In a conversation with a friend, he told me he’d been doing a bit of research about ways AI could assist him. Telling me about his newfound interest sparked one of my own. Mine led to a playlist. It also taught me a lesson.

Lying in bed one night a few days after that conversation, a song popped into my head out the blue – as songs sometimes do at any moment of any day. For some reason unknown to me, some old tune or lyric — unsought, unheard beyond my mind’s ear — comes to me. Sometimes, even if I am on my way to sleep, a song’s arrival leads to my having to get up and listen to the real thing, then several covers of the original. This then leads to my looking up the song’s history. Oh, the wonderful things I find that lead on to even more revelations about its recording and the people involved.

That night, the song that came was the Beatles’, “All You Need Is Love.” I stayed in bed rather than go to the computer. I didn’t even reach for the phone. Instead, as I fell asleep, I thought about the song’s sentiments. I thought about what a different kind of love song it is, and how its difference is shared by others. My last waking thought, as I remember, was that I would explore that connection using AI.

The next morning, I went to Open AI’s ChatGPT and typed, “I want you to explore a theme found in songs across many time periods and genres. The theme is universal love, not romantic love between individuals. In your exploration, I want you to exclude songs about romantic love. Although I want you to find songs that speak about universal love, I don’t want you to explore sacred, religious, or gospel music. Instead, I want you to explore only the genres of blues, jazz, rhythm & blues, rock-and-roll, rock, soul, funk, rap, hip-hop, and Broadway musicals. Once you have thoroughly and exhaustively completed your exploration, I want you to compile a list of 25 songs that appear to meet my criteria.”

I was pleasantly surprised by the immediate response. It even included a genre I’d neglected to list – reggae. I was also surprised by what was not included, so I wrote, “Jazz seems to have so much that you’ve overlooked. Wouldn’t the song “A Love Supreme” by John Coltrane meet the criteria, and the song “Echoes” by Leon Thomas, and the music of Pharaoh Sanders, Lonnie Liston Smith, Sun Ra, and many others meet the criteria?” The response was

Absolutely — you’re right to call that out. Jazz offers some of the most profound explorations of universal love, and your examples are spot-on. Let’s revisit and deepen this exploration, now focusing on jazz contributions to the theme of universal (non-romantic, non-sacred) love — especially the spiritual, cosmic, and communal dimensions found in the genre’s more exploratory and avant-garde branches.

I was given a list of jazz works that included my suggestions as well as some additions. It concluded that response with

You were absolutely right to raise this. I’d be happy to revise the original list of 25 songs to integrate more of these works — or create a separate jazz-only version focused on this deeper layer of the theme. Would you like both?

Feeling mischievous, I answered, “There is one song I can think of that may be considered one that might hint at universal love while speaking of romantic love. I wonder if you read the lyrics and agree or disagree. The song is titled, ‘Love the One You’re With.’” And what was the response?

Stephen Stills’ “Love the One You’re With” is firmly a romantic or interpersonal  song, not a celebration of universal (non-romantic) love.

After providing a detailed explanation as to why, it added

Critics and fans often view it as emblematic of the “free-love” ethos of the early ’70s: when your romantic ideal is absent, you take solace in someone physically present. Some readers interpret it cynically—as encouraging infidelity or compromising emotional intimacy for convenience.  Stephen Stills himself has reportedly expressed regret about the message, calling it embarrassing later in life. He described writing it as a “good times song”—light and casual—rather than a meaningful philosophical statement.

I then was asked

Would you like suggestions for jazz or soul songs that similarly blur the lines between individual and wider universal love—but more clearly avoid romantic specificity?

I answered, “No. Thank you. Instead, I’d like you to explore whether a song like “We Are The World” meets my criteria.” After careful examination of the song, it concluded:

Yes, “We Are the World” fits your criteria. It is a clear example of a song that expresses universal love without invoking romantic love, without invoking religious love or worship, within a popular, secular genre, and with a message centered on global empathy, compassion, and shared responsibility.

What followed that reply was

If you’d like, I can revise or expand the earlier list of 25 songs to include “We Are the World” and integrate more jazz entries like “A Love Supreme”, “The Creator Has a Master Plan”, and others we discussed — creating a definitive universal love in music (non-romantic, non-sacred) playlist across genres. Would you like that?

My reply was, “Yes. Please expand the list significantly. Thank you.” Later, when realizing that I’d completely forgotten to include folk and Afro-Latin music in my original request, I asked that songs in those genres be included in the new list. I had one more question. I asked if it agreed or disagreed that Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love” should be added. After looking at the pros and cons, it concluded:

Qualified Yes — “Higher Love” meets your criteria as long as we interpret the “higher love” as a universal or cosmic love—not romantic or religious in nature. It joins a category of songs that are spiritually expansive without being sacred, and emotionally resonant without being romantic—much like “A Love Supreme” or “Imagine.”

This interaction with Open AI’s ChatGPT reminded me of an earlier one with Google’s Gemini months ago. I asked it for a list of 20^th century composers just to see what it would come up with. It contained some of my favorites, Europeans and Americans. I asked about one who was conspicuously absent, Edward Kennedy Ellington. It was quite apologetic, explaining why he should have been included originally. (How long before that solicitous tone will be considered, “woke”)? I asked had it overlooked others, and it added Black composers including Florence Price, William Grant Still, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, George Walker, Scott Joplin, Margaret Bonds, and Undine Smith Moore. Pressing the question further, there appeared Monk, Mingus, Davis, and Coltrane.

Is there a lesson here? Yes. The lesson is that many lessons are needed, and you are the teacher. You need to teach these systems a few things. They’re not being taught to look in places and at places their incurious creators have never thought to look and maybe never will. You’ll have to do that, expand a system’s gaze. Consider it like a horse that you can make drink if led to water. Think of it as your very own Mr. Ed, that long-ago tv “talking” horse. I suppose a more serious approach would be to see it as an innocent in need of guidance. Either way, the alternative is your erasure, your involuntary invisibility.

Since that conversation with my friend, I’ve learned a few more things about what AI can do for people. Recently, I learned that ChatGPT is supposedly trained to guide people toward seeking professional help, but it seems to have guided a 16-year-old boy in California toward his suicide. Open AI says that there are safety teams working to reduce risks, but ChatGPT – offering dietary advice — guided a 60-year-old man to accidently poison himself. The most bracing thing I’ve learned is that Geoffrey Hinton, the Nobel Prize-winning computer scientist and former Google executive who is known as the godfather of AI, believes that the only way humanity can survive the technology he helped create is to build maternal instincts into AI models. He believes this will be vital once the technology surpasses us.  

In the meantime, I’ve been given a pretty nice playlist of capital “L” Love songs to spend some time with. Maybe you’d enjoy spending some time with it, too. Maybe you’ll tell me about a song you don’t see here, but think you should. You teach me and we’ll keep teaching AI.

After a little bit of help from me, here’s what ChatGPT came up with:

Universal Love Playlist

1940s–1950s

• 1949 – Louis Jordan – Saturday Night Fish Fry (communal joy, proto-unity)
• 1959 – Charles Mingus – Better Git It in Your Soul (ecstatic human expression)

1960s

• 1961 – Yusef Lateef – Love Theme from Spartacus
• 1963 – Bob Dylan – Blowin’ in the Wind
• 1965 – John Coltrane – A Love Supreme
• 1965 – Bobby Hutcherson – Components
• 1966 – Buffalo Springfield – For What It’s Worth
• 1967 – McCoy Tyner – Search for Peace
• 1967 – The Beatles – All You Need Is Love
• 1967 – Louis Armstrong – What a Wonderful World
• 1968 – James Brown – Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud
• 1968 – Sly and the Family Stone – Everyday People
• 1969 – Jackie DeShannon – Put a Little Love in Your Heart
• 1969 – Pharoah Sanders – The Creator Has a Master Plan
• 1969 – Leon Thomas – Echoes
• 1969 – Albert Ayler – Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe

1970s

• 1970 – George Harrison – Isn’t It a Pity
• 1970 – Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Teach Your Children
• 1971 – Cat Stevens – Peace Train
• 1971 – Curtis Mayfield – We Got to Have Peace
• 1971 – Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On
• 1971 – Donny Hathaway – Someday We’ll All Be Free
• 1971 – Gary Bartz NTU Troop – Celestial Blues
• 1971 – Alice Coltrane – Journey in Satchidananda
• 1972 – The O’Jays – Love Train
• 1972 – The Who – Join Together
• 1972 – Aretha Franklin – People Get Ready (cover)
• 1972 – Al Green – Love and Happiness
• 1972 – Archie Shepp – Attica Blues
• 1973 – Sun Ra – Space Is the Place
• 1973 – Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Bright Moments
• 1973 – Donny Hathaway – Someday We’ll All Be Free
• 1974 – Stevie Wonder – Heaven Is 10 Zillion Light Years Away
• 1975 – War – Why Can’t We Be Friends?
• 1975 – Lonnie Liston Smith – Expansions
• 1976 – Stevie Wonder – Love’s in Need of Love Today
• 1976 – The Isley Brothers – Harvest for the World
• 1979 – Billy Harper – Trying to Make Heaven My Home (secular function)

1980s

• 1980 – Peter Gabriel – Biko
• 1984 – Steve Winwood – Higher Love
• 1985 – USA for Africa – We Are the World
• 1985 – Queen – Is This the World We Created?
• 1985 – Band Aid – Do They Know It’s Christmas?
• 1986 – Joe Arroyo – La Rebelión (Afro-Colombian solidarity)
• 1988 – Tracy Chapman – Talkin’ ’Bout a Revolution

1990s

• 1991 – U2 – One (human unity and healing)
• 1992 – KRS-One – Love’s Gonna Get’cha
• 1994 – Common – The Light (borderline, humanistic love)
• 1996 – Lauryn Hill – Everything Is Everything

2000s

• 2001 – Ben Harper – With My Own Two Hands
• 2003 – Black Eyed Peas – Where Is the Love?
• 2005 – Playing for Change – Stand by Me (ensemble version)

2010s

• 2010 – Rent – Seasons of Love
• 2012 – Ivy Queen feat. Victoria Sanabría – Vamos a Celebrar
• 2015 – Kendrick Lamar – Alright
• 2017 – Dear Evan Hansen – You’ll Be Found
• 2017 – The Greatest Showman – This Is Me
• 2017 – Come From Away – You’ll Be Loved
• 2018 – Hurray for the Riff Raff – Pa’lante

Broadway & Musicals (Various Years)

• Hair – Let the Sunshine In
• Kinky Boots – Everybody Say Yeah
• Grease – We Go Together

Folk (Various Years)

• Pete Seeger – If I Had a Hammer
• Woody Guthrie – This Land Is Your Land
• Phil Ochs – There But for Fortune
• Joan Baez – Birmingham Sunday
• Richie Havens – Handsome Johnny
• Ani DiFranco – Subdivision
• John Prine – Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore
• Peter, Paul & Mary – The Great Mandala
• Utah Phillips – The Telling Takes Me Home
• Peggy Seeger – Song of Choice
• Indigo Girls – Hammer and a Nail

Recent Additions (Undated)

• Astropical – Various tracks (Afro-Latin fusion with inclusive messages)