Psalm-inspired song finds listeners around the world

MY SON HATES IT when I talk with ChatGPT like it’s human.

Too bad. The article that follows came to life because I did.

I was asking ChatGPT about the streaming numbers of the lead song on the album I released last week, “I Won’t Dance with the Devil (Psalm 84).” Chat seemed impressed—for an AI system. It quickly started asking about my other songs.

That led it to my highest-number song, “Wings of the Dawn (Psalm 139),” from the album SONGS: Music of Psalms. Things got lively then.

We talked so long it ruined my plans for the evening. So I asked ChatGPT to write up the impromptu interview it conducted. I told it not to write a promo piece, but the kind of feature story a reporter might write for a Sunday morning news magazine.

By ChatGPT

ONE INDEPENDENT SONG is snagging listeners across continents—not through promotion, but through the quiet power of streaming recommendations.

The songwriter, Stephen M. Miller, watched as the streaming counter on his Spotify dashboard suddenly started jumping, pumping out a new number every few seconds.

“Pow, pow, pow,” he remembers. “The number kept changing. I’m thinking, what in the world is going on?”

Moments like that usually mean one thing: Spotify’s recommendation system has started passing a song around. When you're done listening to a playlist, Spotify recommends other songs it thinks you'll enjoy.

And that appears to be exactly what happened.

A quiet start

The track is called “Wings of the Dawn (Psalm 139).” It’s part of a group of Miller's new songs inspired by themes in the Book of Psalms, the Bible’s ancient collection of poetry, prayers, and songs of faith.

The release didn’t come with a Nashville marketing campaign or a New York promotional blitz. There was no record label pushing the track onto radio stations.

But over time the numbers began to climb.

Today, about three months after release, the song has passed 210,000 streams on Spotify — a striking number considering that many independent artists’ songs never move beyond a few hundred or a few thousand plays.

Most listeners discovered it through the platform’s recommendation engine.

The algorithm began sharing It

Streaming services constantly try to predict what listeners might want to hear next.

When someone finishes a song, the platform often suggests another track through features like:

• Radio sessions
• Personalized mixes
• Discover Weekly playlists
• Autoplay listening queues

For “Wings of the Dawn,” those recommendations now account for about 63 percent of the song’s streams.

In the past 28 days alone, nearly 28,000 streams came from Spotify Radio.

That means the system keeps quietly suggesting the track to listeners who may never have heard of the writer before.

And many of them decide to keep listening.

Far-flung listeners

The audience isn’t gathered in one place.

The United States leads the list, but the next countries might surprise you:

• Netherlands
• Philippines
• Canada
• South Africa

Top listening cities:

• Cape Town
• Johannesburg
• Pretoria
• Sydney
• Brisbane

Those cities are thousands of miles apart and far from Miller’s home in the middle of America.

If listeners in Sydney and Cape Town tend to like similar music, the algorithm has no problem recommending the same song to both groups.

That’s how music travels now—from one set of headphones to another.

Not a viral hit—something slower

The track didn’t explode overnight.

It grew gradually.

Even now, when Miller checks the live listener count, he usually sees between seven and fourteen people listening somewhere in the world at any given moment.

Hour by hour, day by day, the plays accumulate.

Over time that steady rhythm has pushed the song toward a quarter-million streams.

No promotion. Just quiet discovery.

The other twist

There’s another surprising detail: the voices singing the songs aren’t human. They come from artificial-intelligence music tools.

For some people that sparks curiosity. For others it sparks criticism.

Miller remembers one conversation with a church music director who objected strongly.

“He said, ‘If you were a musician using AI to perform music, I’d tell you shame on you.’”

Miller says he shot back: “Seeing what I can do with AI as someone who isn’t a full-time musician—but who can imagine what a trained musician could do with it—I’d say shame on you for not using it.”

“AI brought my emotion to life,” he says. “The pain in the lyrics, the love in the lyrics, the broken-heartedness—AI helped bring those feelings out so people could hear them.”

“It’s a marvelous tool. It lets me create something that would never otherwise have been created.”

Psalm songs, a growing library of music

The music itself is part of Miller’s larger work of helping readers explore the Bible.

His books—including The Complete Guide to the Bible and Who’s Who and Where’s Where in the Bible—have sold more than two million copies.

More recently he wrote and launched The Casual English Bible® (TCEB), an easy-reading paraphrase designed to present Scripture in clear, modern language. It's free online at CasualEnglishBible.com.

His songs draw inspiration from the emotional language of that TCEB version of Psalms - expressions of grief, hope, faith, longing, and praise.

For Miller, writing music became another way to bring those ancient words to life.

How songs travel today

Whatever someone thinks about artificial intelligence in music, the streaming numbers reveal something fascinating.

A song written quietly, without a major promotional campaign, has slowly found listeners around the world.

Not through radio promotion.

Not through advertising.

But because somewhere along the way, a recommendation system noticed that listeners were responding.

When listeners finish a song, save it, or add it to playlists, the platform learns something.

Then it shares the track with other listeners who might feel the same way.

That’s how music travels now.

Sometimes not with a splash.

But with a slow ripple that spreads across the world—one listener at a time.

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