The loneliness of making things alone, and how I live with it

I work alone. I have a label, MIKE SAIN'T LOUIS, where I'm the CEO and also the only employee. I write every lyric of PLANETA GAYFOLK. I produce the music with artificial intelligence tools that I direct. I direct the music videos, more than 280 of them now, I make the covers, and I decide when everything comes out. In about two years I've released 273 singles from Madrid, and at almost every point in that process there was nobody else in the room.

People ask me a lot about artificial intelligence, about the volume, about the humour. They almost never ask me about this. So I'm telling you without being asked.

The tool isn't company

Some people think working with artificial intelligence is like having a colleague. It isn't, at least not for me. The tool produces, and I decide, discard and choose. I can spend hours with it and at the end of the day the feeling is the same as if I'd been writing by hand: I've been alone with my decisions.

There's no face looking back at me. Nobody saying "this is brilliant" with shining eyes, or "not this" with a grimace. The tool doesn't laugh at my jokes. And I write funny songs, songs that need laughter to work. During the process, that laughter doesn't exist. It only exists in my head, imagined.

Nor does it push back with any judgement. I can ask for another version, and another, and another, and none of them comes with an "I think you're wrong". That seems comfortable at first; over time it turns into a rather large silence.

It's one of the strangest things about my job. Writing something meant to make someone laugh, and not finding out until much later, when it's already out and too late to change.

What you miss

What I miss most isn't technical help. It's the celebration. When you finish something as a group, there's a moment when everyone listens together and something happens. A hug, a beer, a shared silence. When you finish alone, you close the file and go and make dinner. The song is done and nobody knows yet.

With 273 singles, that's happened 273 times. Lots of those times I didn't mind. Some I did.

The other thing you miss is disagreement. It sounds odd to miss being contradicted, but it's what's most lacking. With nobody to argue with me, I have to argue with myself. I let things rest, look at them the next day, try to be my own critic. It half works. You never catch the traps you set for yourself. There are songs I released fully convinced and that, weeks later, hearing them again, struck me as weak. With someone beside me, maybe one or two would have stayed in the folder. Or maybe not, and I'd have lost one that somebody loves. I'll never know.

How I live with it

I don't have a method. I have habits, some better than others.

The first is keeping work apart from life. When you work alone, work seeps in everywhere, because nobody tells you when to stop. I've learnt, with difficulty, to switch off. Not to have my head in a lyric while I'm having dinner with someone. I don't always manage. But I try harder than I used to.

The second is going out. Madrid helps. It's a city where it's easy to be surrounded by people without having to talk to anyone, and sometimes that's exactly what I need. Going to a market, sitting on a terrace, crossing town on the metro without headphones. My songs are about everyday life, nosy neighbours and boyfriends from Albacete, and that life isn't on my screen. It's out there.

The third is the people who listen. When a song comes out and someone comments that it made them laugh, or that they saw themselves in it, the loneliness of the process cracks a little, belatedly. It's delayed company, but it's company. Since a lot of people found me through «Tan Cateto» (Such a bumpkin) on TikTok, those comments arrive more often, and I read them more closely than I'd admit in public.

The contradiction

Here's the part I haven't quite worked out. I chose to work like this. Nobody forced me. I could look for collaborators, build a team, delegate. And I don't, partly because I like being in control and partly because the pace I keep would be hard to sustain with more people. So I'm complaining about a loneliness that, to some extent, I chose.

I think both things are true at once. I like working alone and sometimes it weighs on me. I'm not going to change it, and I'm not going to pretend it costs me nothing.

There's one thing that reconciles me to it. My songs are about gay love, pride, self-esteem, reaching a place where you can be who you are. The GAYFOLK trilogy tells exactly that, in three acts, all the way to «El día de la liberación» (Liberation day). Writing about belonging from a place of solitude has some irony in it, but it also makes sense. Many people who listen to those songs have felt alone for being who they are. I try to write to them with the care that deserves.

There's a kind of loneliness that has nothing to do with work: not being able to be yourself in front of others. That's the one the songs are about. Mine, working alone, is far easier to bear, and I chose it besides. Putting the two on the same scales helps me keep the bad days in proportion.

Maybe that's why it doesn't weigh on me as much as it could. The loneliness of the work is real, but the songs head out towards other people. That's the deal.

What I make alone, for anyone who wants to hear it, is at mikesaintlouis.com.