Op-Ed: Some of My Songs Refuse to Be Translated, and That's the Point — by Mike Sain't Louis, the First AI Singer-Songwriter

MADRID, Spain — October 25, 2026. Mike Sain't Louis is an alternative indie artist based in Madrid who calls himself "the first AI singer-songwriter." He writes all of his lyrics and directs the music and vocal performance, which are generated with artificial intelligence as a production and arrangement tool. He is the composer, producer, artistic director and CEO of his own independent label, MIKE SAIN'T LOUIS. Over roughly two years he has released 273 singles and more than 280 music videos as PLANETA GAYFOLK. The following is his opinion piece.

By Mike Sain't Louis

I usually know which language a song is going to be in before I have the first line. It's in the way it starts to arrive. Spanish comes fast, with long sentences, insisting on telling you something with a first and last name attached. English comes slowly, with white space between the lines, like someone laying stones to cross a river.

Most of my lyrics are in Spanish. Some are entirely in English: «Gatekeeping», «Holy Stillness», «Boys Like Us», «The Great Depression». A few jump between the two in the middle of a verse. And then there are songs that could only ever have been written in Spanish. I want to talk about two of those, because American listeners sometimes ask me why I don't just translate everything. The honest answer is that some songs would not survive the trip.

Short words, long words

English is full of one-syllable words. Pain. Truth. Door. Night. One syllable, one hit. Spanish words usually have two or three syllables, and many of the ones I use have four or five. In the same bar of music, English fits more words. Or the other way around: in Spanish, to say the same thing, I need more room.

In «Gatekeeping» there's a line — you measure pain with a ruler, not with truth — built out of almost nothing. Translate it and the idea survives, but the rhythm turns into after-dinner conversation. So in English I tend to take things away. In Spanish I tend to add: lists, proper names, a second sentence that finishes off the first. With English I think about the gap. With Spanish, about what fills it.

«Trasto viejo»: a word that does all the work

«Trasto viejo» is the clearest example I have. Trasto is a beautiful, ugly Spanish word. It means a piece of junk, an old thing that's in the way, but it also gets thrown at people. The whole song is a litany built on it: a trasto that's been used, thrown out, left in the nearest landfill, dumped in the most remote container, a trasto that bothers people and stinks, old, forgotten, abandoned, used.

That's it. That is the song. The repetition is the point: the word keeps landing until you feel what it's like to be treated as one.

"Old junk" doesn't do this. "Piece of trash" has a different weight; it's an insult, not an object. Trasto is both, and it sounds like something being dropped on a sidewalk. When I chose the version of the song to release, out of the many the AI tool gave me, I listened for one thing above all: that every trasto hit the ground.

«Gofio de calcetín»: a joke that needs a passport

«Gofio de calcetín» is the opposite case: less pain, more mischief. It starts with someone offended because I said I hoped he'd choke on Canarian gofio, a toasted-grain flour that is very much a thing in the Canary Islands. Then it turns into a short, very proud declaration — I don't need a secretary, I'm a businessman — and lands on a chorus I am still pleased with:

No quiero otro novio cojín

I don't want another cushion boyfriend. The one I had ended up at the level of a sock. In Spanish, cojín and calcetín rhyme and bounce. A "cushion boyfriend" is someone who's just there, soft and decorative, absorbing everything and giving nothing. In English the image exists, but the rhyme dies, and with it the joke. A joke without its rhyme is a tic, not a punchline.

What the machine changes, and what it doesn't

People assume that working with AI makes language irrelevant: the tool will sing anything in any language. It will generate it, yes. Whether it lands is a different question. In Spanish, every word has its stress on one particular syllable, and if a melody puts the weight in the wrong place, the word comes out bent. Native ears notice instantly. So my job, in both languages, is the same: listen until the words arrive whole, and throw away everything else.

The tool is fast. Choosing is slow. That part is mine.

Why I'm writing this for Americans

The United States already lives in two languages. Millions of people here switch between Spanish and English at the dinner table, sometimes in the same sentence. My bilingual songs belong to that world. My Spanish-only songs are an invitation to step into the other one for three minutes, lyric sheet in hand.

Where to listen

Every song, with its full lyrics, is free to stream and download at [mikesaintlouis.com](https://mikesaintlouis.com) — no paywall, nothing for sale. You'll also find the catalog on Spotify, Deezer and other major platforms, including the GAYFOLK trilogy: Descubierto un nuevo planeta llamado GAYFOLK, Ojalá se pudiera viajar a GAYFOLK and El día de la liberación.

About Mike Sain't Louis

Lyricist first, Mike Sain't Louis is a Madrid alternative indie artist who presents himself as the first AI singer-songwriter. His PLANETA GAYFOLK catalog moves from electropop to copla and ballads, in Spanish, English, French and Portuguese, with uncensored, camp and funny songs about love, exes and queer life in Spain. Many listeners found him through «Tan Cateto», a TikTok hit in 2024.

Media contact

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