The song is listed as being performed by an artist called One Irish | File

placeholder image — The song is listed as being performed by an artist called One Irish | File

Smoke In The Rain also appears on YouTube under the channel The Quiet Rebellion which features a number of songs overlaid with human-like AI graphics depicting people and characters.

Mystery surrounds the origin of an Irish folk song available on the likes of Spotify and YouTube that is leaving listeners in tears.

The powerful ballad entitled ‘Smoke In The Rain’ is doing the rounds in Irish playlists with almost 100,000 plays between Spotify and YouTube.

The song appears to be by an artist called One Irish with the composer and lyricist listed on Spotify as Shane Fleming. Despite the Irish-sounding name, very little can be found about the band or composer online.

The same song on Spotify is published by an account called One Irish. The source on the 'song credits' tab on Spotify is listed as 9548448 Records DK. A DK number on Spotify is usually an auto-generated placeholder name applied by the music distributor DistroKid.

The about section on the One Irish artist profile says: “One Irish Music brings Irish ballads and folk-inspired songs to life. Every listen, share, save, and support helps fund new releases and keeps the music flowing for listeners everywhere.”

The One Irish artist profile attracts 20,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. We could not find any contact details for a group called One Irish or the composer Shane Fleming.

Smoke In The Rain also appears on YouTube under the channel The Quiet Rebellion which features a number of songs overlaid with human-like AI graphics depicting people and characters. The Quiet Rebellion references a ‘One Irish’ YouTube channel in a number of postings but that channel appears to have been deleted or removed from YouTube.

The song has attracted some emotional comments from people really moved by the lyrics, in particular.

One person writes: “I’m listening from Fareast, Korea, and tears dropping in my eyes. Now I’m thinking Sligo, Raymond Carty who just passed away last February on a rainy day.”

Another said: “Best song I've heard in a long time, you know that feeling when it touches your heart, your soul, powerful.”

A third commented: “Wow this song is amazing! I'm listening from all the way over in Canada, this song hit me right in the depths of my soul. I have many a grandparent that crossed the ocean to come here from Ireland, and hearing these words makes me feel incredibly proud and close to my roots.

“The words are so moving, and sung with such raw emotion. It stirs something deep within one’s heart and soul. Thank you for keeping the spirit alive. The flame is burning bright!!”

The Quiet Rebellion channel replied to a lot of the comments thanking people for their kind words, including one listener who said they recently heard the song played at a funeral.

A high volume of the comments probed about the vocalist with people describing the vocals as ‘brilliant, wonderful and fabulous.’ The channel replied to dozens of comments but not to any of those asking who the singer was.

An online platform that analyses music for the use of AI suggested that there was a 96% probability Smoke In The Rain was AI-generated.

AI music generally is massively on the rise with free software available for people to create their own songs. A US comedian recently saw one of his creations become a TikTok trend and go viral across multiple platforms. Simply called ‘The Puerto Rico Song,’ the 80s-inspired track has become a dance craze and earned its creator, comedian Bill Stiteler, spots on US chat shows and 1.1m listeners on Spotify.

And yet he says of himself, “I'm not a musician, baby. I'm a slob. I don’t claim this to be music."

For the purposes of this article, we created our own song about AI music. It took 30 seconds and the platform even created graphics to go along with it. You can listen below:

Our creation was tongue-in-cheek about something that while fun could have serious implications for real musicians, originality and authenticity of the industry. That said, these songs have found an audience and brought enjoyment to people. Maybe it is the future.

If the creator of ‘Smoke In The Rain’ would like to come forward and claim credit for a song bringing people to tears, we’d love to chat and hear a live version.