Folk Lyric System
“Structure IS feeling. Asymmetry is grief; symmetry is acceptance.”
Folk is the first arc where STRUCTURE is the load-bearing axis. The Structural Deviancy Value detects 3/5/6-line asymmetric stanzas + delayed rhyme + off-downbeat phrasing — the somatic vehicle for grief / panic / uncertainty. The Prosody-Greedy-Index operationalizes Pat Pattison's rule (function words must not land on strong beats). 5 substyles span traditional-folk → freak-folk.
Try It — 83 starter prompts
Browse all 83 →Each prompt is hand-tuned to exercise the folk load-bearing axis. Click to start with the prompt pre-loaded into the forge.
Stones in the Creek
A child places river stones in a deliberate pattern, each one slightly off from where her father placed it years ago. The asymmetry bothers her until she realizes it's the only honest thing she's kept of him.
A trucker passes the same highway sign three times in one night, each time choosing not to turn. Build a song where the repetition of the road mirrors the fracture of the decision itself—the verse should splinter midway through.
Describe the calluses on your grandmother's hands not through metaphor but through direct touch—the texture, the temperature, what her grip tells you about endurance. Let the song's structure mirror the irregular pattern of her scars.
Play the same confrontation twice—once as it happened, once as the narrator wished it had gone. The second telling should break its own form, collapsing midway when reality interrupts the fantasy.
83 prompts in the folk catalog · Shuffle rotates the featured + 3 alternates together
Substyles · 5
Each substyle binds its own audit thresholds, craft paradigm, POV mode, and banned failure modes. The forge auto-detects the right substyle from your prompt and genre tag.
Folk Radio
Top admin-published folk songs from the corpus, with audio + extracted standout lines.
Load-bearing primitive
SDV + PGI
The primitive that mechanically operationalizes SA#26. Every folk lyric the forge produces is gated by this measurement.
Audit primitives · 6 deterministic + 1 Haiku-judged▾
Each runs against every folk lyric the forge produces; the load-bearing primitive is highlighted.
| Code | Name | Role | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| SDV | Structural Deviancy Value | Asymmetric stanza + delayed rhyme detection | DeterministicSA axis |
| PGI | Prosody-Greedy-Index | Pat Pattison greedy-spot rule | DeterministicSA axis |
| NAP | Narrative Arc Progression | Staging → progression → tension → resolution | Deterministic |
| SLC | Sensory Load Coverage | 7-channel sensory imagery distribution | Deterministic |
| RSV | Rhyme Scheme Variance | Controlled variation across sections | Deterministic |
| STC | Stanza Tension Coherence | Stanza shape ↔ emotional content match | Deterministic |
| SMM | Specificity-Memory-Mirror Test | Haiku-judged Specificity Paradox | Haiku |
Forbidden Archive · 10 failure modes
Each failure mode is cited by name in the forge prompt and flagged by the critic loop with section + reasoning. The full operational definitions live in the Forbidden Archive document.
Symmetry-Emotion Mismatch
Flagged by the folk critic loop by canonical name. A song carrying this mode caps at B+ on the SA axis regardless of its 12-metric quality score. Operational definition catalogued in the folk Forbidden Archive — full text shipping in a follow-up build.
Greedy Spot
Flagged by the folk critic loop by canonical name. A song carrying this mode caps at B+ on the SA axis regardless of its 12-metric quality score. Operational definition catalogued in the folk Forbidden Archive — full text shipping in a follow-up build.
Cliché Wound
Flagged by the folk critic loop by canonical name. A song carrying this mode caps at B+ on the SA axis regardless of its 12-metric quality score. Operational definition catalogued in the folk Forbidden Archive — full text shipping in a follow-up build.
Telling Not Showing
Flagged by the folk critic loop by canonical name. A song carrying this mode caps at B+ on the SA axis regardless of its 12-metric quality score. Operational definition catalogued in the folk Forbidden Archive — full text shipping in a follow-up build.
Sensory Tunnel
Flagged by the folk critic loop by canonical name. A song carrying this mode caps at B+ on the SA axis regardless of its 12-metric quality score. Operational definition catalogued in the folk Forbidden Archive — full text shipping in a follow-up build.
Arc Collapse
Flagged by the folk critic loop by canonical name. A song carrying this mode caps at B+ on the SA axis regardless of its 12-metric quality score. Operational definition catalogued in the folk Forbidden Archive — full text shipping in a follow-up build.
Refrain Erosion
Flagged by the folk critic loop by canonical name. A song carrying this mode caps at B+ on the SA axis regardless of its 12-metric quality score. Operational definition catalogued in the folk Forbidden Archive — full text shipping in a follow-up build.
Voice Inconsistency
Flagged by the folk critic loop by canonical name. A song carrying this mode caps at B+ on the SA axis regardless of its 12-metric quality score. Operational definition catalogued in the folk Forbidden Archive — full text shipping in a follow-up build.
Prosody Forcing
Flagged by the folk critic loop by canonical name. A song carrying this mode caps at B+ on the SA axis regardless of its 12-metric quality score. Operational definition catalogued in the folk Forbidden Archive — full text shipping in a follow-up build.
Universalist Vagueness
Flagged by the folk critic loop by canonical name. A song carrying this mode caps at B+ on the SA axis regardless of its 12-metric quality score. Operational definition catalogued in the folk Forbidden Archive — full text shipping in a follow-up build.
Calibrated against 30 verified hits
The audit primitives are calibrated so canonical folk hits score at the S+/S band. Sources include the Rolling Stone 500, Rock Hall of Fame, Grammy Hall of Fame, Library of Congress National Recording Registry, and substyle-specific canonical playlists.
Corpus license: CC BY 4.0. Lyrics not reproduced — title + artist + year + structural metadata only.
Forge a folk song
The forge applies the folk substyle profile, banned failure modes, and SDV + PGI as a pre-output gate. Output isn’t generic AI lyrics — it’s folk lyrics that pass the audit your genre demands.