letters
The tokens, ephemera, your voice notes beget a
limited library for the large language model
that's all I'd have left for all the tomorrows.

Hold onto my hand
You're safe in my cloud
Hold out your hand
Hold out your hand

Comments

[avatar]
Dude! These are great lyrics... the line "that's all I'd have left for all the tomorrows." Is so desperately sweet. This reads like a futuristic (not that futuristic) love song. Like it'll just be normal to have your partner in your pocket on your phone or whatever. Scary and lovely. Glad to see you joined the (Not cult) see ya around!
[avatar]
FIRST SONG!!! Hell yea FAWMs got you now (not a cult). This blew me away when I read it, it initially strikes as much scarier than sweet, but it’s mad scientist evil genius stuff in the way that’s born out of love and desperation and going about it in a way that probably won’t work but might? And the might is enough.

I really like the way you’ve constructed it lyrically, there’s a lot of on theme word choices but they don’t feel forced structurally or hacky, and there’s wordplay without overt punning (cascading, rendered etc) which is a real skill.

I love it! I’d love to hear it. Can’t wait to hear how it sounds in your head!
[FAWM]