Music Saved Me Podcast

How Music Saved Lives: John Beltzer's Journey with Songs of Love Foundation and Emotional Healing Through Music

28 min
Feb 25, 2026about 2 months ago
Listen to Episode
Summary

John Belzer, founder of Songs of Love Foundation, discusses how personalized songs created for seriously ill children and seniors have impacted nearly 50,000 lives over 30 years. The organization has partnered with AI music company Suno to scale globally and now serves seniors with dementia and other health conditions, combining traditional songwriting with AI-generated music in multiple genres and languages.

Insights
  • AI music tools like Suno are enabling disabled and aging musicians to continue creating by removing technical barriers, not replacing human creativity
  • Personalized music therapy delivered as portable MP3s extends clinical benefits beyond hospital settings, providing ongoing emotional and psychological support
  • Scaling charitable impact through technology partnerships allows mission-driven organizations to serve exponentially more people without compromising quality or intent
  • Music therapy's effectiveness stems from identity recognition—hearing one's life story and personality reflected in custom lyrics creates deeper healing than generic playlists
  • Reframing AI adoption from threat to tool unlocks creative potential for both established artists and 'mind musicians' without formal training
Trends
AI-assisted music creation enabling accessibility for disabled and elderly creatorsPersonalized health interventions using AI to scale therapeutic services globallyCharitable organizations partnering with AI companies as exclusive partners for social impactMusic therapy integration into clinical protocols for pain management and psychological supportQR code campaigns expanding healthcare charity access through retail and institutional partnershipsGenerative AI tools democratizing music production for non-professional creatorsLife review therapy using AI-generated music for dementia and memory retentionClinical studies validating AI-generated personalized music against traditional playlist therapyCross-generational creative collaboration enabled by AI production toolsGlobal expansion of healthcare charities through language-agnostic AI music generation
Topics
Personalized Music Therapy for Seriously Ill ChildrenAI Music Generation and Creative AccessibilityCharitable Impact Scaling Through Technology PartnershipsDementia Care and Memory Retention Through MusicMusic Therapy in Clinical Hospital SettingsDisability Accommodation in Creative IndustriesAI Ethics in Healthcare ApplicationsGenerative AI Tools for Non-Professional MusiciansLife Review Therapy and Elderly CareQR Code Marketing for Healthcare CharitiesClinical Studies on Personalized Music InterventionGrief Processing and AI-Generated MemorialsPain Management Through Distraction and Identity RecognitionGlobal Healthcare Charity Expansion ModelsSongwriting Community Engagement and Volunteer Networks
Companies
Suno
AI music generation platform partnering exclusively with Songs of Love to create personalized songs in any style, gen...
St. Jude Children's Hospital
First hospital partner that provided patient information enabling Belzer to create initial six songs that launched th...
Music and Memory
Organization founded by Concetta Tomeno conducting clinical studies with Songs of Love on personalized music therapy ...
The New Jewish Home
Upper West Side senior care facility partnering with Songs of Love on clinical study validating AI-generated personal...
AHRC New York City
Special needs organization receiving bulk song delivery from Songs of Love for seniors and teenagers with development...
First Central Savings Bank
Financial institution displaying QR codes for Songs of Love requests in nine branch locations as part of charity's ex...
Adobe
Online production tool using AI to assist producers, cited as historical precedent for AI adoption in creative indust...
Electro Records
Record label that signed Belzer in 1995 but dropped him, leading to his epiphany to create Songs of Love Foundation
People
John Belzer
Founder of Songs of Love Foundation; drummer and singer-songwriter who created 50,000 personalized songs for ill chil...
Julio Belzer
John's fraternal twin brother and band lead singer who died by suicide in 1984; wrote 'Songs of Love' ballad that ins...
Mikey Shulman
CEO of Suno AI music company who partnered exclusively with Songs of Love and volunteered at The New Jewish Home in m...
Concetta Tomeno
Founder of Music and Memory organization conducting clinical studies with Songs of Love on personalized music therapy...
Carl Lacco
Songwriter formerly signed to Tommy Mottola who lost his tongue to oral cancer but resumed creating songs using Suno'...
Richard Berardi
80-year-old Songs of Love board member who wrote Alabama's first hit and now uses Suno to produce 300-400 song snippe...
Pete Townsend
The Who guitarist using Suno to finish 300-400 song snippets he has accumulated over his career
Brittany Smith
Five-year-old cancer patient whose thank-you call to Belzer for her personalized song became the pivotal moment launc...
Quotes
"Music saved me. There are people in this world who hear music differently. They understand on a cellular level that a song can do what medicine sometimes cannot do."
Host Lynn HoffmanOpening
"I had this unbelievable epiphany, this realization that I could use my talents to help make this a better world, and the concept just popped into my head to start a charity that would write personalized songs for seriously ill children and teens."
John Belzer~5:30
"When I heard that little girl say 'thank you for my song,' I was bawling my eyes out. I said that's it. I've arrived and there's no turning back."
John Belzer~10:00
"You're using it as a tool. If you know how to use it as a tool, it just enhances what you do. You have millions upon millions of what I call mind musicians who are people who are creatively in their head but never had a chance to learn an instrument."
John Belzer~35:00
"I see people having access to what we do globally. With our partnership with Suno, now it's very possible. I like to have Songs of Love come out of the lips of everybody around the world saying, yeah, I know someone who received a song of love and they really were helped by it."
John Belzer~55:00
Full Transcript
Music saved me. There are people in this world who hear music differently. They understand on a cellular level that a song can do what medicine sometimes cannot do. And my next guest is one of those rare individuals. John Belzer is the founder of Songs of Love Foundation, an incredible organization that creates personalized, original songs for children and teens facing serious illness. And we're talking about custom-written music crafted specifically for a child using their name, their favorite things, their personality, and it's delivered at a moment when they really need to feel seen and loved and uplifted most. John Belzer is an old friend, a dear friend, and he is next on Music Saved Me. Don't go anywhere. You're not going to believe this story. soul, honest conversations about identity, loss, purpose, peace, faith, and everything in between. Celebrities, thinkers, everyday people, some have answers, most are still figuring it out. And if you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you. Listen to If You Can Hear Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, it's Joe Interesting, host of the Spirit Daughter Podcast, where we talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And today I'm talking with my dear friend, Krista Williams. It can change you in the best way possible. Dance with the change, dance with the breakdowns. The embodiment of Pisces intuition with Capricorn power moves. So I'm like delusionally proud of my chart. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. In 2018, the FBI took down a ring of spies working for China's Ministry of State Security, one of the most mysterious intelligence agencies in the world. The Sixth Bureau podcast is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets. Listen to The Sixth Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast Doubt, The Case of Lucy Letby, we unpack the story of an unimaginable tragedy that gripped the UK in 2023. But what if we didn't get the whole story? I've just been made to fit. The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapsed. What if the truth was disguised by a story we chose to believe? Oh my God, I think she might be innocent. Listen to Doubt, The Case of Lucy Letby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. music saved me john welcome to music save me it's so great to have you here i feel like i haven't seen you in like a decade is that possible yeah at least yeah it's been a while but uh glad we're reconnecting me too and i'm so glad that you reached out because this is the perfect story for this podcast music saved me can you first take us back to that spark um that was that moment that led you to create Songs of Love? Was there a situation, a child, a song that changed everything? There was a situation. Yes, a big situation. Tell us about that. So back in 1996, I was walking down the street in my neighborhood in Forest Hills, Queens, and I was really distraught. I came off a record deal that didn't work out, signed to Electro Records with a young lady I discovered. And she went on to do some great things. But what happened was they didn't really want me, so they dropped me out of the picture, and that was in late 1995, so I was really distraught. So when I was walking down the street in early, in January of 1996, I was licking my wounds, and all of a sudden I had this unbelievable epiphany, this realization that I could use my talents to help make this a better world, and the concept just popped into my head to start a charity that would write personalized songs for seriously ill children and teens. and it would contain their names and all the things that they loved. And I was reacting as though somebody was telling me the idea. Oh, my God, that's unbelievable. I think we're going to raise a million dollars the first year. Which, you know, of course, I was naive. I was just going on pure passion. So as soon as I thought of that concept, I had a fraternal twin brother who committed suicide back in 1984, Julio, and we were in a band together. I was the drummer. He was the lead singer. So three months before he died, he wrote this beautiful song called Songs of Love. And it's a ballad. He loved Stevie Wonder. And so the name for the organization just instantly came to me. I would call it the Songs of Love Foundation, named after Julio Saul. It was pretty amazing because, you know, I had no idea how to run a charity. I was just this guy wanting to be a pop star. and I just had the fortune, the good fortune to actually see a little opening in my ego bubble, if you will. And I saw that there was a bigger possibility for my talents and I just immediately hit the ground running. I called up St. Jude Children's Hospital. I told them I was a songwriter in New York and so I told them I wanted to write some songs for their kids that they were taking care of And so, well, we can't really divulge information because of confidentiality rules. But I said, you know what? We do have a few kids we're using for promotional purposes. So they sent me six stickers of these six different kids with brief biographical data. And I created, when I got them, I created six songs in four days. And I sent it back to the hospital on cassette. You remember cassette? Yes. I don't like to admit that, but yes, yes. so then I get a call from the PR department and they thank me for the songs but the clincher call came two weeks after that when a mom phoned me and she put Brittany Smith on the phone five years old with cancer and with the cutest little voice she said thank you for my song and when I heard them and I was like bawling my eyes out I said that's it I've arrived and there's no turning back So that was the moment that started it all from that call from that little girl, which has never happened quite like that since. You know, we get a lot of amazing letters, calls from parents, but not with them immediately putting their little kid on the phone. So like the universe said, this is the call that you need. So it was unbelievable. So from there, we just started building up, you know, just calling up more hospitals and recruiting some of my songwriter friends. And then it just built. And here we are 30 years later. and we've created nearly 50,000 songs for kids. And now, not only kids, because we just recently partnered with an amazing company and some people are pushing back against it, as you probably know. No? Asuno, the AI music company. Oh, because it's AI, I understand. Yes, because it's AI. And everyone's so scared of it. Yeah, but I think we have the perfect use for it And they, frankly, really embraced what we were doing. And we felt so lucky that they did that because I sent an email to their CEO, Mikey Shulman. And I told him I wanted to bow before him because now I realized that we could create songs in any style, any genre, any era. And I thought, well, my own mom had Alzheimer's. So why not start creating songs for seniors with dementia and other health ailments? And Suno enables everyone to create songs from back in the day with simple prompts like Big Band, Do-Wop, Motown, all kinds of songs from, you know, decades ago. And because of that feature, you know, now we're able to scale in a way that we've never been able to before. Yeah, you can help so many more people. Yeah. And John, may I add though now, like you said earlier, you wanted to be a big star and famous and have a band and all that. In a sense, you kind of are bigger than the average. I mean, because you're using all of your powers for good and not just, you know, self-indulgence. I mean, you're giving it all away to help others. So that a huge not only commitment but also it gave you your dream without having to rely on the traditional sources and doing good at the same time Well I appreciate you saying that Lynn It means a lot to me Well it true Can you walk our listeners through exactly how Songs of Love works You know, for example, the moment you get a call from a family member, they reach out and a child wants to get a song done. How would this work? Yeah, we have a song request form online. It's at songsoflove.org forward slash request. and they simply go on there and fill in the pertinent information, the child's name, their age, family members, friends, special interests, hobbies, everything that they love in their lives. And then we commissioned the individual song creator to create the song for that child. But now if you go to that site, you also have the opportunity to choose either child or senior. So now, you know, we encourage everyone dealing, you know, caregivers, givers who are dealing with seniors with dementia, other health issues, to hop on our site and request a song that's been shown to help on so many different levels. Yes, music is not only just a way to make somebody smile. It really is. It can help heal them from so many levels, as I keep learning on this show more and more. It's astounding. Yeah, we just did a small clinical study with music and memory with Concetta Tomeno. She's the founder. And what they usually do is they provide a playlist for seniors of songs that they grew up with. So we're taking it to the next level, writing songs in the style that they grew up with. And now there's their whole biography written into the lyric. So it's sort of like a life review of that individual person, which the study showed that they're able to retain their memories better than before they started listening to their songs. So we're really excited about that. and we're embarking on another clinical study with the new Jewish home on the Upper West Side. And so that's already in motion. And coincidentally, Mikey Shulman, the CEO of Suno, volunteered at the new Jewish home when he was in middle school. Oh, did you know that or that just happened? No, did not know that. Wow. Wow. It was meant to be. It was definitely meant to be. You know, I do feel right now is a really interesting time, John, especially with all of the AI and people being so fearful of it. But the reality is, is that if you forget all the things that you're scared of and start to focus on all the things that it's going to fix for all of us, you know, blind children seeing again, quadriplegics walking again, I mean, just simple chores or things that you just, you could spend time with your family instead of having, just the things that it solves are pretty remarkable. Absolutely. We have a couple of songwriters. One of them, Carl Lacco, he used to be signed with Tommy Mottola. But recently he had tongue, oral cancer, and they needed to remove his tongue. So he couldn't write for us anymore. Now, Suno came along, and now he's able to write songs again. And not only that, they have a feature called Persona, where you could actually train his voice, and he could, quote-unquote, sing the songs again. Now, how cool is that? That's incredible. That is goosebumps. Yeah, and we have another writer with Parkinson's. He couldn't play the keyboard anymore. And he couldn't really sing that well anymore. Now he's able to keep creating songs for us. So it helps on so many different levels. And not only that, but me as a singer-songwriter, I'm writing new songs every week just on my spare time on the weekends. And the other feature Suno has, which a lot of songwriters out there are really appreciating, is the fact that you can sing an original song into your iPhone with guitar and whatever lyrics you come up with, upload it to Suno, and it gives you a fully produced version of that song, which encourages songwriters to write in a lot more prolific way because they know they're going to get it produced almost immediately. So it really enhances the creative experience. And we have a board member who's 80 years old, Richard Berardi, he wrote Alabama's first hit. and he's so thankful that I told him about Suno because he's like a little kid in a candy store now. He's got all these musical ideas lying around. Yeah. Now he could actually bring them back to life by using Suno. So it's a lot of great stuff about that platform. I'm so grateful. And Mikey, he really has his heart in the right place, and it's really going to inspire a lot of creative people out there because I know you have some singer-songwriters who are kind of pushing back because, you know, they think it's taking the jobs away, but it's not really. You're using it as a tool. If you know how to use it as a tool, it just enhances what you do. And in addition, you have millions upon millions upon millions of what I call mind musicians who are people who are creatively in their head, but they never had a chance to learn an instrument. They never could afford to go into a studio. Now, Suno is giving them the opportunity to realize their musical ideas that they carry here and bring it into the world. So that's not a bad thing. That's a great thing. It is an amazing thing. And you're creating medicine. Yes. However it gets done, let's give it life to help others. Yes. You've created thousands of songs. You mentioned like 50,000, which is just unbelievable. What does the moment look like when a child who's really, really sick hears a song written just for them for the first time? You know, interesting you just asked me that. Yesterday we went to deliver a truckload of songs to AHRC, ARC, New York City. They help special needs people. And there were seniors, teenagers there. So we had 20 songs prepared for each individual person. So we had like a song playing party yesterday. And we have a video of it. and I was, I got to, you know, I got so emotional because I've been doing this 30 years, but when you see it in front of you, you kind of, you know, you're doing it so much that you kind of almost start to lose touch with what we're doing. People have to remind me, John, you're doing great things this world. I go, yeah, I guess you're right, you know? So then I see how they react. They start dancing to it and how they respond to it. And, you know, they're listening to their whole life story played back to them in this fully produced amazing song and seeing that in front of you as it's happening, it's so gratifying. I got all choked up. It's just unbelievable. So it's really very fulfilling for me as a singer songwriter to be using my talents to give back to this world. Yes. And doctors and nurses and hospital staff, I mean, they've all witnessed your songs firsthand and that happening. What kind of feedback have you gotten from the medical community about the impact? So much feedback we've gotten. A common one is, for instance, a child is receiving chemotherapy or going through a painful treatment. So then they play their song to help them distract them from the pain. And they start to concentrate on who they are as healthy, beautiful people. And they don't concentrate on their illness. So they're just listening to how wonderful they are as human beings. So it helps on so many levels. During treatment, they'll play it at home where they're not feeling well. It's sort of like, you might say, a portable form of music therapy. Yeah. Because you have music therapists do great stuff in the hospital. They'll interact with the patient and they'll do different exercises to them. But this is, we deliver the song on an MP3. We email it. We also have the box that has this design on the boxes, which reflects the content of the lyrics. It's a personalized art. And so now they have their songs with them that they can play anytime they want. So obviously, they're not always in the hospital. So they can always receive music therapy because the music therapist is not going to go home. Right, right. So this is sort of like a focused form of music therapy. And we actually are putting songs together with beautiful chord changes, beautiful melodies. And that's sort of our skill set. Music therapists have their skill set. And our skill set is to be able to create, you know, this beautiful anthem, life anthem for each individual. We'll be right back with more of the Music Save Me podcast. Hi this is Joe Winterstein host of the Spirit Daughter podcast where we talk about astrology natal charts and how to step into your most vibrant life And I just sat down with a mini driver The Irish traveler said when I was 16 you're going to have a terrible time with men. Actor, storyteller, and unapologetic Aquarian visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom loving and different perspectives. And I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius are misunderstood. A sun and Venus and Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership. He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms, on different houses, in different places, but just an embracing of the is-ness of it all. If you're navigating your own transformation or just want a chart-side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity, and real life, this episode is a must-listen. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. What do you do when the headlines don't explain what's happening inside of you? I'm Ben Higgins, and if you can hear me, it's where culture meets the soul, a place for real conversation. Each episode, I sit down with people from all walks of life, celebrities, thinkers, and everyday folks, and we go deeper than the polished story. We talk about what drives us, what shapes us, and what gives us hope. We get honest about the big stuff. Identity when you don't recognize yourself anymore. Loss that changes you. Purpose when success isn't enough. Peace when your mind won't slow down. Faith when it's complicated. Some guests have answers. Most are still figuring it out. If you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you. Listen to If You Can Hear Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world. But in 2017, the FBI got inside. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. This MSS officer has no idea the U.S. government is on to him. But the FBI has his chats, texts, emails, even his personal diary. Hear how they got it on the Sixth Bureau podcast. I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt, no question, of his life. And that's a unicorn. No one had ever seen anything like that. It was unbelievable. This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets. Listen to The Sixth Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2023, a story gripped the UK, evoking horror and disbelief. The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern British history. Everyone thought they knew how it ended. A verdict, a villain, a nurse named Lucy Letby. Lucy Letby has been found guilty. But what if we didn't get the whole story? The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby, we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived it to ask what really happened when the world decided who Lucy Letby was. No voicing of any skepticism or doubt. It'll cause so much harm at every single level if the British establishment of this is wrong. Listen to Doubt, The Case of Lucy Letby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the Music Saved Me podcast. It's pretty incredible. I was just trying to visualize, you said, a truckload of songs you're bringing somewhere. And I'm thinking, how does that look? Do you actually pull up in a truck? Like an 18-wheeler full of CDs or cassettes? In the future, we'd like to do that. We had it in the trunk of our car. It was like in little bags with the little boxes. If you... Oh, there we go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There it is. Oh, that looks beautiful. and there's a QR code and everything. Yeah, we have these displays now and you see what the Lutter Child is holding in her hand? That's a USB drive. Oh, yes. That they receive with every song at the box and inside the box is the lyrics are inserted. And yeah, it's a whole package that they get. Not only do they get the song email, but they get a physical package as well. And what we're doing, what we're excited about is we are starting this campaign, the QR code campaign to put in all different kinds of facilities, hospitals, pediatricians, geriatricians, offices, you know, restaurants, product packaging. We have big visions for this now. Excellent. So this people could simply scan the QR code and request a song for any child or senior dealing with a serious health or emotional issue. So we have this in nine banks now of First central savings. So we just started. Congratulations. Yeah, we're excited about that. Yeah. And you know what really thrills me, John, is that you've been doing this 30 years and it seems like you just started doing it. You still have the exact same enthusiasm. You're still excited about it. And that just makes me so happy because that means so many people are going to receive help and healing because of your organization. Yeah, we're more excited than ever. I feel like we're just getting started. This is sort of like Songs of Love 2.0. I love it. We have to be around 30 years in order for this amazing technology to come online. And now we're taking advantage of it. So we're so excited. 50,000, watch out. You're going to have 150,000 really soon. And also you work with songwriters and musicians who volunteered their talents for these children and these, everyone who now you're open to helping with your charity. What does that community look like? And what draws the artists to give their gifts in this way? It's like, you know, while they're waiting to achieve commercial success or selling their song to an artist you know what better way than to give back with the talents that you've been given so they're very grateful that they're able to do that you know we still accept songs from songwriters the old-fashioned way you know we're not turning that down it's oh yeah it's a fusion of uh old school singer songwriters we've also been holding uh workshops with the suno uh community you know they have a large community out there in the world, and they've been very excited. We've been teaching them the whole process, and they're still very much a person behind every song creation with just as much love, just as much intention behind the process. So between our, you know, close to 500 to, I mean, through the years, there's been 1,000 singer-songwriters and these new pseudo-creators, you know, and maybe I don't know, but I think they might have about 100 million users now all over the world. so we see us having workshops we keep bringing new songs of love suno creators on board so it's going to make us well positioned to really go global with this with any style and any language really no two questions how would artists uh get involved and well i'll save the next one after yeah how do people get involved to help uh write songs perform songs yeah yeah just simply email us at info at songs of love.org or call 800-960-SONG. And, you know, obviously we need to hear that, you know, you have some ability to put a song together, you know. We don't want to scare the patients. We want to make sure the person could actually sing. You know, we're not like a record company going, I don't get a chorus, you know. Yeah. Write that line again. I understand. No, we just want to make sure that they have the ability and that we're giving something to these wonderful patients. you know, of quality. Yes. You know, we definitely have a certain criteria that needs to be met. Absolutely. You know, back to Suno, um, Adobe is an online production tool that uses, for lack of a better way, artificial intelligence to help producers make things. It's been around forever, just in different forms. Exactly. You know, I always used to say, remember the Wawa pedal yeah okay wasn't that kind of the beginning of you know i couldn't agree i couldn't agree with you more not only wah pedal but synthesizers sequencers you know sampling you know drum loops do you know what I took the song Frankenstein with the synthesizer that first in the 70s This is how geeky I was, even as a kid. And fourth grade, show and tell, I brought a cassette recorder with the song Frankenstein. And the teacher was standing in the front. She was looking at me like, okay, we're going to figure out why she brought this for show and tell. And I'm like, here it is. Here, listen. and it was the synthesizer. Right. You know, that went through. And it was just incredible to me that you could make these sounds and how good it made me feel. Yeah, absolutely. And the emotion. So it's always been around in just different forms and it still needs humans. You still need to write. You still need to create. It's just helping you. I don't know if you saw the interview with Pete Townsend and Stephen Colbert. No. Stephen Colbert asked Pete Townsend, so do you have songs lying around that you've never done? He goes, I have around 300 to 400 song snippets. And, you know, I'm working with this company called Pseudo. And they're wonderful. So now, you know, Pete Townsend, he's using it to, like, you know, finish the songs he has lying around. Yeah. I like how you did his accent when you did that. John, has doing this work for so many years changed the way that you experience music overall personally? Oh, absolutely. You know, it's put me in a better headspace and not being so frustrated that I, you know, didn't make it as a quote unquote pop star. And it's made me a lot calmer. It's made me more connected to what I feel I was placed on this earth to do. So, you know, I still like, you know, I'm still going to go out there and perform. I kind of put it in the back burner for 30 years. Actually, I have a gig tonight, an open mic. Really? Where? On my own. A place called Red Pipes on Austin Street in Forest Hills. Oh, nice. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I've been writing a lot of songs. I still love performing. I'm still always going to write songs the old-fashioned way. And I'm thankful that I have Suno to be able to, you know, produce it in whatever way I want. Well, what Songs of Love has given to thousands of children and families is truly immeasurable. And your stick-to-it-ness and continuing to push ahead, it's just incredible. And I just wish you nothing but continued success with everything you're doing and moving forward. What do you view Songs of Love looking like in the future? And what direction are you going? Oh, we like to blanket the entire world with healing melodies. And I see people having access to what we do globally. And with our partnership with Suno, now it's very possible. It's just a matter of time. You know, we partner with them. If you go to their blog, you know, we're sort of their exclusive charity. And with their help and with their pipeline as well, I see songs of love growing in ways that, you know, we can only imagine before. You know, you have a lot of these charities that have these brand names and it's amazing what they do. But I like to have songs of love, you know, come out of the lips of everybody around the world saying, yeah, I know someone who received a song of love and they really were helped by it. So that's what I envision, just a global footprint for what we do. well thank you so much for doing it and congratulations on all the success over three decades just amazing to me thank you and i'm so glad our paths crossed years ago um and again like i'm just thrilled to see that you're still doing it and and you're still helping people and and you're proof that music really does truly save lives thank you and and what a beautiful legacy to your brother and your family too yeah you know yeah yeah and just to close off uh i came across an old recording of a song that i wrote with my brother julio and it was only a live recording we did i don't have a studio recording of it a song called when will you realize i have a recording of us trying to write it at the queen's college piano room so when i found it i go let me see if i could bring this song to life so i uploaded suno and there it was the entire song fully produced with a song that i wrote with julio so that was very meaningful and then i used ai i'm like an ai nerd when it comes to video. So I brought my brother back to life and I have him singing that song. What? Where can we see this? Where can we find it? Is it on YouTube? Oh yeah. It's on a Songs of Love YouTube channel. Awesome. Yeah. And you'll see Julio and the people get the chance to see him. He died when he was 24, but the face expressions that he used to make, it got it like around 90% accurate. Wow. What did that feel like when you first saw that? It must have been like strange and amazing at the same time. It was very emotional because I got to see my brother again. But some people say, oh, John, that's really freaky. Not really. Because, you know, you see pictures of your relatives and you remember without seeing a video of them coming, you know, when they're making their facial expressions like they used to, now you really remember what they were like. And you feel like what it was like being around them. I save voicemails from people that have crossed. Right, right. And people say that's kind of creepy to me too, but I think no. I mean, it's just amazing that you can just pick up the phone. The one thing I wish I did is retain my dad's voice so I can listen to it. Yes, it helps you remember. Yeah, it does, and it's amazing. Time goes by, and you kind of remember their voice, but not really. But now you come across a recording. Oh, yeah, that's, you know, it's really beautiful. It's a beautiful thing. It is. And you're a beautiful person for doing what you do. And thank you so much for your heart, John, your vision, and for joining us here and telling your story on Music Save Me, because I really hope you're going to get an influx of more musicians calling to help make more songs. And Suno's not going to have enough people to run the company. Thank you so much. And it's great reconnecting with you. and keep doing what you're doing. You're doing what you're doing. You kept going, which is beautiful. Thank you. I'm Buzz Knight, and thanks for listening to Lynn Hoffman and the Music Save Me podcast, produced by Buzz Knight Media Productions. Please check out our other shows, Taking a Walk Nashville, hosted by Sarah Harrelson, Comedy Save Me, hosted by Lynn Hoffman, and Taking a Walk, hosted by yours truly. All shows are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and are part of the iHeart Podcast Network. to be more to the story, this show is for you. Listen to If You Can Hear Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast Doubt, The Case of Lucy Letby, we unpack the story of an unimaginable tragedy that gripped the UK in 2023. But what if we didn't get the whole story? The evidence has been made to fit. The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapsed. What if the truth was disguised by a story we chose to believe? Oh my God, I think she might be innocent. 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