Using AI, Catholic musician offers musical fusion in response to #gonetoofar

By Lara Pickford-Gordon

snrwriter.camsel@catholictt.org

The controversy surrounding Tribe Carnival’s distribution of a sex toy to its female masqueraders drew criticism from Archbishop Charles Jason Gordon, who used #gonetoofar as a clarion call for Catholics and wider society to voice their concerns.

Catholic musician Christopher Phillips, the founder and owner of Fully Catholic Radio, turned his indignation into a reflective song on culture, country and future for the nation’s children.

Phillips, a coordinator with Grace Music Ministry, spoke to The Catholic News on February 20 about his song ‘Gone Too Far’ and other compositions created with assistance from Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Phillips said he was unaware of the sex toy controversy until multiple WhatsApp chats carried the same video from Archbishop Gordon. He eventually listened to the Archbishop’s message.

“In all honesty and all fairness, as a nation, we shouldn’t be surprised but I was appalled. I was appalled by it. And I thought ‘Oh my goodness!’, and when I listened to it I thought no, no, no…we really, really have gone too far,” Phillips said.

He was prompted to create a song and went to ChatGPT, which he calls his “admin assistant”.  “I was really venting. I was really annoyed, and I told it I wanted to write a song, but I said I did not want to write it from a religious standpoint, and I started a discussion based on that,” he explained.

Phillips put the question: “What are the pros and cons of us taking our, and again I say quote-unquote, our culture down this road?” ChatGPT responded on “What Carnival and the Carnival season were meant to be”, stating “Carnival existed in tension with Lent”.

It gave points on: ‘The core shift from celebration to carnality’ and listed the pros: economic benefit, expression and release, personal autonomy, cultural pride. The cons included: body loses sacred meaning; what is marketed eventually becomes expected; women are told this is empowerment—but at a cost; children are the silent casualties; and spiritual numbness.

Phillips had an extensive discussion with ChatGPT.  He said the cons given were “unanimous, regardless of if you take religion into consideration or not”. He added, “many people do not see the correlation between crime that we face and our—for want of a better term —lewd type of behaviour, they don’t see the correlation for our appetite for pornography.”

Elaborating, he shared that disregard for the sanctity of one’s body and self can have wider repercussions. Phillips illustrated his point: “I want what my neighbour has—and I am using the word neighbour loosely—so I go and I steal from them. I don’t like my neighbour’s head, so I go and I beat them up. This sex toy and this whole thing of immorality impacts on our body, my body. If I have reverence for body, chances are I will have reverence for my neighbour who, I might find very difficult to get along with”.

‘Gone too Far’ went through changes to get the sound Phillips envisioned. He wanted the song to provoke deep emotion, “just the music alone, the melody should challenge persons to listen”.

He disclosed the final version on the platform he used almost got deleted. At almost eight minutes long, he thought there was an error. “Then this still voice said, ‘don’t delete it, listen to it’ and when I listened to it, I almost cried, the melody and everything else was exactly what I was looking for,” Phillips said.

He has been having prolific output with ChatGPT and said about 16 songs were created since the end of last year.

“It feeds off of you. The more information you give it, the more aligned the output is to what you want,” he said. ‘Gone Too Far’, originally titled ‘Going Too Far’ was his 17th song. The first, ‘That’s Not Who We Are’ was based on the Venezuela-US conflict and the rhetoric of “kill them violently” in response to the US military bombing of alleged drug traffickers’ boats.

‘Beatitudes of Pan’ was inspired by a homily given by Belmont Parish Priest Fr Mikkel Trestrail on the gospel Matthew 5:1–12, the Beatitudes. “He did a really crazy twist on it with regards to the pan…it played so much on my mind I said I have to go home and write a song on this one,” Phillips said.

Prayer has also given inspiration for example, ‘Mash Them Down’. Using ChatGPT and creating his brand of Jazz and Soca has brought him back to his love of Soca music. It “really is an infectious music and very beautiful,” he said. His detachment for this genre came about because of the prevalence of songs demoralising women, and women singing these songs. Phillips’ thoughts went to doing a project to “rescue Soca Music” and prompt transformation of the culture through music. He said, “Somebody would be able to hear ‘Beatitudes of Pan’ and realise that’s not just a nice song but, it’s Christian you know, or hear ‘Mash Them Down’ and realise that is really, really nice, and for people to come to realise that we don’t have to be immoral to enjoy our Soca music”.