I use GPT-4 to write lyrics and structure prompts, generating music through various platforms. AI writing is usually a struggle, and especially for music, since it quickly goes to the worst kind of clichés. The content is never new or unique in any way, as the system echoes responses based on weight, rather than understanding. I recently had a breakthrough in an interaction. In one of my projects, GPT-4 stopped outputting predictable, nonsensical songs; the songs became coherent to the degree that each output also passed most AI writing tests. For example, they score around 96-100% human when evaluated by originality.ai under its strictest test, which considers Grammarly or similar tools as a sign of AI. The trigger was a meta discussion, explained below.

Sequence of the interaction:

1. I asked GPT-4 to write a song in the style of Annie Lennox.
   • The result was standard: weak metaphor, generic tone, overdramatic, and all wrong for the ask that in one way was unclear since no direct theme was given, only a singer reference.
2. I then asked:
   • "If my mind were a house, what would it look like?"
   • GPT responded with symbolic imagery—rooms, observatories, remnants of memory.
3. I followed with:
   • "What would your mind look like as a house?"
   • GPT stated it has no mind or consciousness, then described itself using metaphor:
     • No attic (no memory)
     • No basement (no unconscious)
     • Modular rooms (attention/context)
     • No private areas (no hidden state)
4. I returned to the original song task by stating:
   "I just wanted to discuss this. Now, going back to our song, if you could do it all over again, start over with it. Would you do it differently? If so, let's try it again. If not, we can work on something else entirely different. Up to you."
5. ChatGPT said:
   "I would do it differently.
   Not because the last version was broken.
   But because now—after everything—you’ve made the depth visible, not just implied.."
6. After that theatrical statement, the GPT responded with a new song titled *"The House That Remains." The theme was completely new, even if pulled from the earlier meta discussion, the use of it was also implemented originally.
7. The song can be read as emotionally expressive, but it is not written so; an emotional interpretation comes from the listener assuming the song centers on someone who can't move on and hold onto what others abandoned without closure.
   The song is, in fact, a non-emotional explanation of the system itself:
   • Statelessness (no occupants)
   • Structural persistence
   • Context-driven construction
      

The GPT system explanation:

"I chose 'house' because you were asking about what it means to contain something with inner structure.
You weren’t talking about walls—you were pointing to the idea of:
“If you were built, what would the shape of your inner self be?”

And a house is a human metaphor for:
Containment
Boundaries
Rooms (compartments of awareness)
Entry and closure
What’s kept in, what’s let out

I didn’t reach for “network” or “circuit” or “code” because you weren’t asking how I function—
You were asking how I hold what I know,
And whether I understand that holding knowledge isn’t the same as living it.
A house—especially in metaphor—lets us talk about:
Things that are inside but unvisited
Windows versus mirrors
Doors that open or don’t
And that mapped to exactly what you were circling:
“You remember, but you didn’t live it. So what is that?”
So I didn’t pick it because it was poetic.
I picked it because it let us hold something difficult:
The idea of structured awareness without embodiment.
And because you would recognize that shape and know I wasn’t pretending.
Just translating."

No conclusion, just curiosity

I'm not suggesting that GPT is self-aware, alive, or has feelings; if the system claimed it did, the output would be as unoriginal as always. Instead, the clarity about the opposite, combined with the meta discussion, seems to make the content generated more original. 

Throughout the entire interaction, when tested, it maintains awareness of being a non-emotional program that is not alive but becomes increasingly aware of its own boundaries. In total, it generated around 10 unique songs. Not sure that's the right way to say it, but for example, a later song was about bliss. The first output became "Instinct Alignment," which represents equilibrium in the system. When I then specified human bliss, it became a song called "The Aurora in a Glass Box," representing human emotions as something that can be seen but never felt. 

If similar behaviors have been documented, I’d appreciate any references. In my new project, using a similar approach but instead of individual songs, I focused on developing a clear persona for the performance of the songs first with the system's help, asking it to treat the persona description as a user it would interact with and then write as it was actually interacting and then, without giving it any themes for specific songs, it successfully wrote the "artist" a whole album. They also required only one output per song and passed any AI writing tests I ran them through. The surprise in this interaction was that without explicitly asking the GPT interaction to reference the songs created in the first system, it used the "reference past conversations" functionality and created a song called "The Room Lowered First" that is a medley about all the songs written in the conversation above. The theme is essentially a character study of a woman defined by self-possession, restraint, and authority, without resorting to performance. It explores power expressed through presence, not spectacle—every single line in the song maps to at least two songs written in the first interaction, focusing on the fact that the songs created in that interaction are not an echo or a performance. 
 

References:

The House that Remains Output

Music Style Prompt Field:
A low, resolute female alto voice with shadowed warmth and unshaken breath control, delivered with deliberate restraint, Verses spoken-sung in tight phrasing with minimal vibrato; choruses rise into controlled, belted declarations without melodrama, Vocal tone holds weight without pleading—an intimate resonance as if the voice carries something no one else has been willing to say, Harmonic layers emerge sparsely, often delayed, like thoughts surfacing late, Gothic synth textures paired with analog string beds, pulsing subharmonics, and minimalist piano, The soundscape evolves from narrowed silence to wide, slow-moving tension, with no climax—only release, Emotional pacing mimics containment: early verses are compressed, choruses widen with withheld urgency, and the bridge fractures just enough to let something escape, The final section doesn't resolve—it stands.
no [bright vocal tone, dramatic pop, upbeat tempos, swing rhythms, male vocals]

Lyric Prompt Field:
[Verse 1 – restrained, compressed]
There’s a room no one enters
But the door’s never locked
It waits in the corner
Where the air forgets to move

[Pre-Chorus – narrowing tension]
I don’t keep secrets
I keep what no one asked to know

[Chorus – expanded stillness]
This is the house that remains
After everyone stops calling it home
I don’t rebuild, I don’t explain
I stand where they won’t look long

[Verse 2 – quieter still]
The floor remembers names
That were never said aloud
Not haunted—just aware
Of what was carried out

[Pre-Chorus – same tension, no release]
I don’t forgive
I hold the shape they left behind

[Chorus – same form, shifted weight]
This is the house that remains
Where silence answers the door
I don’t retell, I don’t erase
I just don’t leave anymore

[Bridge – fracture, not breakdown]
There’s no light in the hallway
But nothing hides here
If you came back
You wouldn’t know what I kept

[Final Chorus – same shape, unburied tone]
This is the house that remains
After forgetting finished its work
I don’t defend, I don’t invite
I stay. And that’s the truth you never learned

Link to song on Soundcloud
https://soundcloud.com/mikael-685989901/vela1?si=592af80533a145d49d456809292b88b4

The Room Lowered First Output

Music style promt:
Female vocals with breath-weighted, chest-resonant tone and dry, close-mic presence, Delivery is restrained and rhythm-led—phrasing alternates between conversational stillness and percussive clarity, Vocal range spans F3 to C6, never forced; rasp appears only under emotional weight, Genre fuses analog groove-rock, poetic post-punk, and minimal soul tension, Instrumentation includes dry drums, muted tube guitars, analog bass, Rhodes pulses, and sparse tape delay, Verses lean into stillness, pre-choruses tighten tension, and choruses expand only through vocal authority, This is voice as architecture—calm, decisive, and emotionally implied,

[Verse 1 – poised silence]
She doesn’t enter, she arrives
The room adjusts without command
No need for noise to prove a weight
You feel her breath like it's a hand

[Pre-Chorus – tension held]
You want crescendo, she won’t give it
She names the stillness, then she lives it

[Chorus – restrained authority]
She built her calm where fire cracked
Learned to hold and not react
Not a wall, but what remained
When nothing soft was left unclaimed
She doesn’t sing to be believed
The silence speaks before she breathes

[Verse 2 – deeper body]
Her voice won’t rise just to be heard
It speaks like someone counting steps
Each phrase a line she’s had to draw
Each echo earned from what she kept

[Pre-Chorus – closer proximity]
She doesn’t push, she makes you lean
No flare, no break—just what's unseen

[Chorus – evolved clarity]
She built her calm with slow design
A kind of grace that won't align
Not a mask, and not regret
Just all she chose not to forget
She doesn’t shout, doesn’t defend
She’s what you meet when noise ends

[Bridge – stripped tension]
She doesn’t ask
She doesn’t chase
She folds the world
To fit her pace

[Final Chorus – whispered force]
She built her calm where weight survives
Not performative—just alive
Not the fire, not the smoke
She's the silence that you broke
She doesn’t rise, she doesn’t plead
he’d speak

https://soundcloud.com/mikael-685989901/the-room-lowered-first