The Sunday Read: ‘Why Did This Guy Put a Song About Me on Spotify?’

[Music]. hi I'm Brett Martin I'm a contributor to. the New York Times magazine and I live. in New. Orleans I genuinely don't remember what. made me search for my name on Spotify. one day last summer it's possible I was. looking for a podcast I'd been on or.

maybe it was the kind of search that we. all do once in a while just to. procrastinate or just out of vanity in. any event I must never have done this. particular search before because the. first thing I saw was a song titled. Brett Martin you a nice man yes and it. had been up there for 11. years now there are many Brett Martins. in this world several much more famous. than I am there's a major league. baseball player an Australian squash. Legend some historical figures but.

obviously I press. play and at first the words are generic. enough you're a radio guy you're a right. to man you're a reporter. dude granted these are somewhat. uncannily like my life but I'm just. thinking this is hysterical this is my. new theme song Oh Brett Mar you're a. wonderful person you're a nice man I. really like you there's a line about you.

tell good stories and I think this is. fabulous this is even more like me but. then a couple of really specific details. stopped me in my tracks Brett Martin you. cry on airplanes you watch Sweet Home. Alabama and you start to cry a lot. Martin you cry on airplanes you watch. Sweet Home Alabama and you start to cry. a. lot now I worked on a story 20 years ago.

for This American Life about crying on. airplanes and specifically about crying. during the movie Sweet Home. Alabama so at this point my girlfriend. and our daughters come into the room and. I point at the screen and I say wait a. minute this actually may be a song about. me written by some guy I don't even know. and I'm stunned and I am also very very. amused needless to say this song becomes. a huge hit in my house we probably play. it 2017 times play it for every guest.

that comes to the house and and every. time we laugh. uously and it's not until maybe my 30th. listen that I actually register How It. Ends this guy sings Brett Martin I. really like you will you be my friend. will you call me on the phone Brett. Martin here's my phone number and he. sings his actual phone number. Martin my phone number.

[Music]. I have to admit it takes me a few days. to call first of all who calls anybody. anymore and who was this guy but my. daughters keep asking if I've called and. eventually my curiosity gets the better. of me so I finally pick up the phone and. I never could have expected what I'd. find on the other. end what happens next is this week's. Sunday read a piece I wrote for the. magazine that's about what it's like to. work at the intersection of Art and. commerce what it takes to make oneself.

visible in The NeverEnding River of. content on platforms like Spotify that. rule our culture and how you make a life. in a commercial art form all of which. are questions that nearly everybody I. know who works in any medium finds. themselves. asking so here's my article read by Eric. Jason. Martin our audio producer today is. Adrien Hurst and the original music. you'll hear was written and performed by. Aaron Esposito.

I don't want to make this all about me. but have you heard the song Brett Martin. comma you a nice man comma yes I guess. probably not on spottify Brett Martin. you a nice man yes has not yet. accumulated enough streams to even. register a tally despite an excessive. number of plays in at least one. household that I can personally confirm. even I the tit nice man didn't hear the.

1 minute 14-second song until last. summer a full 11 years after it was. uploaded by an artist credited as. Paparazzi and the fogs I like to think. this is because of a heroic lack of. vanity though it may just be evidence of. very poor search. skills when I did stumble on Brett. Martin you a nice man yes I naturally. assumed it was about a different more. famous Brett Martin perhaps Brett Mar.

the left-handed reliever who until. recently played for the Texas Rangers or. Brett Martin the legendary Australian. squash player or even Clara Brett Martin. the Canadian who in 1897 became the. British Empire's first female lawyer. only when the singer began referencing. details of stories that I made for. public radio's This American Life almost. 20 years ago did I realize it actually. was about me the song ended I really. like you will you be my friend will you.

call me on the phone then it gave a. phone number with a New Hampshire area. code so I. called it's possible that I dialed with. outsize expectations the author of this. song whoever he was had been waiting 11. long years as his message in a bottle. bobbed on the digital Seas now at long. last here I was I spent serious time. thinking about how to open the. conversation settling on what I imagined. was something simple but iconic on the.

order of Dr Livingston I presume after. one ring a male voice answered I said. this is Brett Martin I'm sorry it's. taken me so long to. call the man had no idea who I was you. have to understand he said. apologetically I've written over 24,000. songs I wrote 50 songs. yesterday and thus was I ushered into. the strange Universe of Matt.

Farley Farley is 45 and lives with his. wife two sons and a cockapoo named pippy. in Danvers Massachusetts on the. NorthShore for the past 20 years he has. been releasing album after album of. songs with the object of producing. result to match nearly anything anybody. could think to search for these include. hundreds of songs named checking. celebrities from the very famous to the. much less so he doesn't give out his. phone number in all of them.

but he does spread it around enough that. he gets several calls or texts a week. perhaps sensing my deflation he assured. me that very few came from the actual. subject of a song he told me the. director Dennis Dugan of Dennis Dugan I. like your movies very a lot part of an. 83 song album about movie directors. called once but he didn't realize who it. was until too late and the conversation. was. awkward freed from the blinding.

incandescence of my own name I could. suddenly see the extent of what I had. stumbled into it was like the scene in a. thriller when the detective first gazes. on the wall of a serial Killer's Lair. Paparazzi and the is only one of. about 80 pseudonyms Farley uses to. release his music as the hungry food. band he sings songs about Foods as the. guy who sings songs about cities and. towns he sings The Atlas he has 600.

songs inviting different named girls to. the prom and 500 that are marriage. proposals he has an album of very. specific apologies albums devoted to. sports teams in every city that is a. sports team hundreds of songs about. animals and jobs and weather and. furniture and one band that is simply. called the guy who sings your name over. and. over he also has many many songs about. going to the bathroom if you have a. child under 10 with access to the.

internet it is very likely you know some. part of this body of work what he refers. to collectively as his poop songs are. mostly released under two names the. toilet bowl cleaners and the odd man who. sings about poop puke and pee the odd. man is more Shameless he explained the. toilet bowl cleaners are making. statements with their albums though the. distinction between the forers butt. cheeks butt cheeks butt cheeks and the. latters I need a lot of toilet paper to.

clean the poop in my butt maybe subtler. than he. imagines largely though not entirely on. the strength of such songs Farley has. managed to achieve that most elusive of. goals a decent living creating music in. 2008 his search engine optimization. project took in $3,000 4 years later it. had grown to. $224,000 the introduction of Alexa and. her voice activated.

opened up the there toor underserved. non- typing Market in particular the. kind fond of shouting things like poop. in my fingernails at the computer. pooping my fingernails by the toilet. bowl cleaners currently has over 4.4. million streams on spottify alone to. date that band and the odd man who sings. about poop puke and pee have. collectively brought in approximately. $469,000 from various platforms they are. are by far Farley's biggest earners but.

not the only ones Paparazzi and the fogs. has earned. $41,000 the best birthday song band ever. $38,000 the guy who sings your name over. and over. $80,000 dozens of others have taken in. two three or four digits the New Orleans. Sports band The Chicago Sports band the. singing film critic the great weather. song person the Paranormal song Warrior. the murn media holiday singers who. performed 70 versions of We Wish You a.

Merry Christmas substituting. contemporary foods for figgy pudding it. adds up Farley quit his day job in. 2017 people like to criticize the whole. streaming thing but there's really a lot. of Pros to it he said indeed in 2023 his. music earned him just shy of. $200,000 about one half penny at a. time Farley's earnings help fund his. multiple other creative Endeavors he.

records what he calls his no jokes music. this includes a Twan band he's been in. since college called Moose Haven which. once recorded an album a day for a year. he hosts two podcasts one about his work. and the other recapping Celtics games. and he makes movies micro budgeted. determinedly amateur but nevertheless. recognizably cinematic features starring. himself and his family and friends they. feature a spect acular array of New.

England accents in most Farley plays. some version of himself a mild-mannered. eccentric hero projecting varying. degrees of Menace Farley and his college. friend Charlie rockburg are in the midst. of a project in which they have resolved. to release two full movies per year the. model Farley said was inspired by. Hallmark movies if this movie stinks. good news we're making another in 6. months their most popular work remains. don't let the riverbeast get you 2012 a.

charmingly Shaggy tale of a crypted. threatening a small New England Town it. features Farley's father as a big game. hunter named Ido. hootkins like many of Farley's Endeavors. his films have attracted a small but. intense following I could fill a 5,000. seat Arena if I could only get everybody. in one place he says his is the kind of. obsessive project that seems to inspire. the same from others a few years ago Leo.

Galil a Chicago music writer set out to. listen to Farley's entire Corpus from. start to finish chronicling the journey. in a Zen titled freaky for Farley four. pages into issue one he had already. taken on the Grim tone of an Arctic. Explorer I've become a little tired of. the album 25 songs in he wrote which. makes me concerned about my ability to. get through the rest of this listening. Quest issue two begins I.

failed the umbrella name that Farley. uses for all his outputs is murn he made. the word up or rather he seized on what. he felt was its strange power after. misspelling the word intern in what he. had planned to be a 10,000 page novel to. Farley creativity has always been a. volume business that in fact is the gist. of the murn method a 136 page Manifesto. on creativity that he self-published in. 20. 21 his theory is that every idea no.

matter its apparent value must be. honored and completed an idea thwarted. is an insult to the Muse and is punished. accordingly if you reject your own ideas. then the part of the brain that comes up. with ideas is going to stop he said you. just do it and do it and do it and you. sort it out later or as the case may be. you don't but rather send it all out. into the abyss hoping that someday.

somebody somewhere will hear. it I was aware of course that on some. level I'd been had the one tiny fish. vain enough to be snared in Farley's. troll it left me a bit paranoid Charlie. roxburg suddenly seemed like such a. perfect Boston pseudonym that I spent a. day investigating whether he was a real. person he's real lives in Connecticut. and makes corporate videos for his day. job I lost another day chasing after a.

letterboxed commenter who goes by the. handle. dcs577 and was so baffled by the. popularity of Farley's movies that he. published his own short eBook The not. murn method it urges readers to give up. on their artistic dreams and even mimics. Farley's Buckshot SEO by appearing in. multiple slightly different versions. surely he had to be a farly Alter Ego. nope a 36-year-old movie buff in.

Missouri mostly I was trying to figure. out whether I thought Farley was a bad. guy did his scheme represent the. inevitable cynical end product of a. culture in the grips of algorithmic. platforms or might it be a delightful. sight effect was his work spam or a kind. of Outsider Art was he just the poop. song guy or was he closer to Steve Keane. the brooklyn-based Gen X hipster. approved painter of over 300,000 works. who has been the subject of books and.

Museum. retrospectives as it happens Farley has. a song about Steve Kean it's on a. Paparazzi album titled I am not wasting. my life which suggested he was asking. some of the same. questions when I went to Danvers to meet. Farley in December it became quickly. apparent that he is the most transparent. person in the world he's got a thick. head of hair high cheekbones and a. friendly Kyle Chandler like face that n.

another letterboxed reviewer correctly. identified as youth. ptery when he picked me up at my hotel. he was wearing a fleece lined Brown. hoodie that judging by social media is. the only outer layer he wears throughout. the New England winter including on the. 15 to 20 M walks he takes twice a week. he struck me as the kind of guy who. wears shorts the moment it gets above. 48° compulsively early he confessed that. he arrived at the Lobby an hour before.

we were scheduled to meet you might. mistake M's aesthetic for Stoner humor. but Farley says he has never had a sip. of alcohol much less done. drugs by his own description he eats. like a picky 12-year-old when I made him. take me to a restaurant in Salem called. Dub's Seafood famed for its belly clams. he ordered chicken nuggets and buried. them beneath a blizzard of salt and. ground pepper removing the top of the. pepper shaker to pour it on more.

directly in the car we listen to The. Rolling Stones The Replacements Tom. waights it's a mammoth accomplishment of. self-control for me not to be playing my. own music right now he said though his. efforts at restraint were puzzling given. that I was in all likelihood the one. person on Earth at that moment whose job. was to listen to. it all of Farley's life he has wanted to. make things and have people see hear. them after going to school at Providence.

College he moved to Manchester New. Hampshire specifically because he knew. nobody there who might distract him if. you know people they want you to go to. cookouts he says I designed my entire. life to not have to go to cookouts even. now he cannot abide downtime to him the. wasted time of a party or watching a. football game is measured in songs or. scripts he could have written at no. point did Farley consider a more.

conventional route such as film school. or a low-level job in the entertainment. industry instead he took a job at a. group home for teenagers knocking out a. 40-hour week in 3 days so that he could. work on music and movies the other four. he would leave MOS Haven CDs in public. places across Manchester hoping somebody. would pick them up he slipped them into. the stacks at local record stores like a. reverse shoplifter he would drive people. to the airport just so he could force.

his music on them on the. way Farley's Persona is simultaneously. grandiose I really do think I'm the. greatest songwriter of the 21st century. he told me and knowingly. self-effacing one night I went with him. to a tiny independent theater in. Lexington for a screening of the murn. film magic spot a time travel comedy on. the drive down I asked what the endgame. for the movie was obviously they have a.

very different business model from his. music what if somebody gave him say a. million dollar to make his next movie he. thought for a second 300,000 for me and. Charlie spread the rest around to the. people who have helped us all these. years make a $10,000 movie and get sued. he said that would be about twice the. budget of a typical murn. joint magic spot wasn't on the Marquee. when we pulled up but there was a flyer. taped to the door we couldn't afford.

color copies but we did our best the. theater owner said as he let us in there. were 11 people in the audience including. Farley's father and brother-in-law both. of whom were in the movie there was also. a film student named Taylor who had. driven up from the cape for the second. of three murn screenings he'd see within. a month and two guys down from. Manchester one of whom was turning the. other on to the Farley Cannon. a few minutes into the movie The Sound.

went out and we sat for about 10 minutes. while Farley frantically tried to fix it. he was on the verge of jury rigging a. solution involving holding a microphone. to his laptop when the sound system. miraculously healed itself a huge. success I'm on Cloud9 he said as we. headed back toward Danvers after the. show he refused to accept his share of. the ticket sales instead pressing extra. money into the owner's hands is. thanks for somebody so driven to find an.

audience and so immune to embarrassment. the Advent of the digital age was a. miracle Farley began uploading the MOs. Haven catalog to iTunes when it came out. and then to Spotify as described in the. closely autobiographical murn film local. Legends MOS Haven was intended to meld. the sounds of Bob Dylan Van Morrison and. Pink Floyd into a musical concoction. that was going to blow the minds of. millions of fans all the way around the.

world as it turned out Farley noticed. that the only song that seemed to blow. minds or at least get downloaded was a. comic throwaway called shut up your. monkey get down get funky shut up your. monkey some people would have quit right. there he says I saw an. opportunity a lot of energy has been. spent trying to pick the lock of the. recommendation algorithms that can make. or break a song on Spotify and other.

streaming services any number of online. courses Distributors and publishing. companies promis to navigate the. Labyrinth of inputs playlist inclusion. natural language processing average. length of listens influencer attention. metrics like acoustic speechin and. danceability that will push a song unto. millions of users recommended playlists. critics meanwhile bemon the rise of. bands like of Van Fleet an algorithmic.

fever dream according to Pitchfork who. seemed to be engineered to be the next. song after whatever it was you actually. chose to listen. to when I asked Farley how much of this. he factors into his work the answer was. almost. zero he gets the sense that longer. titles seem to work better than short. ones and that around a minute and a half. is a good minimum length but for the. most part his is a blunt force attack on.

the softer Target of search results at. its most intentionally parasitic this. includes such tracks as a review of. Exile on Main Street designed to be. discovered by The Rolling Stones curious. a 2013 album credited to the passionate. and objective Joker fan takes advantage. of the fact that song titles cannot be. copyrighted thus this girl is on fire. quick grab a fire extinguisher almost. Instant Karma and searching for sugarm.

man which unlike the more famous sugarm. man by Rodriguez is about a baker whose. sugar delivery is running late Farley. says he has since sworn off these kinds. of. Tricks these days he sets himself a. relatively light goal of 1 50 song album. a month recorded in a spare bedroom in. his house 50 tracks is the limit that CD. Baby which Farley uses to distribute a. manage his music allows a regulation.

that may or may not have something to do. with Farley who used to put as many as. 100 on an album once he reaches his. quota he begins the tedious work of. checking the levels of each song. entering titles and metadata genre. writer length Etc creating an album. title and cover art nearly always a. selfie and uploading the package one. song at a. time Farley showed me a worn green. spiral notebook in which he meticulously.

tracks his output and earnings from. Spotify he earns roughly a third of a. cent per stream Amazon and Apple pay. slightly more on average between a third. and 3/4 of a cent Tik Tok on the other. hand pays musicians by the number of. videos featuring their songs and is thus. immune to Farley's strategy when Chris. and Kylie Jenner recorded a video of. themselves dancing to Farley's song. about Chris millions of people saw it.

but Farley earned less than 1. cent among other topics Farley told me. he planned to tackle in future albums. were colleges household items tools. musical instruments I had planned to ask. what categories haven't worked but what. had become clear by then is that the. idea of any one song or even album. hitting the jackpot isn't the point even. after spotify's recent announcement that. it would no longer pay Royal alties on. songs receiving fewer than a thousand.

streams Farley's business model rests on. the sheer bulk of his. output and so does his artistic model. whatever the dubious value of any. individual song in The Farley Universe. it's as part of the enormous body of the. whole the magnum opus that it gains. power this is especially true when you. consider that an artificial intelligence. could conceivably produce 24,000 songs. farly entire Ura in about a day a fact.

that gives his defiantly human even. artisanal labor a kind of lonely copian. dignity whatever else Farley's work is. it is not AI even when it barely seems. to be. [Music]. I a year or two ago hary discovered with. some chrin that he was no longer the.

number one result for the search poop. song there was another poop song guy his. name is Teddy Casey and amazingly he is. also from a Boston suburb Newton that's. where the similarities with Farley stop. Casey has precisely two songs available. for streaming a sweet kids song about. animals called monkey and the poop song. which has over 4 million streams across. very I. platforms Casey is 55 until recently he.

was working as a bartender and hosting. Open Mic nights near where he lives in. Mid Coast. Maine when I reached him he was back. home after a week in New Hampshire. training to become a US Postal Service. letter carrier he wrote his poop song. around 2009 but he didn't get around to. posting it until. 2020 it didn't do anything for months he. said and then all of a sudden one month. it made $20 I was like Wow cool buy a.

case of beer these days the song brings. in about $1,200 per month enough to pay. his rent Casey told me with what sounded. like a Labowski and shrug I have other. songs that I want to put up he said but. I kind of don't want to sell. out I asked if he knew about the toilet. bowl cleaners and he said he'd heard a. few of their songs I'm not making this. up he said. there's this other guy I don't know if.

you've heard of him the odd man who. sings about poop puke and pee his idea. was to customize every poop song so. there's a Steven poop song a bob poop. song A Mary poop song He's got. hundreds I told him that both bands were. in fact the same. person well okay he said as if realizing. the full extent of what he was up. against I like mine better but I'm. biased. he said finally you can tell he knows.

how to write songs but I think he's just. been going for. volume in fact I knew about the suite of. songs that combine Farley's two most. successful genres names and poop because. he was working on a new set of them when. I visited him he estimated that he had. already completed about 3,000 but there. were always new. names this can be kind of painful he. warned switching on his keyboard and. firing up his laptop he dawned.

headphones consulted a list of names and. got to work in the Silence of the room I. could just hear the soft click of the. keyboard and his vocals. Jam poop Jam poop poop. poop in Local Heroes which is something. like Farley's All That Jazz there is a. fantasy sequence in which Farley. imagines the two sides of his. personality arguing one the ser. heartfelt artist the other a greasy.

record executive demanding ever more. poop. songs of course the scene can only be a. fantasy and can only have Farley playing. both characters because the greasy. record executive belongs to a lost world. one in which drastically fewer people. had a chance to produce art and the work. was often corrupted by corporate. Gatekeepers but in which there was also. a clearly marked road to an audience and. a living. Farley represents both the best and.

worst of the incentives and. opportunities that have taken this. world's Place certainly there are few. creators working today in any medium who. would not recognize the anxiety he. embodies that their work now lives or. dies by the vories of opaque algorithms. serving a bottomless menu of options to. an increasingly distracted public and. that if they don't bow to the demands of. these new realities their work and by. extension they will simply.

disappear which is to say that while the. experience of watching Farley work was. not unpainfully as promised neither was. it totally. unfamiliar after a minute and a half of. the Jamila poop song Farley paused He. adjusted a few dials consulted his. notebook thought for a few seconds and. plowed on to the next song different. Tempo different vocals similar theme. Tonka Tonka he.

sang poop poop poop poop poop. [Music].