The Songs We Learn By Accident

Musical piracy, mistaken identity and embarrassing yourself while you learn something new

(A quick programming note - this is the first time I’ve published in about a month. It turns out moving and having a regular job can sometimes be stressful, and I didn’t want to add more homework for myself. But we’re back on track now, and there’s plenty of good stuff on the way. Whether you want it or not.)

Ah, the days of downloading music illegally. It was entirely different than what we do now - pay a fistful of linty spare change every month to have access to zillions of songs, and the artists make hay-pennies on the dollar.

Nope. Not the same at all.

When I think back on my (illegal) music piracy days, I think about using my home computer, infecting it with all kinds of terrible viruses that my parents had to deal with and eventually fix, and I think about how I also knew literally nothing about music beyond the CD’s I had or what was in video games/skate videos that I obsessed over. So, when something like LimeWire popped up, I could just scroll endlessly and see what came up for bands I wanted to hear more from. Sometimes related artists came up when I was trying to get my hands on the whole Green Day discography and I’d learn something new. Or maybe someone at school or a girl you like mentions a band and you want to go home and cram a full discography into your brain.

Other times, I’d download what I thought was a song by one artist, none the wiser because I’d just think “Oh, cool, Incubus. I don’t know that song” and listen to that song for years before someone said “Yo that song is not Incubus” and I got my pants pulled down and everyone laughed including the entire lineup of Incubus (both OG and with the new DJ) who were hanging out at my school that day.

This happened on multiple occasions. Have you seen a middle schooler’s iPod in like 2005? It was a disorganized mess. I was crazy about organizing mine, so there were no repeats like “Red Hot Chili Peppers”/ “The Red Hot Chili Peppers” / “Red Hot Chilli Peppers,” but I wasn’t free of mistakes.

The most notable example was “Car” by Built to Spill, specifically the live version, which I had downloaded while searching for songs by Brendan Benson, whom I thought had a good name and I liked a few of his songs.

I immediately liked the song and listened to it very regularly. I even also recognized that it didn’t sound like other Brendan Benson songs at the time, but didn’t really think too much of it. Voices change over time. Have you listened to Saves the Day after Stay What You Are?

I wish I could remember how I found out it was actually Built to Spill. It was probably a few years later when I started hanging out with more people with better musical tastes who played it in the car. And I probably said something stupid like “Is this Brendan Benson?” confident as hell they’d be like “Nice this guy likes cool stuff.” And they probably said something like “What? No this is Built to Spill.” And I probably tried to cover myself by saying “Oh, yeah that’s what I meant. B-words. I’m just so tired from being 15. My knees are killing me from growing.” And they probably said nothing.

But from that point, I knew that unless you’re damn sure who sings the song you’re listening to and you want to relate to someone, shut up. Because there are plenty of examples of LimeWire trying to prank you.

I had found “Ska Sucks” by Propagandhi, a song that I disagreed with at the time and continue to disagree with to this day. Only at the time, I thought it was by Against All Authority, a band I had never really listened to. I didn’t even realize this one until college when I got into Propagandhi by way of The Weakerthans (I did reverse John K. Samson order), and was like “wait a minute.” Thankfully, I could keep this mixup to myself and no one is the wiser, except all of you right now if you’re reading.

Another shotgun blast download that came in a batch of just downloading anything and everything from a band—with no idea in hindsight why I wanted even one song of theirs—was “Irish Drinking Song,” which was attributed to Dropkick Murphys, but was, in reality, by Buck-O-Nine – another band I know nothing about, and based on that song I am very cool with it because it has aged worse than milk, and wasn’t funny in the first place really. I try not to associate with anything related to Boston, so thankfully my Dropkick Murphys curiosity was short lived.

Finally, there’s the time that I even outsmarted the LimeWire fraudsters, and I owe that all to one of my favorite games that I have eulogized on this very newsletter - Aggressive Inline. They tried to tell me that my absolute jam, “Falling for You” by Student Rick was by Something Corporate. Poor Student Rick. That song should have been in every movie, but was instead being credited to some other band and relegated to the rollerblading game (which I swear is awesome).

I knew I wouldn’t be alone in this, too, so I went to Twitter to see if any of my very smart friends with impeccable music taste shared in this experience with me.

My friend Erica apparently thought that Blink 182 started dabbling with Christianity at one point:

Lots of MXPX songs were filed under Blink in the LimeWire world.

My friend Luke, whom I also have written about on this very newsletter, has perhaps my favorite mix-up:

When I downloaded ‘Slow Ride’ and ‘Free Ride,’ they were both Foghat. Thought it was silly that two popular songs had similar titles by the same band.

I love this one because I love the idea of it being real. Foghat just fuckin’ loves rides. They don’t care how they come. Slow. Free. Doesn’t matter.

Here’s my friend Kevin with one that’s actually pretty plausible:

Definitely had this one of my favorite Weezer songs, '“Flagpole Sitta.”

That verse could totally be Weezer. Same with the big chorus hook. Especially same with the bridge about “I wanna publish zines / And rage against machines.” Rivers could have written that, and it could’ve easily been a Green Album song.

Which is probably why I didn’t bother questioning it at first. No disrespect to any Harvey Dangerheads out there.

One more for good measure, my friend Alex:

“Better Days (And the Bottom Drops Out)” attributed to Sublime made its way on to many a mix CD in middle school.

There are a few more that I can vaguely remember, but can’t quite put my finger on. Unfortunately, my family computer ca. 2004 is long dead, and my iPod has been fully restored to the tastes of a college student in 2010 - one who needed the album artwork for every single song or else it looked “shitty.”

I feel like I had The Lemonheads’ cover of “Mrs. Robinson” that was attributed to someone else.

Thinking about this, I realized it’s an antiquated phenomenon that we’ll never have to endure again. It’s like telling someone to rewind their VHS before they return it to Blockbuster. Or VHS tapes. Or Blockbuster. And it’s weird that something that felt so futuristic like stealing from the comfort of my family computer is now something only Olds remember.

More importantly, right now, it makes me think how stealing music and “paying for it” through Spotify are pretty much the same thing, only there’s no risk of a virus or the FBI storming your house.

It’s important to remember that you can support artists you love, which Spotify and LimeWire did not. Buy records or merch from your favorite independent artists who haven’t been able to tour, and support your local venues through Save Our Stages.

It’s even more important to keep your iPods organized, sorted and with proper album artwork for every song. No room for error. You guys still have iPods, right?

Also, please drop any examples of these cases of mistaken musical identity in the comments for fun.

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Today’s Snakes and Sparklers musical guest is The Beths.