SeanPaulMurphyVille: MANY SIDES OF LOVE released!

Tuesday, August 20, 2024

MANY SIDES OF LOVE released!

My new collection of songs Many Sides of Love has just been released. It is available on streaming services everywhere.

Wait a minute, Sean. This is the fourth album you've released in two months. Are you crazy?

I really don't want to get into the question of whether or not I'm crazy, but I can tell you why I have been releasing all of this music.

I have been writing music since 1983. I have written quite a few songs over the years, but I had no illusions. I'm rock star material. Nor was I ever in a band with the skill to take my songs to the next level. That's why I always considered myself a failed songwriter -- despite my suspicions that I had written some pretty good ones.

My songs remained on the creative back burner until about a year ago while I pursued the much more lucrative world of writing books and movies. Then I noticed I was losing my voice. I really found myself in a downward spiral after I blew my voice out at a karaoke party at the Red Eye Yacht Club in Middle River. Since I previously made no real effort to record my songs, I knew they would be lost forever if I didn't record them myself. Using a simple setup with my iPhone, I recorded myself singing my songs one by one and uploading the videos to my YouTube channel. If you listen to them chronologically, you can hear my voice getting worse and worse.

The growth on my vocal cords

Finally, I went to the doctor. He discovered a possibly cancerous growth on my vocal cords and recommended an immediate operation. There was no guarantee I would be able to speak after the operation so I hurried through a few more songs before I went under the knife. Fortunately, the operation was a huge success and my voice is now better than ever.

I decided I liked my songs and I kept recording them, especially after the writer's strike and actor's strike ruined some promising movie deals I had in development. However, I still had no illusions. I couldn't give my songs the aural treatment I felt they deserved with just my voice and my acoustic guitar.

Then I discovered Udio, the AI Music Generator....

A musician friend of mine recently asked me why I went all in with artificial intelligence. The answer is simple: Udio gives me the opportunity to realize the songs the way I imagined them in my head. It would have cost me thousands of dollars on studio musicians and producers to accomplish what I did on Udio. The only downside was that Udio, in its current iteration, cannot preserve the melodies I originally wrote for the songs. I regret that at times. However, Udio has been surprisingly effective at coming up with compelling melodies.

Still, some folks have said they like my recordings of the songs better. I am greatly flattered by that attitude, and I will reward them with at least one album of "demos." However, on the internet, the reaction has been the opposite. According to my YouTube analytics, the Udio versions of my songs are much more popular on the whole than my own recordings. Who is listening is interesting too. On my versions of my songs, my audience was 80% over 55 and 85% male. The audience for my Udio songs is much wider and more diverse. 80% of my listeners are under 55, with the majority of them in their twenties and thirties. My audience is also split almost evenly between men and women. Most surprisingly, on the songs that really take off, the majority of the views are from the Philippines.

I'll be sticking with Udio for the time being.

Here are the official tracks from the album:

1). A GOOD FRIEND, NOT I. Another friendzone opus, but in this case, the protagonist (me, actually) was relegated to the friendzone after being more than a friend. That's a little more difficult than starting off in the friendzone.... This is one of my favorite songs and Udio versions. The Udio version is now my official version. I took the time to learn to play it that way!

2). SOMEONE. Someone was born from I conversation I had with a young lady about her desire to have someone to enjoy the smaller moments of life with. I felt the same way and wrote this song.

3). YOUR MIRROR. I wrote this song after a young lady expressed concern that she was too damaged to love or be loved again. I advised her to look at herself through the eyes of love: Mine, in particular.

4). I'LL SOOTHE YOUR PAIN. This is one of my favorite rockers. It's another plea for a young lady to step out and love again after a number of disappointments. This is a very familiar theme in my songs which makes me think: Perhaps the ladies were ready to love again -- except not with me.

5). COLD AS STEEL. This song was always one of my favorite 12-bar blues workouts. Here's the problem: Udio doesn't know how to do 12-bar blues formatting, so I had to go with a Southern rock approach. I really like it.

6). THROUGH HELL AND BACK. This is a hard rock song about a former girlfriend calling a guy to ask him to take her back. He resists -- initially. It's a fantasy, of course. If one of my old girlfriends called me to take them back, I wouldn't have resisted for a second!

7). LET GO. My faith has always been very important to me and this mid-80s song was my first attempt to express it in music. I think I wrote this around the time we briefly changed the name of our band from The Atomic Enema to The New Catholics.

8). THE GIFTS YOU GIVE. This is a farm girl period love song. I can't remember the exact context, but I was obviously very happy with her at the moment.

9). MANDY, OH MANDY. An ode to my elusive farm girl.

10). DOUBT IF YOU MUST. This is another one of my "come out of your shell and give me a chance" songs. I can't remember if it was successful. I really like this version. A good rocker.

11). SHE MATERIALIZES AT WILL. I think this is one of my best songs. It really worked with my craggy voice. Very Leonard Cohen. The Udio version is more yacht rock, but this is one of the instances were I might like my version better.

12). THREADS. I honestly can't remember when I wrote this song originally, or who it was written about. I either wrote it to my elusive farm girl during one of our breakups or to my wife when we were going through a rough patch. It works either way. I would love to get a country artist to record it.

13). SOMEBODY'S SEARCHING. I wrote this song as I was working my way through my breakup with my first girlfriend. I knew it was time to move on, and I was confident there was someone out there looking for the same thing I was looking for. I was right.

14). COME LORD. The previous song was Somebody's Searching so I thought it was best to follow it up with another gospel song 'cause it's always good to be searching for the Lord. He can always be found.

I hope you enjoy the songs and the album. You can listen to Many Sides of Love on these and other streaming services:

Amazon Music

Apple Music

iHeart Radio
Pandora
Spotify
YouTube Music

My Albums:

The Struggle
Many Faces of Love

He Said She Said
Many Sides of Love
Tales of Love and Death
Breakup City
The Elusive Farm Girl

Here's some music videos I worked on:

Big Pun: Twinz (Deep Cover 98)

Crack The Sky: Mr. President
Greg Kihn: Horror Show
Nils Lofgren: Alone

Face Dancer: Red Shoes

The Sunday Cannons: Friends Become Flowers

Other blogs about songwriting:

Sean Paul Murphy: (Failed) Songwriter

Sean Paul Murphy: (Failed) Songwriter, Pt. 2

Be sure to check out my memoir The Promise, or the Pros and Cons of Talking with God, published by TouchPoint Press. It is my true story of first faith and first love and how the two became almost fatally intertwined.

Here are some sample chapters of The Promise:

Chapter 1 - A Photograph

Chapter 2 - My Death

Chapter 3 - Childhood

Chapter 4 - Saved!

Chapter 5 - The Promise

Chapter 6 - The Mission

Chapter 7 - Mission Accomplished
Chapter 15 - Quarter To Midnight

Be sure to check out my novel Chapel Street. It tells the story of a young man straddling the line between sanity and madness while battling a demonic entity that has driven his family members to suicide for generations. It was inspired by an actual haunting my family experienced.

You can buy the Kindle and paperback at Amazon and the Nook, paperback and hardcover at Barnes & Noble.

Learn more about the book, click Here.

Watch the book trailer: