a goal on my whiteboard since 2018 was to write a christmas song. i can write half-decent (in my mind haha) poems in a song structure, and i usually know how i want a song to feel — maybe even more than how i want it to be heard. but for years i just couldn’t cross that one off the list. the missing piece was the actual music.
i tried to solve it the “right” way first: learning piano during covid. turns out musical ability does not simply arrive because you want it to. progress was slow, frustrating, and honestly kind of brutal. i just don’t naturally have that skill set, and eventually the goal went back on the shelf.
cue suno — an ai music studio that creates legitimately professional-sounding songs. i’d tinkered with it a little before, but over the last 6 weeks i went way deeper, probably 40–50 hours of late nights adjusting prompts, rewriting lines, re-recording takes, and slowly shaping all these half-formed lyric ideas into actual tracks. watching something i’d had stuck in my head for years finally turn into music was wild.
and instead of ending up with one christmas song like the whiteboard said… i somehow ended up with an entire christmas album — a bunch of songs that feel like snapshots of my childhood holidays: the moods, the memories, the nostalgia, the magic (curated and crafted by my parents), the weird mix of warmth and longing that christmas always brings.
i’m conflicted about all of this. part of me absolutely feels like it’s cheating. the artists whose work trained tools like suno aren’t being paid for these songs (and for the record, i’m not trying to monetize mine either — this was just for fun). but another part of me doesn’t really care, because i finally crossed off a goal that had been sitting there since 2018 untouched. ai also gives a path for people like me — who can write and imagine but can’t play or produce — to actually get ideas into the world.
apparently the current #1 country song is ai-generated, which still feels surreal to even say out loud. it’s a strange place we’re headed. but of course i want to explore it — and in the process explore my own memories, creativity, and that side of myself that’s been a little starved over the years.
anyway… here’s my christmas album. curious if any of the songs hit or resonate with you. 🎄
01 PAPA PADDY AND THE MAGIC ELF SHOES: my dad saw an elf looking into my and my sister's bedroom window late at night. he chased him around the yard and ended up keeping his elf shoes in exchange for releasing him. all of my siblings would bring these shoes in to show and tell over the years (including me, at 12 years old when i audibly heard gasps that didn't mean what i thought they meant, more of a "how is he... does he...?" haha)
https://blossom.primal.net/748bf00da8ff5075f470442aa28d15d0ef5b1463111a81a8ae9d29223805c78b.mp3
02 THE COAT WITH THE GLITTERY S: the big guy left our house in such a rush, and he accidentally got his red coat stuck on the fireplace doors when he rose up the chimney too quickly. the glittery S on the breast tickled our whimsy and strengthened our belief.
https://blossom.primal.net/f0e83c357e2f60815c8f9f9a6bb63e0d62e5fa4de5f25e73520a8cd72c00fd75.mp3
03 WE TEN KIDS: i am one of 10 children; when we were younger my oldest sister wrote the first verse of this song, which foretells the chaos of 10 kids destroying a newly added fireplace and newly renovated kitchen. i just added the second verse (my mom did actually use earplugs on christmas morning!). i had to sing all of this into SUNO to get it to sound right: a feature i definitely want to play with more. so cool.
https://blossom.primal.net/ebe2c275f1af7cc222c2ae97ebecfac4ab90a448c6b501f2fb61ebca970f5e5e.mp3
04 THAT EVIL ELF! : all of the children would wait at the top of the steps on christmas morning, trying to peek at the christmas piles surrounding the tree. while we were waiting, my dad would take one of us down with a large wooden stick (perhaps a handle from an old ax?). the purpose? to make sure the evil elf was not down there, rummaging through and stealing the gifts. (the real purpose? to turn on the christmas tree lights and christmas music, and to start a pot of coffee, i later found out... genius!).
https://blossom.primal.net/bf6c1aff60f0bd47b64f2d4f244229925f77cd7fc324f022edd9c9490be17b98.mp3
05 BUNKO BUCKY BAH-BAH: we had an actual book about santa claus and the north pole traditions. we would read it front to back all the time and marvel. we weren't allowed to say "SHUT UP" as children, so this one spell from the book was very appealing to us: "bunko bucky bah-bah." it was like a curse word to SHUT UP, and at the north pole., it silenced everyone for 55 minutes. the spell, sadly, didn't work for us. i guess we are not elves.
https://blossom.primal.net/ae267537cb05e4a4fdee4ae1b987293615510f07f473f9f70cbf2cfd70bf4af5.mp3
06 WHERE'S BRIAN? : from about 9 to 15 years old, i would dress as santa on christmas eve and hand out the gifts that my siblings would give to each other. it used to feel so special for me, as i disappeared as brian and reappeared as santa. the younger kids would be asking "WHERE"S BRIAN?!?! he's going to miss this!"
https://blossom.primal.net/21b8e2f417634c93e27fbb186d2570b1c5f6ba2b693b1be45c456e079b1b7c2f.mp3
07 CHRISTMAS JUST ISN'T : during covid, my housemates and i collaborated and tried our best at writing a christmas song. it ended up being a pretty sad song, but luckily we had some musical ability among us to play the guitar and piano. they performed it drunkenly at one of our legendary christmas parties. i always felt like the song lacked the right structure, so this is my remix. i rewrote most of it but kept the same ideas, and kept the main chorus line that we all loved. i feel like it turned out even sadder, somehow.
https://blossom.primal.net/6adb7758ddea070c026d80b01a841517d031a230991e35d585b81e73f69de282.mp3
08 MOST MAGICAL TIME OF THE YEAR: i couldn't end this short album on a sad song... and i wanted one that sounded like a christmas classic... so here we are!
https://blossom.primal.net/5abbc3945fbf1ac3c7dfd02d40eb431df9feaaf19d1f8854437bcf87addb118d.mp3
i have 4 other christmas songs that i am currently working on. but when i found myself singing the hooks on a few of these songs to myself non-stop, i realized i spent way too many hours on this and needed a break!
anyway, hope you enjoy.
#briantries #create
