Writing today to gently remind you that Wisdom’s Water, my poetic / lyrical collaboration with the AI Music platform Suno, drops on Spotify on February 12th, 20026.
I had a blast crafting the lyrics and working in Suno to select the most suitable musical vehicle for my words and feelings. I’m inspired by all of the artists and citizens speaking out and protesting in defense of our democracy, which we are in legitimate danger of losing.
Not all of the songs are protest songs, but many are. I hope you download, stream, and share them with friends and family. And I hope you enjoy listening to them!
I created an artist account on Instagram and have been posting snippets of tracks from Wisdom’s Water. Feel free to follow the artist profile at https://www.instagram.com/sapientrain/
Here is a little taste of Wisdom’s Water from Sapient Rain:
My Paper, My Words is a collection of essays, stories, and poems that reflect the challenges of a middle-class husband and father trying to navigate a rapidly changing political, religious, and technological landscape of post-911 America.
If not for witness cell phone videos, the Trump administration would be categorizing the execution-style murder of Alex Pretti as a domestic terrorist attack by the victim.
How do we know this? Because before those videos went public, before any investigation into the shooting, that’s what Kristi Noem, Donald Trump, Greg Bovino, and Karoline Leavitt suggested. All of them are fucking liars protecting murderers.
I keep waiting for the lightbulb to flicker and ignite above the heads of decent Americans who voted for this piece of garbage and for them to say, “Enough is enough.” No one is asking you to become progressive, or liberal, or socialist, just fucking human, just fucking decent.
Our government is murdering citizens in the street, and all we hear from many of our fellow citizens is the deafening sound of their silence.
I am not surprised that people like Donald Trump exist and can lie their way to the most powerful office in the world. I’m not surprised that there are hateful, bigoted people who get off on the vicious treatment by this administration of American citizens and undocumented people. None of that surprises me.
What surprises and distresses me is the silence from those who know better. My Republican friends who know what our constitution says, who see it being violated regularly by Trump and his administration, and still remain silent.
Wisdom’s Water flows like a charged, poetic current—an album born at the intersection of human conviction and machine‑driven imagination. Across 13 tracks, it traces America’s ongoing struggle with mass shootings, social media, and its perilous drift toward authoritarianism. The project doesn’t preach; it witnesses, questions, warns, and ultimately affirms the resilience of a people determined to hold on to their freedoms.
At the heart of the album is the creative partnership between human and AI. The lyrical voice comes from published poet and author Geoffrey Reilly, writing as Sapient Rain, whose language carries the weight of lived experience and the clarity of someone who has spent years studying the fractures and triumphs of the American story. His words—sharp, reflective, and emotionally charged—become the guiding current that shapes the album’s thematic arc.
The music, generated through the AI music engine Suno, adds a second consciousness to the collaboration. Its sonic landscapes shift from atmospheric tension to rhythmic urgency, mirroring the political and social turbulence the album explores. Rather than replacing the human element, the AI becomes a creative amplifier, transforming Sapient Rain’s imagery into immersive soundscapes that feel deeply rooted in the present moment.
Each track becomes a meditation on violence in America, civic responsibility, collective memory, and the fragility of democratic ideals. The album’s title, Wisdom’s Water, evokes the idea that clarity—like water—can cut through stone, nourish communities, and reveal truths that power often tries to bury.
You can judge a nation’s greatness by how it treats the marginalized in its communities and by whether it encourages kindness, tolerance, education, and scientific expertise. When America excels at these things, we are indeed a great nation. Under Trump, we are objectively regressing in every one of these areas, and today, many American citizens are afraid of their government, which is a tell-tale sign that we are drifting towards authoritarianism.
Truth, integrity, and character have not simply been relegated to the backseat of our democracy – it’s worse than that – they’ve been thrown out of the car altogether, and now that vehicle travels recklessly as a putrid vessel of Presidential self-interest and self-preservation.
When an unrestrained and morally decrepit leader of a powerful nation flaunts the rule of law, the rest of us, the citizens of that nation, get splattered and stained by the consequences of his messy and lawless decisions.
We are muddied and sullied by association, and our ability to disassociate ourselves from his sick, twisted, and purely transactional worldview is hampered by the chokehold he and his supporters have put on the systems of checks and balances designed by our founders to prevent such a person from rising to power.
My Paper, My Words is a collection of essays, stories, and poems that reflect the challenges of a middle-class husband and father trying to navigate a rapidly changing political, religious, and technological landscape of post-911 America.
Fascism and Oligarchy are familiar bedfellows that share several structural similarities, including the concentration of power, the suppression of dissent, the prioritization of ruling-class interests, and the erosion of democratic norms.
The repressive effect of fascism and oligarchy on citizens includes loss of political voice, economic inequality, reduced civil liberties, and social polarization. Horrifyingly, we’re seeing the effects of fascism and oligarchy in America today.
I understand the cynicism Americans feel around politics — and it is totally justified. But, to effectively fight the spread of fascism and oligarchy, we MUST participate in democratic processes, even when they feel imperfect. So, educate yourselves (and others), build cross-community solidarity, push for structural reforms, and stay connected and refuse isolation.
My Paper, My Words is a collection of essays, stories, and poems that reflect the challenges of a middle-class husband and father trying to navigate a rapidly changing political, religious, and technological landscape of post-911 America.
As the potential benefits and dangers of AI swirl around us in a maelstrom of fantastical headlines, social media posts, and academic articles, the social, technological, and economic landscape of the world depends on the ethics and morality of today’s gatekeepers in government and industry, and that should scare the fuck out of all of us.
We’re heading for a bleak future if an unregulated, callous first-to-market ethos, devoid of guardrails and ethics, drives the development and deployment of AI.
In these turbulent times, why don’t we have protest songs like we used to?
What cultural or sociological changes have made the protest song less popular?
Why Protest Songs Once Thrived
During the 1960s-70s, the economics and centralized nature of the music industry, combined with a shared identity amongst America’s youth (cemented by America’s role in the Vietnam War), provided fertile ground for protest songs to gain popularity.
In the America of the 1960s-70s, young, college-educated, middle-class Americans (a significant demographic) aligned with the counterculture, civil rights, and anti-war movements. This alignment allowed protest songs to find a home in the collective conscience of a generation of young Americans.
The conditions that led to the popularity of protest songs in the 1960s-70s included:
Mass movements: Civil rights and anti-war protests created collective spaces where songs unified crowds.
Limited media outlets: Radio and television amplified protest songs as rallying cries, giving them cultural dominance.
Shared identity: Songs like Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” or Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” became shorthand for generational values.
Why Protest Songs Declined
Protest songs haven’t disappeared, but their cultural role has shifted due to the following conditions:
Fragmented music culture: Streaming platforms and niche genres mean fewer “universal” hits that everyone hears.
Commercial pressures: Record labels often avoid overtly political content to maximize global market appeal.
Social media activism: Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram now serve as protest tools, reducing reliance on music as the primary vehicle for dissent.
Individualized expression: Protest today often emphasizes personal identity and micro-activism rather than collective anthems.
Cultural fatigue: In turbulent times, audiences may feel overwhelmed, turning to escapism rather than politicized art.
Today, activism often happens through digital platforms, fragmented music genres, and individualized expression rather than mass sing-alongs. Changes have made protest songs less central to political movements.
So, while video killed the radio star in the 1980s, changes in the music industry, commercialization, and the rise of social media may have killed the political protest song today — and that’s a fucking shame, because if there was ever a time for unifying the power of music against political corruption and maleficence, it’s today.
Here are some political protest songs’ that I’ve been working on (my lyrics, Suno’s music). Feel free to share or comment on them!
Donald Trump won’t be around forever (thank God) – but his impact will linger like a fart in a closet. Trump provides a blueprint for other candidates who might possess similar autocratic tendencies. This song is a “heads-up” about the barbarians who will gather at the gates of our democracy once Trump is dead and gone.
These lyrics are from a poem I wrote after the Charlie Kirk assassination. It’s about how dangerously divided America is and the potential for spiraling political violence that seems increasingly likely in the second Trump term.
I wrote the poem “Get a Load of Elon” after seeing the sickening footage of that smiling dirtbag laughing it up and swinging a chainsaw around like some fake-ass efficiency hero. Fuck that guy and everything he represents. I think Suno captured the tone I was looking for on this one.
Donald Trump is my fat, ugly muse. There, I said it. Shame on everyone who voted for this criminal, and fuck all the cowards in Congress who are failing to stand up to this two-bit thug. And that’s all I have to say about this song.
I came up with these lyrics based on a poem I wrote in 2017 called “Resist”, which was about pushing back against Donald Trump and his policies, which I saw as an existential threat to America’s democracy. I added several new verses for the song and reworked the verse that would become the chorus. I can see the Dixie Chicks or Dolly Parton belting this out. I’m not a big fan of country or rockabilly music, but I think that musical style works well with the words here.
Suno and I, channeling our best Pat Benatar impression. I wrote the poem “Oligarchic Kings” recently and published it on my blog. I changed it quite a bit for the song version.
When I wrote this poem originally, I wrote it to the cadence of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious from “Mary Poppins” and included it in my book “Imagine There’s No Donald” (available on Amazon😉 ). I asked Suno to create a power-pop song from the poem. It’s the only poem I used as is (not changing any of the words). It’s a campy/poppy version of a Disney classic.
My Paper, My Words is a collection of essays, stories, and poems that reflect the challenges of a middle-class husband and father trying to navigate a rapidly changing political, religious, and technological landscape of post-911 America.
bendingtheneedle 