Trump – bendingtheneedle

New Songs from Sapient Rain

I’ve been busy writing lyrics and using Suno to put music to them.

The following table lists my most recent works, which are available on music streaming services and on my Songs page on the Suno website.

Feel free to let me know what you think of these songs by dropping a comment on this post!

Song Title and Link	Summary and Commentary
A Lot More Shirley Chisholms	Asharp, frustrated lament about America’s moral drift, its fractured information ecosystem, and its abandonment of civic ideals.
Mapleton or Miracle	A song that merges grief, spiritual disillusionment, and socioeconomic critique into a single, bitter meditation on what people do when the world stops making sense. It’s a lament for communities hollowed out by trauma and a condemnation of the institutions that claim to offer comfort but instead deepen the wound.
The Tyrant’s Closet	A grotesque inventory poem that exposes corruption, cruelty, and vanity through the metaphor of a closet stuffed with incriminating artifacts. It’s vivid, vicious, and darkly funny. It’s one of Sapient Rain’s most visually imaginative political tracks — a grotesque diorama of authoritarianism, vanity, and moral rot.
Like I Don’t Know Where I’m At	A breakup song built on blunt emotional disorientation, mixing dark humor, self‑laceration, and surreal metaphor to capture the numbness that follows sudden abandonment. It’s Sapient Rain in narrative mode: wounded, sardonic, and unfiltered.
My Porch in Timbuktu	A haunting meditation on death, disorientation, and the ache of separation. It’s a song written from the far side of life — a voice speaking from the grave, or from some liminal after‑place — trying to make sense of absence, memory, and the dissolution of identity.
Usurpers in the Pulpit	A fierce, articulate condemnation of religious authority used as a political weapon. The song’s core message is that faith becomes dangerous when it’s commandeered by those who seek power rather than truth.
Generation Blue	A critique of digital-era malaise that blends social commentary, nostalgia, and self‑aware humor. It’s a song that understands both the seduction and the suffocation of modern life, and it captures that tension with clarity and bite.
Along the Avenue	A breezy, sunlit collage of domestic surrealism that quietly smuggles in a meditation on time, mortality, and the fragility of ordinary life. It’s a song that feels light until you realize how heavy it actually is.
Donny on Dementia	A grotesque character study delivered through blistering satire, exaggeration, and dark humor. It’s intentionally abrasive, intentionally uncomfortable, and intentionally over-the-top. The song’s power comes from its commitment to the bit: it never softens, never hedges, never pulls back. This is political cabaret with teeth.
Liar’s Spit and Gravel	A sprawling, venomous protest piece that blends satire, lament, and cultural indictment. It’s a song that feels like a pressure valve releasing: a long exhale of frustration at political rot, moral cowardice, and the vacuum of leadership. The writing is sharp, relentless, and intentionally abrasive. This is Sapient Rain’s political maximalism — a panoramic critique delivered with poetic teeth.

Sapient Rain is a human–AI musical collaboration created by writer/lyricist Geoffrey Reilly working together with the AI music engine Suno.

Sapient Rain’s music blends political fire, surreal storytelling, and nostalgic autobiography, delivered through lyrics that read more like literary vignettes than conventional songcraft. Sapient Rain’s growing catalog is thematically dense, with each track functioning as a miniature narrative or social critique.

Check out Sapient Rain on Spotify, YouTube Music, and Apple Music.

You can also listen to Sapient Rain songs for free on Suno.

Can America Get Back on Track?

Racist-fueled hatred, intolerance, and mistrust have a well-documented history in America. Since our inception, these social and psychological forces have threatened national cohesion, slowing America’s march towards that “more perfect union”.

Keeping racist-fueled hatred, intolerance, and mistrust at bay requires a conscious and continuous effort, because people don’t evolve out of these forces on their own – because the thought patterns associated with them are passed down from generation-to-generation, dressed in “heritage” and promoted and protected under the guise of “freedom of expression or religion” often by loved and trusted parents, pastors, or community leaders.

Throughout our existence, America has won hard-earned progress against the forces of hatred and intolerance, achieving greater equality, diversity, equity and inclusion, inching us closer to a society that ensures the promise of America is accessible to immigrants and citizens alike, regardless of religion, race, or identity – it required a constant battle by ethical private citizens and elected public officials to better ourselves and to keep pushing America towards that more perfect union, where “the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice” – and all it took to slow our progress to a halt was a single charismatic narcissistic felon dragging his pointed finger along America’s ugly scab of racism, with lies aimed at our deepest fears and insecurities, for that hate to pour out from under our skin like a teeming swarm of rabid rats, gnawing at our social fabric, setting America back generations.

I don’t know about you, but I’m still stunned at the number of Americans who continue to support this hateful (and harmful) administration. I’m exhausted by the contortionist-whataboutism explanations and rationalizations for their support.

The latest despicable display of MAGA-maleficence and the normalization of hate spewed by a participant of that God-awful and trashy UFC spectacle on the White House lawn, where a UFC fighter told the crowd that former first lady Michelle Obama was a man.

Just when you think they can’t possibly stoop any lower, the crew of fucktards running this country goes subterranean.

Normal folks are exhausted by all of this.

Hateful people are energized by it.

What adds to the exhaustion is the realization that our government is no longer partnering with citizens to stamp out racism, intolerance, and mistrust – instead, they are actively engaged in fostering hate, promoting distrust, and dividing Americans along racial lines. Fighting for the ideals that made America a beacon of light and hope becomes exponentially harder when our government stands in opposition to these ideals.

With midterms on the horizon, this Government will do whatever it can to prevent America from getting back on track. A Democratic-led Congress means the Trump administration will be held accountable for the first time since taking control of the government. We need to continue to speak out against the administration’s systematic dismantling of the rule of law right up to election day — and then we must turn out in massive numbers – numbers that cannot be refuted by false claims of a rigged election.

Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead

We’re living in a world where the rules of decorum from the office of the president have gone out the window. Decorum won’t return until Trump is pushing up daisies.

Donald Trump said he was glad that Robert Mueller, a decorated soldier and respected public servant, was dead. In true Trump fashion, he went to his Truth Social platform and posted:

Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people! President DONALD J. TRUMP

Of course, there was an immediate backlash to the president’s comment from decent people and public servants, which was in stark contrast to the all-too-familiar silence from the testicle-free, scared-shitless Republican representatives in Congress.

After Trump’s post, I got to thinking, if I’m lucky enough to be around when Donald Trump dies, will I celebrate? Will I dance in the streets with the millions of like-minded Americans? If I do, does that make me a hypocrite for chastising the President for celebrating the death of Robert Mueller?

No, it does not.

In the same way, I would have celebrated Hitler’s death and been saddened by President Roosevelt’s death. In the same way, I would be heartened by the death of Vladimir Putin and crestfallen at the death of Volodymyr Zelenskyy. In the same way, I would have celebrated with my Munchkin brothers-in-arms at the death of the Wicked Witch of the East.

It’s natural to celebrate the death of vicious people.

Vladimir Putin attacked a sovereign nation without provocation, murdered civilians, kidnapped children, and committed war crimes. I’ll be glad when he’s dead.

In America, we celebrated the life and actions of Claus von Stauffenberg cinematically in the movie Valkyrie. Claus von Stauffenberg attempted to kill Adolf Hitler. If he had succeeded, would we have mourned Hitler’s death, or would there have been a global three cheers to Claus?

I did not feel glad or elated when Mueller, a decorated soldier and public servant, died. Robert Mueller was a decent man who served his country with honor.

Under Donald Trump, America has become the kind of nation we used to despise and oppose on the world stage — a loud-mouthed aggressor nation that denies the sovereignty of other countries and the rights of citizens and immigrants in its own, a nation that shows a blatant disregard international law, attacks the free press, bastardizes and uses religion as a tool of the state and cozy’s-up to other leaders of other authoritarian states. That is the America we’ve become, and it’s not even debatable.

To put it in a simpler context that Trump supporters might understand, Trump’s America is the Biff to Marty McFly, the Darth Vader to Luke Skywalker, the slimy Nazi general in Raiders of the Lost Ark to Indian Jones. We are officially the bad guys, and no amount of “USA! USA! USA!” chanting can cover up that fact.

And the main reason we have become the bad guy is pretty fucking simple to understand – it’s because we’re being led by a morally decrepit criminal, a convicted felon, a credibly accused pedophile and rapist, a seditionist who gave a blanket pardon to violent convicted felons who attacked our democracy. So yeah, when that guy dies, I might raise a glass.

Unfortunately for us, after Trump passes, there’s a fresh bumper-crop of the morally crazy waiting in the wings and they’ve got a blueprint in hand.

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my book, My Paper, My Words: Rantings from a Progressive Boomer and Peeved Parent, from Amazon. And if you feel moved to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

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.

Wounded Teaser 4: Donny Shakes the Jar

Donny Shakes the Jar
Donny stirs the pot
Donny knows that hate and fear
are really all he’s got

Insurrectionists as martyrs
the freedom fighter lies
“A fraudulent election!”
his fake-ass battle cry

He’s got minions on the take
and congress in his pocket
FOX to help him spin the lies
Vlad Putin in his locket

On 02/26/26, the single “Donny Shakes the Jar” from the album “Wounded” comes out on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, and iTunes under the artist profile “Sapient Rain.”

Sapient Rain is the artistic collaboration of writer/lyricist Geoffrey Reilly and the AI music engine Suno.

Click here to pre-save Wounded on Spotify.

America, Don’t Get Strung Along

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.

Justice for Renee Good.

Music by Suno, Lyrics by Me

We are in the shit now

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.

The Orange King – Music by Suno, Lyrics by Me

The Fellowship of Fascism and Oligarchy

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.

Music by Suno, Lyrics by me: Oligarchic Kings

What Happened to Political Protest Songs?

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!

Song	About the Lyrics
Barbarians at the Gate (Version 1) Barbarians at the Gate (Version 2)	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.
Hey Fascist, Catch	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.
Get a Load of Elon	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.
The Orange King	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.
The Orange Morass	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.
Oligarchic Kings	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.
Neo-Fascist-Oligarchic-Expialidocious	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.

Barbarians at the Gate

When he dies, the only people who’ll mourn him are the hateful, greedy, and the willfully misinformed. The rest of us will be glad he’s finally gone.

The worry should be, who and what comes next.

The barbarians are at the gate, and they have a blueprint for hate.

Check out my Suno collaboration here.

The New Boy Paranormal

The collision of technology, conservative ideology, and the incel movement in American culture is resulting in a volatile mix of online radicalization, misogyny, and political extremism.

By amplifying exclusionary beliefs, digital platforms normalize violence and connect isolated individuals into communities that can spill over into real-world harm.

Online platforms, social media, and dedicated incel sites provide a fertile breeding ground and powerful echo chamber for individuals with extremist and misogynistic views. It is in these intellectually dank digital hangouts that we encounter the danger of algorithmic amplification and the recommendation systems, which push members of these online communities deeper into radical content, normalizing hostility toward women and liberal values.

There is also a porn-component to this toxic, digital culture. Studies show links between incel misogyny and online pornography, which reinforces distorted views of women and sexuality.

What’s even more concerning is the acceptance of misogynistic beliefs and behaviors as “boys will be boys” by the Trump administration, which is tapping into the aggrieved community of non-college-educated males, not for the purpose of assisting them, but rather to turn their growing sense of isolation and anger towards college-educated women into votes.

There is an overlap between MAGA conservatism and ideology and the INCEL movement in America, specifically around the anti-feminist narrative, where both groups tend to frame feminism as a threat to traditional gender roles.

INECELS adopt a worldview of being “dispossessed men,” which resonates with broader conservative rhetoric about cultural decline and loss of male authority.

It’s at our own peril that we turn a blind eye to the alignment of incels and far-right groups around exclusionary, anti-democratic, and xenophobic tendencies. Isolated and digitally immersed young men in America are susceptible to being drawn to extremist online communities that distort masculinity and normalize misogyny.

The blending of conservative ideology with incel dogma and rhetoric widens the divide over gender, sexuality, and democracy, fueling broader culture wars in a country that is more culturally polarized than ever.

I wrote a poem a while back about the radicalization of young non-college-educated males through far-right groups around exclusionary, anti-democratic, and misogynistic views. I used the AI music platform Suno to put my poem to music.

Here is the resulting song, New Boy Paranormal.

Let me know what you think in the comments!