Coyote

"Coyote" begins with one of those small incidents that somehow becomes larger than memory: a drive through the pines, an animal caught in the headlights, and two people pretending not to say what they both already know. The coyote is not a monster or a warning so much as a threshold. It crosses the road, survives, and turns an ordinary drive home into a moment where the world briefly reveals itself.

For this song, my goal was to prevent the models from outputting overused chord progressions that frequently appear in pop music. I found that, without special prompting, one of about five or so stereotypical progressions would be used in the choruses.

I found, however, that it is actually possible to prompt for specific unusual chords in the lyrics text - for example: [Chord Progression: Gmaj7 - Ebmaj7 - Bbmaj7 - F#7sus4]. While the result isn't always the exact chords specified, instructions like these appear to force models out of their typical calculations into using similar chords. In this case, there might not be an F#, but there will be some sort of suspended or extended chord.

There are two versions of "Coyote," which are very different. The "Beautiful" version is intimate and reminiscent of "Die With a Smile," while the "Astonishing" version presents the sunrise as an explosion of sound.