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5 Songs You've Never Heard That You've Heard 1000 Times

2018-01-12 · list · Hank · 3:59 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Pop culture · mode: Curiosity & trivia · tags: civic or action cta

Hank traces songs hidden inside famous ones (the Southern Tones' It Must Be Jesus in Ray Charles's I Got a Woman and Kanye West's Gold Digger, Labi Siffre in Eminem, Timmy Thomas in Drake's Hotline Bling, Linda Lyndell's What a Man revived by Salt-N-Pepa and I.O.I.) and argues that sampling shows what makes humans unique: there are no new things, as long as everyone gets credit.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — What makes humanity special: layers of remix in a barbershop 'Oops I Did It Again'; with music we can see the bricks

  • ★★ Hank says the usual guesses at what makes humanity special (opposable thumbs, tool use, self-awareness) turn out to be things other animals do too. — 00:00:06
  • ★★★ Hank says no other organism has done what music does: the layers of remix, collaboration and historical context in a six-second barbershop quartet clip of 'Oops I Did It Again'. — 00:00:12
  • ★★ Hank says all the tools we use to understand and manipulate the world are built brick by brick by individual humans; often we can't see the bricks, but with music we can. — 00:00:32

00:00:42 — Ray Charles's I Got a Woman, its gospel source It Must Be Jesus, and Kanye West's Gold Digger

  • ★ Several times Hank has listened to an old song he'd never heard and realized he had heard it hundreds of times before. — 00:00:42
  • ★★ Hank says Ray Charles is iconic and his 'I Got a Woman' is one of the most covered songs of all time. — 00:00:53
  • ★★ 'I Got a Woman' was sampled recently in Kanye West's super popular 'Gold Digger'. — 00:00:59
  • ★★★ The Southern Tones were a gospel group; Ray Charles heard their song on the radio and immediately wrote 'I Got a Woman' to its melody, the path from 'It Must Be Jesus' to 'Gold Digger'. — 00:01:28

00:01:42 — Labi Siffre's I Got The... and its Eminem sample

  • ★★ Hank presents Labi Siffre's richly orchestrated 'I Got The...', which listeners have probably never heard except as the sample in Eminem's 'My Name Is' (named in the description). — 00:01:42
  • ★ Hank badly wants to know how the Eminem track happened and invites Eminem to email him. (playful) — 00:01:59

00:02:04 — Timmy Thomas's Why Can't We Live Together sped up into Drake's Hotline Bling

  • ★★ Timmy Thomas's 'Why Can't We Live Together', a weird mix of organ and percussion, sped up with reverb and the high end taken off, becomes Drake's 'Hotline Bling'. — 00:02:04

00:02:25 — Linda Lyndell's What a Man: KKK threats, Salt-N-Pepa revival, I.O.I. version

  • ★★★ Linda Lyndell was a backup act for Otis Redding and James Brown; her R&B single 'What a Man' went badly because she was white. — 00:02:29
  • ★★★ The KKK told Lyndell to retire or they would make her life miserable for being a white person singing Black music; she retired and the song was largely forgotten. — 00:02:41
  • ★★ In 2003, after Salt-N-Pepa's song came out, Linda Lyndell performed 'What a Man' in public for the very first time. — 00:02:58
  • ★★ The song lives on in another hemisphere after the Korean pop group I.O.I. did a version of it in 2016. — 00:03:06

00:03:15 — Against the critics of sampling: there are no new things, as long as everybody gets credit

  • ★★ Hank reports that some people dislike samples, saying they show a lack of creativity or steal from other artists. — 00:03:15
  • ★★★ Hank sees in sampling the thing that makes humans unique and so powerful: there are no new things; he stole every word he is saying from whoever made it up, whose name we don't remember. — 00:03:19
  • ★★ Hank finds this beautiful and loves seeing a little into the process of human creation, as long as everybody is getting credit. — 00:03:35

00:03:42 — Parting track Found a Child by Ballin' Jack; sign-off

  • ★ Hank leaves viewers with Ballin' Jack's amazing funk track 'Found a Child', which they have never heard, except that they have. — 00:03:42

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description tells viewers this is their last chance to take the Nerdfighteria Census. — video description
  • ★★ The parting track, Ballin' Jack's 'Found a Child', appears in Deee-Lite's 'Groove Is in the Heart'. — video description

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: cumulative culture · I Got a Woman · Linda Lyndell · Ray Charles · Sampling (music) · What a Man

Also: People: Drake · Eminem · James Brown · Kanye West · Labi Siffre · Otis Redding · Timmy Thomas

Works: Found a Child · Gold Digger · Hotline Bling · I Got The... · It Must Be Jesus · Oops!... I Did It Again · Why Can't We Live Together

Organizations: Ku Klux Klan

Groups: Ballin' Jack · I.O.I · Salt-N-Pepa · The Southern Tones

Only in the description or credits: Deee-Lite · Groove Is in the Heart · My Name Is · Nerdfighteria Census

Also centred on cumulative culture: I Gotta Go: Signing Off and Thinking about Inspiration · Redefining What it Means to Matter · Dear Young People, You Terrify Me · What a Concept!! · On Immunity, Inoculation, and Individuals · The Weirdest Post-Chemo Symptoms

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