Counting Empty Chairs: A Five-Step Listening Guide to the Funeral Mike Sain't Louis Wrote for Himself

MADRID, October 25, 2026.

Picture a funeral home on the edge of a city. Room 3. It smells of lilies and vending-machine coffee. There are plenty of upholstered chairs and very few people sitting in them. At the front, in a black suit with a pink carnation on the lapel, lies the deceased. According to Mike Sain't Louis, the deceased is him.

That is how the indie alternative artist from Madrid, who describes himself as “the first AI singer-songwriter,” sets the scene for “Nadie hablará de mí cuando haya muerto” (“No One Will Talk About Me When I'm Dead”) in a new essay on his blog. The song is a funeral planned ahead of time, complete with its guest list, a scene at the door and a surprise cameo from Spanish television. And he wrote it laughing.

If you don't speak Spanish, the lyrics are posted on his website. Keep them open in another tab and use this guide.

Step 1: Listen for the math

The song does not open with eternity, heaven or the soul. It opens with a head count:

Dos amigos, como mucho, tal vez uno.

“Two friends, at most, maybe one.” Mike points out that death in songs usually arrives with big words, while here it arrives with a calculator. How many will come? How many chairs will be left over? It is, he writes, the pettiest and most human question there is, the one people ask themselves in bed at 3 a.m. and never admit to out loud.

Pay attention to that “maybe one.” He could have written “maybe none,” which would have been melodrama. One friend is worse. “There's something lonelier than being completely alone,” he notes, “and that's being alone with a witness.”

Step 2: Catch the three words in the middle

The line that weighs most on Mike is the one in which his last partner walks away too. The key is three words tucked into the middle of it: y con razón, “and rightly so.” The dying man does not blame the one who walks away. He agrees with him. In many of Mike's songs the ex is a villain: a narcissist, a liar, a thief of designer swimsuits. Here, for once, the ex is right to go. “It's the saddest ex in the whole catalog,” he writes, “because he's the only one I can't reproach for anything.”

Is that fair to himself? Probably not, he admits. But it is honest about a real feeling, and putting it in a song moves it out of his head and onto the table, where it can be looked at from a distance.

Step 3: Notice the hospital-form wording

The lyric does not say “my family.” It says familia de sangre, “blood family,” followed by a colon and a list, as if filling in a box on a form. Mike explains that many LGBTQ+ people know the difference between the family they were born into and the family they choose: the friends who picked them up, the neighbors, the roommates who became siblings.

In this imaginary wake, the chosen family is down to those two friends at most. The parents are there, and he is careful to say that is already a lot. But notice the order: friends first, blood second. It is not an accident.

Step 4: Track where the ex sits

Read slowly and you'll see the same man named twice. First he is “my last partner,” listed among the mourners. A few lines later he is “my last boyfriend,” grouped with the people who will gossip. Mike describes it as a small seat change: the narrator first places him among his own, then remembers he left and moves him to the row of whisperers.

From there the song gets louder. There is a furious farewell scene at home, and a reference that every Spanish viewer will catch: the red-haired “demon” who jumps on Antonio Recio's grave in the sitcom La que se avecina, just to make sure he is really dead and buried. American listeners may not know the show, but the gag translates: some people will show up only to confirm you're gone.

Step 5: Let the laugh and the ache share the room

The refrain repeats the title until it sounds less like self-pity and more like a dare. Two weeks later, the song says, it will all be in the past, as if you had never existed. Then come the half-hearted excuses of those who remain: he had his temper, he was probably drunk.

That mix is Mike Sain't Louis's signature. His style moves from electropop to copla and alternative pop, cheeky, uncensored and camp, but much of his work also comes from a serious place. With professional support, he turns years of relationships with narcissistic partners into songs, to make psychological abuse and its effect on mental health visible, so that people living through it feel seen and believed. Writing your own funeral, in that light, is a way to look at a dark thought without letting it win.

Who is behind the song

Mike Sain't Louis writes every lyric himself. The music and the vocal performance are generated with artificial intelligence, which he uses as a production and arrangement tool; the words, the concept and the artistic direction are his. Over roughly two years he has released 273 singles and more than 280 music videos as part of PLANETA GAYFOLK, a trilogy imagined as one journey to a planet where everyone can live as they are. Many listeners found him in 2024, when “Tan Cateto” went viral on TikTok.

Where to listen and download

“Nadie hablará de mí cuando haya muerto” and the entire catalog stream and download free of charge at https://mikesaintlouis.com, each with its full lyrics. The music is also on Spotify, Deezer and other major platforms. Read the original essay on his blog: https://mikesaintlouis.com/blog/contar-sillas-en-mi-propio-velatorio-nadie-hablara-de-mi

About Mike Sain't Louis

Mike Sain't Louis is an independent, Madrid-based indie alternative artist and the self-styled “first AI singer-songwriter.” He is a lyricist, composer, music producer, art director and CEO of his own label, MIKE SAIN'T LOUIS, working with no record company and no middlemen. His queer alternative pop, written mostly in Spanish and also in English, French and Portuguese, deals with love, heartbreak, exes, nosy neighbors, queer life in Spain and liberation. The GAYFOLK trilogy comprises “Descubierto un nuevo planeta llamado GAYFOLK,” “Ojalá se pudiera viajar a GAYFOLK” and “El día de la liberación.”

Press contact

Email: info@mikesaintlouis.com Website: https://mikesaintlouis.com Instagram: @planetagayfolk