Amateurs imitate. Geniuses steal.

I’ve always found this idea comforting.

There’s no such thing as an original idea.

I heard that in a music composition class, although I think I read it in a Sting interview in high school.

When I was much younger and a lot more unchecked with my egotism — these days it’s reigned in but not by much — I prided myself on being a thief. I would write a song and say exactly where I took each idea.

I stole that drum beat from Basia. I took that bass rhythm from Duran Duran. That background noise is from John Zorn. I wrote those lyrics in the style of Robin Holcomb.

I was confident my theivery was blatant but unrecognizable once filtered through my own sense of harmony and rhythm and melody.

I’m doing it again.

I said I’m “studying” ACO’s absolute ego album to work on the second Eponymous 4 project, which is a euphemism for “stealing”.

But it occurred to me — is it really possible for me to know if I’m really stealing? What if my sense of theft is actually imitation?

What constitutes imitation anyway?

When DJ Danger Mouse deconstructs the Beatles and Jay-Z, is that theft or imitation? When MC Hammer lifted Rick James’ “Superfreak” for “You Can’t Touch This”, is that theft or imitation?

When Kurt Cobain lifted the chorus of “More Than a Feeling” from Boston for “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, is that theft or imitation? When The Killers sing about a “boyfriend who looked like a girlfriend” 10 years after Blur sang about “girls who are boys who like girls to be boys”, is taht theft or imitation? (Never mind both songs rip off the ’80s.)

Today, I bought Soul II Soul’s “Back to the Life” from iTunes because I wanted to use that song’s beat in a reconstruction of a song I wrote 12 years ago parodying their style. (The beat I came up with then was closer to Madonna’s “Vogue”.)

And just before I sat down to write this entry, I went track by track through absolute ego looking for more beats to steal. I’m finding it easier to play randomly to a rhythm than just plucking chords out of thin air.

When am I stealing? And when am I imitating?

And would the listener notice in the end?

Maybe ACO would …

In a fit of irrational paranoia, I spent a few minutes yesterday jotting down the serial numbers of all my valuable electronics.

Now that I’ve bought the same model keyboard that was stolen from me six years ago, I want to make sure I can recover it should lightning strike twice.

There’s a superstitous part of me that thinks an object which attracted thieves way back when isn’t something to welcome back into my home. I think that’s culture — my mom was once adamant that we keep a moth fluttering about our porch light from entering the house. She said it was my grandfather.

However much that primordial sense influenced the act of taking down those serial numbers, really it’s just a smart thing to do regardless.

The following section are a bunch of notes to myself, but I’m posting them hear to make myself accountable.

So far, I’m working on the following songs for the second Eponymous 4 project. I’m taking a few of them from A Ghost in My Shadow:

  • Promises1
  • Never Turn Back1
  • Silver Sting1
  • Our Best Wasn’t Enough2
  • Untitled (ACO 2)3
  • Untitled (Oktober 1)4
  • Untitled (House)1

1 These songs are reconstructions from A Ghost in My Shadow.

2 Formerly “Untitled (ACO 1)”. I wrote lyrics to this song last night (Jan. 29).

3 This song is probably more inspired by UA than ACO, but since I’m “stealing” from absolute ego, I may as well label it ACO.

4 I want to use the rhythm from Duran Duran’s “Secret Oktober” for a dub song, but I can’t help but want to do something more along the lines of ACO’s “Intensity (You Are”) or Sade’s “Slave Song”. A member of Sade wrote “Intensity” for ACO.