I’ll Take “Who Wrote That” for $500: Christian Song Writers, AI, &the Desire for Collaboration

Let’s Play a Game

Okay, let’s see if you can guess what these famous songs all have in common:

White Christmas by Bing Crosby, You’ve Got That Loving Feeling by the Righteous Brothers, On Broadway by the Drifters, Heart Breaker by Pat Benatar, My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion, Candle in the Wind by Elton John.

Still not getting it? Let’s try a few more:

There is a Redeemer by Keith Green, It is Well with My Soul by Horatio Spafford, Amazing Grace by John Newton, Joy to the World by Isaac Watts, Hark! The Herald Angel Sings by Charles Wesley?

Give up? Ha! You probably figured it out from my title… but I will have my games.

All these songs originated with writers whose primary contribution was not public musical performance. Their words became famous through the musical gifts of others.

It Was Okay ’til 10 Minutes Ago

Historically, the church was far more comfortable separating the roles of lyricist, composer, arranger, and performer than we are today. John Newton wrote the words to Amazing Grace, but not the tune most people know. Isaac Watts supplied the texts for Joy to the World, while others supplied the music. Charles Wesley’s hymns have been sung to numerous melodies over the centuries. Long before modern copyright law, Christian song was shaped by adaptation, collaboration, and creative reuse. Lyricists wrote new words, composers supplied melodies, arrangers reshaped both, and congregations carried the results forward. Many of the hymns we cherish today are the product of that collaborative process.

In fact, copyright did not originally arise to protect artists in the modern sense, but to regulate printing after the invention of the printing press. For most of history there was no copyright system at all, and writers, hymnists, composers, and storytellers freely borrowed, adapted, and built upon existing works. It was not discarded as inauthentic for all that.

The first modern copyright law, England’s Statute of Anne (1710), granted authors a limited temporary monopoly not as an end in itself, but “for the Encouragement of Learning.” Likewise, the U.S. Constitution authorizes copyright not to maximize creator income, but “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.” The underlying idea was a balance between reward for creators to incentivize creation and the enrichment of the pool of human resources in the arts for continued adaptation.

Finally to Begin My Point

Stay with me here, I’m going somewhere important, I think.  

When believers gather to sing Amazing Grace, few stop to ask where the melody came from, who arranged it, how many tunes Newton’s words have worn over the centuries, or what creative process brought the version in their hymnal into existence. They sing it because it is true. They sing it because it is beautiful. They sing it because it helps them worship. Perhaps that is a lesson worth remembering. We should reject plagiarism, theft, and dishonesty wherever they appear. But beyond that, the church has historically judged songs primarily by their faithfulness, usefulness, and ability to direct hearts toward God. Perhaps our first question should not be, “How was this song made?” Perhaps it should be, “Is this a song worth singing?”

AI Music as Historic Collaboration

So, let’s talk about the elephant in the room… AI music.

In my own work, the songs begin with me. I provide the message from years in biblical and theological training… I tell the story, chart the emotional arc, pen the lyrics, hammer out the structure, design the pacing, the pauses, the breaks, the shifts and changes. I paint the style and cast the overall artistic vision. I had to learn to structure the lyrics so that the way they appear on the page dictates many aspects of the performance for my AI tools.

One AI program helps me refine and communicate my musical vision by serving as a sounding board, analyst, and translator of musical ideas into language that another AI system… a music system… can better understand. I tell it in many words how I hear the song, how I want it sung and it uses the right technical language to express that.

Then the musical AI program performs it for me, generating melodies, instrumentation, vocals, and recordings based on the specific direction it is given.

Sometimes it takes a long time to get it right. I have to go back again and again to toy with the instructions, change up the visual appearance of the words with punctuation and breaks until the system finally understands what I want and comes real close.

Historically, as we’ve discussed, the church was comfortable separating these processes, and the musicians themselves borrowed heavily from musical history and responded to it.

‘Til 10 Minutes Ago

Much of modern Christian music, however, operates on a different assumption than the older hymn tradition. The industry tends to elevate the singer-songwriter—the individual who writes the lyrics, composes the music, performs the song, and often serves as the public face of the work. As a result, gifted lyricists, theologians, poets, and storytellers who lack the ability to sing, perform, or secure musical collaborators often struggle to find a place at the table. This radically reduces the pool of talent from which Christian music and Christian worship can be gathered… and that’s a bad thing.

Hope in Creation

It was and remains my goal to work with gifted musicians to refine and perfect these songs. I turned to AI not because I believe it is the ideal solution, but because it was the first tool that allowed me to move ideas from my head into a form that others could actually hear.

Even now, I hear countless details I would like to change. I want these songs to become demos that attract talented singers, instrumentalists, arrangers, and producers whose expertise can elevate them far beyond what current AI systems can accomplish.

A Catch 22 for Many Creators

Historically, that kind of collaboration was common. Today, however, many writers who lack performance skills find themselves in a difficult position. Before a musician will invest time in a song, he often wants to hear the song. Yet without musicians, the songwriter may have no practical way to let others hear it.

AI has provided a bridge across that gap. Ironically, many of the same people who might once have served as that bridge now reject the very tool that allows such collaborations to begin.

A Call to Arms

So consider this my open letter to those talented singers, musicians, composers, arrangers, and producers who may be willing to collaborate with someone like myself.

I have spent decades studying Scripture, teaching theology, writing, and reflecting on the truths that have shaped the church across the centuries. Along the way I have also written songs—many songs… and I have so many more burning to get out.

My desire is not to replace musicians, but to find them. Not to diminish their gifts, but to place my own alongside them.

If these songs possess any merit, I would love to see them refined, challenged, improved, and ultimately brought to life by people whose musical abilities exceed my own.

We remember Bing Crosby, Keith Green, and Elton John. We remember the performers. We rarely remember the lyricists, poets, pastors, theologians, and dreamers behind many of the songs themselves. Yet the church has always needed both. If history teaches us anything, it is that some of the songs that endure the longest are born when different gifts find one another.

~Andrew D. Sargent, PhD