your(e) younger you is an experimental AI-collaboration that explores themes of growing up and forgetting your past, using AI voice cloning to duet with myself at 15-years-old. To juxtapose my growth as a musician, I trained Facebook’s MusicGen AI on my old songs to generate material reminiscent of my old style and utilised it in my song. This piece was done as part of my coursework for the Bachelor of Music (Interactive Composition) at the University of Melbourne.
Written & Produced by Cameron Tan
Published June 2024.
Lyrics
Did you forget me?
Amidst all your progress, did you forget to trek on back home?
To all the overgrowing vines
That’s fine
We told ourselves we’d never take root
Keep on moving like you should
Always running away
What does it take to lose your history?
Forget yourself, or at least the person you used to be
We’ll probably grow and learn
What does it take to rewrite your memories?
You try so hard to escape identity
Reinvent yourself again
If my hometown climate’s constant
Then I should stay the same
If my hometown climate’s constant
Then why do I always change
If we still are the same person
Why do you go by a different name?
If reflections all stay constant
Then why do my pictures always change?
I don’t have the time
To figure you out
Part by part you get replaced
Swap young you with an older face
I can be erased
I can be erased