THEA: When Suno recently introduced their new models, Chad started experimenting with styles to see what might be viable for us to use on our new material. I don’t quite recall how it happened, but he stumbled on this indie-sounding one using a female vocalist who sounds almost like a high school kid…so our discussion turned to the concerns of people much younger than we are. We kicked around topics (social media, etc.) and I think I’m the one who first mentioned how focused girls sometimes are on self-image and appearance, and how difficult that can be for the ones who are not as conventionally physically beautiful as others.

Chad has three daughters, so he’s not unfamiliar with girls experiencing pressure to look a certain way.

During our discussion, I asked him to generate this voice singing “I’m not the pretty girl/I’m not the beauty queen/you’ll never see my face/on a magazine” (he very slightly modified this to make it work better…and it does). The result sounded like the perfect pairing to me: this voice, this topic, these lyrics.

By the next day, Chad had the remaining 75% in place. We did our usual trimming,  fitting, and making improvements, and the very last thing we did was add the conclusion: “But I really like myself, so maybe that’s okay.” Because it needed that. Girls who feel this way typically develop other things that make them special, and if they like who they are in spite of not being as physically beautiful as someone else, that’s a win. And we wanted a win for this girl.

If you’re at all familiar with what we’ve been writing, you’ll recognize this is quite a departure for us. But what I like about that is a) it demonstrates that we have a fairly wide range and are capable of writing far outside what is typical for us, and b) it’s an important message, giving voice to young girls who struggle with this pressure—but concluding: “You still have so much value and you can still like yourself, even if you don’t think you can make yourself look like a model.”

And that’s a message girls have always deserved to hear.

THEA: Another one of Chad’s great ideas. There are some beautiful metaphors here.

“And though they may be warm enough that we still won’t let go” is the most significant lyric change I personally made; most everything else was a cosmetic change to Chad’s ideas: a better word here, a better rhythmic phrase there, and at the end a minor-but-necessary direction change where the singer is not just describing what’s happening, but expressing his personal desperation.

During our process on this song (which took over 200 Suno generations), Chad said to me, “I wish people understood how hard this is.”

And that is one of my motivations for writing all these summaries of what we do.

There is a remarkable amount of debate that goes on regarding the use of tools like Suno to make music. I am aware there are people who just churn out stuff with sloppy prompts and nonsensical AI-generated lyrics, and distribute it to streaming services in an effort to make easy money.

That has very little resemblance to what we’re doing. But it’s also not our goal. We’re actually writing, and we’re doing it for human performers…so we really work hard to get the tunes right. Suno might give us the perfect take with everything we want and then we’ll hear some odd machine blemish, a strange note in the bass line, an extra bar, or some errant chord that only happens once. In this case, many of the takes were good except for one thing…but the reason we finally felt good about this one is that there were no structural problems, and coming out of the bridge, the desperation in the vocal track was what we’d been looking for.

So there’s a little behind-the-scenes look at the effort we make on every song.

THEA: I think I wrote this song when I was in my early twenties, so it’s actually older than dirt.

I sang it with a couple of bands, then recorded a demo of it in Seattle with some great musicians, two of whom have been my nearly lifelong friends: Wayne Cockfield on guitar and Jerome Gates on bass. (My sincere apologies to everyone else who did such an excellent job playing on it—I can’t seem to identify them today because that’s just how long it’s been. I can’t even remember if I played keys on it myself. Hahaha…wow.)

Then I forgot all about it. It collected about three inches of dust, until one day recently,  Chad reminded me of the Seattle demo that I apparently gave him over 20 years ago.

I thought it might work if it was just recycled, so I asked him to upload the Seattle recording to Suno to give it a makeover of sorts. Suno tracked it very well—it was quite good—but we felt the song itself still sounded too dated. We wanted it to present like current R&B instead of the super-energized sounding funk that it had been, and there were a few lines of lyrics that needed a refresh too…because they honestly sounded like a 21 year-old wrote them decades ago.

Enter the magic of Chad. He fixed a couple of lines right up and cooked up an R&B recipe for it with a new groove, melody, and changes. And there it is. Let’s Get Serious, 2026.

Everything old is new again.

THEA: Some of our songs are written largely together, but not this one. Though I have the more extensive musical background, Chad is a far more creative person than I am…and almost all of our best ideas start with him. And I think this one is brilliant: “The worst thing I ever did was nothing, and nothing is what made you leave.”

As I look back at the first set of lyrics as they were presented to me, it’s remarkable how little we changed lyrically as we worked through this. The big change I talked him into was a style overhaul…it started out very different musically. Once we agreed on how to present it, my job was to add and subtract mostly just cosmetic lyrics to make the phrases land in the pocket, but honestly, I changed very little. The time we spent on it was mostly in producing: trying to make Suno do what we wanted it to do, which is sometimes much harder than people assume.

And please don’t get me wrong…mine is a very important job. I’m usually the one who takes a very, somewhat, or slightly raw product and gets the lyrics ready to push out the door—and I definitely make my share of the musical decisions while at that stage, Chad’s attention is largely on wrangling the technical stuff. But this excellent song was nearly all Chad. And I feel like we got it right.

CHAD: I can’t even begin to describe how important Thea is when it comes to making these songs work.

THEA: Some of you may be familiar with the incredible rock and soul vocalist/bassist Glenn Hughes; I have long regarded his as one of the greatest voices of our time. He’s as fantastic a soul singer as he is a rock singer (take a listen to his cover of “I Was Made To Love Her” with Stevie Salas).

We had the pleasure of meeting him at one of his shows, and it was my privilege to be able to tell him that I thought so. So I crossed that off my bucket list.

Glenn, like a great many people, has struggled to overcome addiction. In his case, the struggle was quite public.

This isn’t his story, but he is the person who inspired us to write the song.

One of our favorite Glenn Hughes songs is called “Talk About It” (“I don’t want to talk about it” is the hook), so I suggested to Chad that we write the song about someone who is at his breaking point, and wants to talk about it…to God. He doesn’t know if he can change, but he just wants to talk about it. He knows he needs God, and he finds himself ready to take his first, small step.

I suggested the hook and title.

As usual, Chad took the topic and ran with it. What you’re hearing here is about 75% lyrics he wrote before I made my changes and suggestions.

This song was going to be done in a rock style, until we did it in a rock style. We instantly knew it wasn’t working, so I asked Chad to try it as a Take Six (or Brian McKnight)-style ballad. And just as quickly as we knew when it wasn’t working, we knew that this was.

CHAD: This one speaks for itself. There’s a lot of men out there who are pretty tough to live with. I’m pretty sure I’ve not always been easy. Somehow, though, they find partners who actually stay with them even when they don’t deserve it.

This song is from the perspective of a man who understands it, acknowledges it, and owns it.

It was while working on this song I learned - from Thea - that the order of words can make a huge difference between a line that is okay, and a line that is really good. Also, changing perspectives. One example would be changing “when you met me” to “when I met you”. The first one is awkward and clunky. The second is more smooth and easy to sing. Another great change she made was changing the word “folks” to “people”.

I think overall the song turned out really well, and it’s one of my favorites.

Anything you want to say about this, Thea?

THEA: Thank you, Chad…I should probably clarify for the readers a little bit. And if you’re a vocalist, you probably already know this:

It’s kind of a friction thing. The phrase “when you met me” has more friction in it than “when I met you”. (Just say the words. You’ll see what I mean.) The first phrase isn’t necessarily clunky, it just has more resistance…and sometimes it might be the preferred lyric, depending on other factors. The other thing I consider is how something lands rhythmically, how it dances with the melody.

Minor detailed changes like this are what I refer to as “cosmetic changes”.

The change from “folks” to “people” not only improved the picture in the mind’s eye (IMO), it added a little percussiveness to the phrase, which I love. “Most people woulda walked away then” just lands so beautifully right there.

If you recall, we made several of these cosmetic changes to this song, and I honestly think this one could be a country hit. Once you hear it, you don’t forget that hook.

ANYWAY…little effort, big impact…that’s me! [LAUGHS] We’d be nowhere with any of this without Chad, but I’m the annoying details person. I should put it on a business card.

THEA: Because some of the work we do involves Suno, people may assume we aren’t making a lot of musical decisions (in truth, we make many), but one of the most important things we do is choose a messenger for our lyrics.

This story is one Chad created, and we went through several style changes before we realized what it needed. We made some good cosmetic alterations to important lyrics (this is how we got to “lanterns” and “beacons”, and the friendship theme that runs through it), but it still sounded all wrong. Not urban enough. Then urban, but still not right.

Then we asked ourselves, “How would John Ondrasik [Five For Fighting] do this?”

Four phrases in, I had tears in my eyes. We immediately high-fived—we both knew we had finally gotten it right.

“I Only Know Your Light” found its voice.

Anything to add to this, Chad?

CHAD: I have worked in the tech field for decades, and I often worked a lot of hours late into the night. Especially when I was younger. Sometimes it was only me in the office late at night, but as I aged and had less reason to stay later, I noticed a lot of the younger developers would stay long hours. I’d review code check-ins and see really late nights had happened.

This made me think about how these kids were often alone, with no family, and no real active social life. It seemed pretty lonely to me. So, I decided to write something about that loneliness.

As is always the case, Thea helped take a rough version and polished it. I think she made it into something we can be proud of.

THEA: Wait. We both forgot to talk about the stalker vibe. [LAUGHS]

🎵 What a difference a word makes🎵:

When we first thought we were done with this one, the opening  said “I watch your building across the street and I see your light come on.”

I sent it to my niece and her husband, because they both spent their careers working in office buildings. I wanted to see whether the story resonated at all…and they both loved it except they pointed out that these particular lines felt a little creepy. Chad said he knew it felt a little creepy, I wasn’t bothered by it, but the fix I came up with was so easy, I can’t believe we didn’t just do it before asking their opinion of the song: “I see your building across the street, and I see a light come on.”

And that took care of that.

Yikes. [LAUGHS]

THEA: This song is about an actual experience I had. For many years, I sang lead and background vocals in a variety of Top 40/R&B bands. It’s not true for every genre of music, but for that one, it’s a little easier to age out performance-wise. When I found myself getting to that point, I decided to go back to my roots: My best friend and I had an acoustic duo that played around Wisconsin Dells when we were in high school, so I pulled a guitar out of storage and took it to a pro shop in Seattle where I was living at the time.

This particular instrument had no truss rod, and the neck had bowed over the years, causing mild intonation issues on the higher frets. The cost for the repair was more than the guitar was worth, and the luthier’s recommendation was to (quite unceremoniously) throw it away.

“Can I just give it to a student?”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Should I just donate it? It still has such a warm, beautiful tone.”

“Unless you want to pay for a neck re-set, I wouldn’t give it to anybody.”

When I heard this, the diagnosis made me irrationally upset. I mean, who doesn’t want to go buy a new guitar? Who is bothered by that idea? But I found myself crying over it for about a day before I realized what was really bothering me: I was the guitar. I still sounded good, but…I was older. Maybe it was time for me to be thrown away too.

Or maybe not.

So the song (largely crafted by Chad, at my topic suggestion—and refined by the two of us over the kitchen table) is about a Takamine nylon string guitar.

It’s also about me.

And FWIW: I didn’t throw it away.

Anything to add, Chad?

CHAD: This is Thea’s story to tell. I just helped her bring her story to life.

I will say, though, that originally I had used the words “repair shop” because I thought “luthier” was too much. Thea, rightfully, pointed out something like “Let’s just say ‘music store’” and I have to say it flowed a lot better. She does a lot of that, and I’d be a fool if I didn’t listen.

THEA: If you didn’t listen, you’d be doing this without me. [LAUGHS]

THEA: So crazy that this almost wasn’t done in this style. (Don’t ask what we first thought we’d do with it…I don’t want to admit it now. [LAUGHS])

I’m an R&B singer and the first time I heard Jonah Nilsson (of Dirty Loops) sing, I felt like I was going to collapse—because it just doesn’t get any cooler than that.

So here comes Chad, producing this song in this style—AFAIK, he wasn’t really thinking about Loops—just to try it out. When we got to add the Henrik Linder (again, Dirty Loops)-sounding bass solo, we knew we weren’t going to touch it again.

One of our more unusual topics (a cynical concierge…brilliant, Chad!) that needed only a little polish and a few fresh lines from me…and I don’t think we’ll ever top this one.

(Speaking of polish, the lyric “polished answers” sounds like “Polish dancers” when you sing it at this tempo…ask me how I know. So “practiced answers” it was.)

Chad?

CHAD: This one was fun. I’ve traveled a lot over the course of my career, constantly staying in hotels - everything from a Hampton Inn overnight on the way to some other place, all the way to staying a Ritz Carlton long-term working overseas. After a while, you get to know the people that work there. If you’re a people-watcher, you tend to observe and learn things.

I thought this might be a song in some other style - I don’t remember what style - but we eventually stumbled on this style as we were experimenting with different arrangements.

Honestly, I think from an arrangement perspective this one is probably my favorite. I have others that are favorites for other reasons. But this one? It’s just… fun.