writes:The concept for this song was simple: to make a list-type song about the aircraft of the Great War.
Gemini had no problem coming up with lyrics, which I lightly edited:
The Bold and the Frail
Verse 1
It started with a Taube and a bird-like wing
A frail little pusher, a delicate thing
The Rumpler was scouting, the Bleriot flew
When the sky was still empty and the war was still new
Then Garros strapped a deflector to a wooden prop
And the age of the observer came to a sudden stop.Chorus
From the wood and the wire to the synchronized gear
They rose through the clouds and they mastered their fear
A list of the legends, the bold and the frail
Which blazed through the heavens on a gasoline trail!Verse 2
Then came the Eindecker, the "Scourge" of the air
With Fokker’s new interrupter, a deadly affair
The Be2c was a sitting duck prize
While the Morane-Saulnier patrolled through the skies
But the Nieuport 11 turned the tide in the fray
And the "Bébé" sent Fokkers scurrying away.Verse 3
Now bring on the biplanes, the heavy-hitters of old
The Albatros D-Three, painted crimson and bold
The Sopwith Pup was a dream on the wing
While the Spad VII made the engine valves sing
The D-Five followed, with a sleek, rounded hull
But the Sopwith Camel had a much thicker skull!
(It’s a devil to turn, and it’s tricky to land,
But it’s the finest dogfighter that a pilot could plan!)Verse 4
The S.E.5a was a stable, fast mount
While the Bristol Fighter made every shot count
The Hanriot hopped and the Pfalz looked so sleek
But the Fokker Triplane was the king of the peak!
With three sets of wings and the Red Baron’s hand
The Dr.I was the terror of No Man’s Land.Bridge
Then the giants awoke for the long-distance flight
The Gotha bombers in the dead of the night
The Handley Page 0/400, a beast of a frame
The Caproni and Ilya, the giants by name!Verse 5
In the final act, the D-Seven appeared
The greatest of Fokkers, the one they all feared
The Snipe and the Dolphin were joining the race
While the Ansaldo Balilla set a blistering pace
From the Junkers J.I in its armored-plate skin
To the last of the scouts as the fuel ran thin.Chorus
From the wood and the wire to the synchronized gear
They rose through the clouds and they mastered their fear
A list of the legends, the bold and the frail
Which blazed through the heavens on a gasoline trail!Outro
The canvas is torn and the engines are still
On the aerodromes over the brow of the hill
From the Taube to D-Seven, they all had their day
The knights of the sky… in the world’s Great Fray.
Historical Notes
- "Then Garros strapped a deflector to a wooden prop"
- French pilot Roland Garros in early 1915 (specifically around March–April 1915), working with aircraft designer Raymond Saulnier and his mechanic Jules Hue, fitted steel deflector plates (small wedge-shaped metal shields) onto the blades of his wooden propeller. This allowed him to mount a machinegun that fired straight forward through the spinning propeller arc without destroying the prop.
- "And the age of the observer came to a sudden stop."
- Before Roland Garros’ deflector plates, almost all air-to-air combat was done by observers. Once a pilot could fire his own machinegun straight ahead through the spinning propeller, the dedicated observer/gunner role in fighter combat became largely obsolete.
- "With Fokker’s new interrupter, a deadly affair"
- The Fokker synchronization gear or interrupter gear was a revolutionary mechanical device invented in 1915 by Dutch aircraft designer Anthony Fokker (working for the Germans). It synchronized the machinegun’s firing with the rotation of the propeller, a great improvement over deflector plates.
- "Then came the Eindecker, the "Scourge" of the air"
- The “Fokker Scourge” was a period when German fighters dominated the Western Front, and Allied planes (like the British BE.2) became easy targets.
- "But the Nieuport 11 turned the tide in the fray, And the "Bébé" sent Fokkers scurrying away."
- The tiny Nieuport 11 was the first Allied fighter that could consistently beat the Fokker Eindecker in a dogfight. Nicknamed the Baby due to its small size.
- "But the Fokker Triplane was the king of the peak!"
- It was one of the most maneuverable fighters of the entire war. Its three-wing design gave it an incredible climb rate and the ability to turn extremely tightly. At the height of its power (late 1917 to early 1918), it was widely regarded as the best dogfighter in the sky.
- "While the Ansaldo Balilla set a blistering pace"
- The Balilla was one of the fastest fighters of World War I. It was powered by a powerful 220 hp SPA 6A engine and could reach speeds of around 170–180 km/h (105–112 mph) – very impressive for 1917-1918.
Making the Music
Sonauto had major problems with all the 'foreign' names in these lyrics. Fortunately, Gemini was able to suggest phonetic spellings for these lyrics. For example:
Then came the Ein-dek-ker, the "Scourge" of the air
With Fok-ers new interrupter, a deadly affair
The B-E-Two-C was a sitting duck prize
While the Mor-ahn So-nee-ay patrolled through the skies
But the New-pohr Eleven turned the tide in the fray
And the Baybay sent Fok-ers scurrying away.
It also got stuck on 'valves', which I had to spell 'valvs' to get it sung correctly.
I was surprised when Gemini suggested a 'sea shanty' style as the best way to handle a 'list' song. The prompt I used was:
Sea Shanty, Folk Rock, acoustic guitar, stomping boots, male gravelly vocals, rhythmic, high vocal clarity, 120 BPM
And the music tags which the AI selected based on that were simply 'stomp and holler, sea shanty, celtic rock, folk rock, roots rock, 2020s, acoustic guitar'.
Sonauto still had major problems with the lyrics. Time and again, a good version would be ruined by one or two mispronounced words. But finally, success!
Making the Video
Nano Banana came up with art based on the lyrics:
I then enlarged the art, and used another AI, Flux Klein, to make the final version.
Caption files were created for English, French, German, Spanish and Tagalog.
The final step was to combine the music, art and titles, using ClipChamp:
I've posted the video as a reel on the TMP Facebook page. This one has had legs, doing slight better than our average music video, but it is still getting more views, and with very positive reactions. 47% of the views have been from outside the wargaming community, half the viewers have been in the 35-44 age demographic.
However, and I hate to admit this, I failed to catch one mispronunciation in the song. Can you spot it?