A.I. Panic Hits Music City

On a recent Tuesday evening in Nashville, I stood for an hour in a long line on the front porch of the Nashville Songwriters Association building on Music Row, along with about a hundred other would-be songwriters. Some had been waiting as long as two and a half hours, bundled against the cold. Only the first fifty in line would earn one of the coveted spots to play a song for a music publisher. A girl with a clipboard eventually made her way down the line, handing out numbered cards as those of us further back anxiously waited to see if we'd make the cutoff. Close call. I was number 49.