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DONT LET US DIE FOR NOTHIN' Lyrics by Martin Lide 2025 02 23
[verse] This song is for senator’s and congressmen who come around for my vote. Who walk through hallowed halls built on words Jefferson wrote. My daddy saw Iraq, then he toured Afghanistan My granddad came home limping from some place called Vietnam.
[verse] They told me that "soldier" is the best thing you can call ‘em That service to this nation is the highest of all callings. So to those who want my vote, with me they claim to stand. This soldier has one request, actually one demand.
[chorus] Don’t let us die for nothing in lands we’ve never seen To keep your donors happy, so you can ride in limousines. Don’t send our bodies to be shattered and burned in lands afar To come home to our children who don’t recognize who we are. Don’t send us off to wars that you don’t intend to win. For the sake of foreign tyrants who turn enemy at the end. Don’t tell us who to hate, or who we must quarrel with, Because it pumps up your speeches, to put our lives at risk.
[verse] when your wife makes up her lovely face Or your husband decides which tux to wear And your off to attend a gala or some other fine affair, Think of those whose final breath was in a God-less ditch somewhere.
[bridge] Freedom don’t come easy, beasts are always at the door. Keeping freedom free is the soldier’s foremost chore. But freedom offers choices that lead to pleasure or to pain. Freedom grants the freedom to lose the freedoms gained.
[chorus] Don’t let us die for nothing in lands we’ve never seen To keep your donors happy, so you can ride in limousines. Don’t send our bodies to be shattered and burned in lands afar To come home to our children who don’t recognize who we are. Don’t send us off to wars that you don’t intend to win. For the sake of foreign tyrants who turn enemy at the end. Don’t tell us who to hate, or who we must quarrel with, Because it pumps up your speeches, to put our lives at risk.
[verse] when your wife makes up her lovely face Or your husband decides which tux to wear And your off to attend a gala or some other fine affair, Think of those whose final breath was in a God-less ditch somewhere.
Hi Marty, you've written a good song. The lyrics are extremely powerful. I personally would have preferred shorter lines in the chorus but longer lines have more content. Well done. Good to hear that you're having fun with Suno.
As for SUNO, I have been working up 3 songs. 2 are me and VSTs which take me months. On this one, I went back and forth on the lyrics for about a month. When finished, I spent about an hour with SUNO, and am happy with the result.
I appreciate your advice with that also. SUNO seems markedly better than the last time that I used it a few months back.
V4 is pretty seamless. There are some things that I would tweak if I could get surgical control over the content, but stepping back, I like the hell out of what it did and could never have arrived at that sound otherwise...and all I did was write the lyrics and audition a few prompts. Amazing.
Well time V5 or V6 comes out , You probably won't be able to tell live tracks from Suno tracks. The robots are trained on hit songs , Its a pretty handy tool tracking out live tracks stealing a melody also , not sure how that works business wise. Studio guys are paid a % if your melody is boring , Not sure with robots
Well time V5 or V6 comes out , You probably won't be able to tell live tracks from Suno tracks
I dont think that I could tell here. The sound has lost that gloss-over that gave it away the last time that I used it. Problem is SUNO don't need me at all.
Marty, Suno can do it all, but you can also use it as your musician, your producer, etc. You can feed Suno with your melody/composition and it will then produce your song just the way you want it. So, it's just a question of how you use it. The sound is really good.
Marty, Suno can do it all, but you can also use it as your musician, your producer, etc. You can feed Suno with your melody/composition and it will then produce your song just the way you want it. So, it's just a question of how you use it. The sound is really good.
I noticed that there were some additional features when I used it this weekend. Thanks for specifying what is available. Gonna get into some of that.
Since I do live tracks (Why I don't know anymore ) I can get alot of ideas spinning it 40 times. Were stealing licks from hit songs anyway , I don't see the difrence really
Particularly because you pointed out two of the lines that I thought delivered the song's payload. To my ear, the third was...."To come home to our children who don’t recognize who we are."
SUNO is magical. My usual content is love-gone-wrong songs and I enjoy being immersed in the process of the DAW, live recordings and VSTs...but that takes me a long time. SUNO allows me to concentrate on lyrics for however long and then spend an hour, or so, putting a band behind them. And it seems to get better by the week. My new goal is to do one song a month concentrating on the lyrics and finishing with SUNO.
Thanks again for your encouragement and bringing SUNO tips and tricks to our awareness,
I only wrote the lyrics to this song. Everything else is AI SUNO. Distrokid accepted the song to forward to outlets a couple of days ago. (which surprised me) I just received notification that Spotify has gone live with the song (which also surprised me)
At this point, the only possible outlier that I can think of is that the song would make enough money for some artist to say that SUNO stole their trademark style and infused my song with it.
I see a very low possibility that the song will make any money.
Rick Beato said streaming services are a graveyard , Unless you promote , he's probably right .I'm surprised Spotify took a AI song
"Graveyard" "Galactic Haystack" ...Beato sounds right to me. I was surprised too. I thought that all of these major players were waiting for the lawsuits to play out. But the song is up on Spotify.
Ben Something else came up that was interesting and unexpected. Distrokid made a youtube video of the song using my cover art as the still image that displays while the song is playing. I wasn't aware that they were going to do that. Maybe not as interesting as a video done by AI or someone else, but it was thrown in as an extra.
Ben Something else came up that was interesting and unexpected. Distrokid made a youtube video of the song using my cover art as the still image that displays while the song is playing. I wasn't aware that they were going to do that. Maybe not as interesting as a video done by AI or someone else, but it was thrown in as an extra.
They're probably joining the SUNO parade , Spotify asks for their specifications on promoting on there. You need your voice on ads
I haven't critiqued much, here, for some time but I just had to comment on your song....Rob B said "The lyrics are extremely powerful." Boy is that an understatement...you've captured something in the lyric that resonates with people...IMHO what you have here is the epitome of songwriting....and Suno etal are moving along as I always thought they would....just a superb job....and I can see why it's being promoted...big thumbs up
Steve
Creators of music have a responsibility to their craft. When they have finished using all the notes and words, they must pass them down to the next generation with a simple request. “Use these to create new music.”...Steven McDonald
Well Dave, Distrokid just notified me that my song with artificial intelligence vocals and instrumentation is live on IHeartRadio. So it has been accepted by and gone live on,
Itunes Apple Music Spotify IHeart Radio
Like it or hate it, AI music is now tha thang, and it clearly appears here to stay. That has nothing to do with me really. It makes me no less invisible than I ever was. Although I can now be found, still no one is looking. But, it's a hobby and it's interesting to follow these events.
Hello everyone. I've got to get on the AI bandwaggon here. My concern with AI is: WHO owns the song? I'm under the impression that no one can make any money or royalties from an AI song. Is this true? Does using AI demean your value as a songwriter? Don't get me wrong: I think its a great tool. But, I'm concerned.
Hello everyone. I've got to get on the AI bandwaggon here. My concern with AI is: WHO owns the song? I'm under the impression that no one can make any money or royalties from an AI song. Is this true? Does using AI demean your value as a songwriter? Don't get me wrong: I think its a great tool. But, I'm concerned.
The basics are...you own your lyrics unless you use the free account, then you own your lyrics and maybe they do also. They own the music for sure. You give em $10 a month and theoretically you retain possession of everything, but you grant them the right to sell your music however they may, and they owe you nothing out of the proceeds.
The takeaway...none of it matters unless some real money is generated, which is not likely.
The young woman in the video below seems very bright and sensible in her thinking. She explains it better than me.
My attitude... SUNO takes my lyrics to a level that I am incapable of musically, for $10 a month. It's a joy to hear what they do. If any of my songs ever actually make any money, I'll deal with that then.
Creators of music have a responsibility to their craft. When they have finished using all the notes and words, they must pass them down to the next generation with a simple request. “Use these to create new music.”...Steven McDonald
Hey Steve, If you are talking about this one, I linked it to some youtube pages where the topic was relevant, and I think that there was some additional traffic to my X site and Youtube page, but nothing significant.
I did have a couple of people thank me for writing it, which was nice. Distrokid hasnt updated my numbers since I uploaded it, so I don't know what the traffic to the song on the outlets has been. At best...it wont be much.
I finished this latest one about being cheated on by a romantic partner. There are a lot of YT pages dedicated to infidelity, so I'm going to drop the video link on some of those over the weekend and see if anyone likes the song...or would prefer that I STFU and leave it off their site.
Have a good weekend. Try not to think about Trump.
I agree with Rob. I think the bottom half of the chorus could either be scrapped or better, used as the bridge, or a second bridge? You and I and Rob have the advantage of importing stems into our DAWs and changing stuff around. So just my two-cents.
But a really good song that's got a uniting vibe, a 'come-together-for-a-common-cause' vibe, not a divisive one, and I like that.
Mike
Last edited by Michael Zaneski; 04/19/2503:47 PM.
Fate doesn't hang on a wrong or right choice Fortune depends on the tone of your voice
-The Divine Comedy (Neil Hannon) from the song "Songs of Love" from the album "Casanova" (1996)
This song is done. I've put it up a few places. It gotten a few compliments and one or two people thanked me for writing it. I received a comment on another site that the person thought that the chorus was too long. I'm fine with it as it stands.
As far as divisiveness? This song aint no coke commercial on a hillside.
Seems its a very divisive topic for a song or anything else. The theme is that politicians should not get the US mired in foreign wars that wont end well, particularly where Americans travel several thousand miles to be killed or maimed. And other than a little lip service, very few people actually care about their personal fates. Most people cant even find where they were killed or hurt on a map.
Nonetheless there are people, even on this site, that light up like a sparkler with all sorts of reasons why Americans have an obligation to go fight in "some" foreign wars. And if we don't, we are derelict. The world is divided Mike.
All that aside, nice to see your name and I hope all is well with you.
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