#27: Thieving Thieves!!

Stealing is bad m'kay

Hullo,

Before we get into today’s sub, may I remind you that my album release show at Paradiso is happening in 23 days and I know not all of you have bought a ticket yet. Please do it before it’s too late. The boys and I are cooking up a swingin’ set and I would hate for you, my loyal substack battalion, to miss it and come crying to me that it’s sold out and then get ripped off trying to buy a fake ticket on the black market. These things happen. Get them while they’re hot. Right here. Just a click away.

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Now let us move swiftly on to today’s topic: theft. Unlawfully taking something that isn’t yours. Stealing a wallet, a heart, or into the night. It’s easily in the top 3 sins of all time, and I would go as far as to say that it reaches far beyond just our species. Raccoons, for example, are master thieves. Here’s one of my favourite video’s of all time (sorry I can’t get it to show up in the post so you’ll have to click to watch it - this is the last external link I promise). Nature vs. nurture? No. This is a perfect example of nature and nurture coming together. The mother is clearly training the young raccoon, showing him the best condiments, the method, how to hunt efficiently (nurture). As far as I can tell, the baby raccoon has barely developed eyesight, yet he still manages to grab the loot tight with both hands and make a swift escape (nature).

The big difference between raccoons stealing a tray of mustard and a human robbing a bank is that raccoons have not invented ethics (yet). They don’t stop to think about the restaurant manager losing inventory and maybe even customers. Most of us do navigate according to some sort of ethical compass, and that’s what I would like to pick your brain about today. I have stolen things before (allegedly). A piece of parmesan cheese at Albert Heijn when times were rough (I forgot to scan it). A handful of gummy bears at Kruidvat (again, allegedly). A nice pint glass from a pub (this I admit).

A few years ago my brothers and I were traveling back from Burundi, where we had been visiting Dad. Our plane got stuck in Kampala during a stopover and we had to spend the night there waiting for the plane to get fixed. We all got loaded onto a bus and into a big hotel. Meals and drinks were provided, but only at specific time slots, quite far apart. The restaurant served food all day, but we couldn’t pay for anything because we had no cash, no credit card and my bank card didn’t work. We had to practically beg the staff at the reception to fill up our water bottles between breakfast and lunch because we couldn’t pay for a bottle of water. Essentially, we were completely reliant on the airline to feed us, either at the hotel or on the plane, until we got back home. At lunch we got our fill, but I knew my teenage brothers would get hungry again in no time. So we did what we had to do. We each took turns walking to the bread basket, grabbing as many little white buns as we could fit in our hands, walking back to the table and dropping them in a plastic bag I had hidden under the table. Those rations ended up lasting us well into the flight home. I know it’s not technically stealing because that bread was part of a buffet that was paid for by a big airline, but it still kind of felt like we were stealing. In these same 24 hours, we all ended up contracting some tropical parasite from swimming in Lake Victoria. Maybe God saw it differently..

If anything, it felt more like a simulation of the reality of many people; needing to steal to survive. People get their hands chopped off in some countries for that. That’s insane. It reminded me that there’s a pretty sizeable grey area between right and wrong when it comes to thieving.

Stealing in order to live is one thing, but the stealing that led me to write this post was a different kind: stealing art or ‘intellectual property’. Let’s talk plagiarism.

3 years ago, I wrote a verse that I really liked but had two problems with. 1) I kept getting stuck when trying to write the rest of the song. 2) The words “Moon of Alabama” were glued to the melody, I just couldn’t let them go. I’ve never been to Alabama, I don’t know what the moon looks like from there. But the words just sounded so perfect with the melody. I literally wrote that in the next line, the words keep repeating/the image in my head keeps calling me out and drawing me in. This is what that verse sounded like at the time:

Part of the reason that I struggled with “Moon of Alabama” is because after listening back a few times I realised where it came from. Listen from 00:55:

Woops. It’s different, but the influence (or theft?) is very clear. There aren’t many songs about the moon in Alabama, I listened to the Doors obsessively when I was 16, the tempo is similar. The court case would be a disaster. But maybe there won’t have to be a court case… I did a little sleuthing and the phrase ‘Moon of Alabama’ goes back further than the summer of love.

Playwright Bertolt Brecht first wrote a poem in German in 1925, this was then translated into English by Elisabeth Hauptmann. Two years later, Kurt Weill composed music for it, after which it was known as “Alabama Song” and used in a play and an opera. Decades later, Ray Manzarek (keyboardist of the Doors) showed it to Jim and the boys and they made their version of it in 1967. David Bowie covered it too, as a B-side to Space Oddity in 1979.

According to copyright laws, works like this become public domain 95 years after publication or 70 years after the authors death. 1927+95= 2022. Safe. Brecht died in 1956 and Kurt Weill in 1950. 1956+70=2026. That means I can release the song on January 1st next year without Brecht’s offspring shaking me down for royalties. Sweet.

I think this might be my longest post yet, I hope you guys are still following. Raccoons > nature vs. nurture > Uganda > ethics > plagiarism. It makes sense in my head. What I’ve realized through writing and (allegedly) ‘stealing’ this song, is that stealing is a vital part of the creative process. Whether you’re doing it consciously or not, it’s really just a symptom of inspiration. We’re like antennae, picking things up constantly. After a while, you forget where you get certain ideas, melodies or words from.

Brecht once wrote the words in German, they got translated, put to music, performed, then Jim Morrison gave them a touch up, then Bowie, and at some point some of those song-spores made their way to me (let the record show that I am in no way suggesting the idea that I am even close to being eligible for that list).

So, I’m not stealing, I’m just planting another tree.

Moon of Alabama

The night is out to get you

The writing’s on the wall

And you keep calling out

And looking in

It’s eye to eye

And skin on skin

Who’s gonna find you

Drinking from the fountain

A penny in your hand

But it won’t come true

It’s not for sale

It’s a porcelain tub of piss

Not a wishing well

For the rest, you’ll have to wait until next year. See ya on April 20th!