Feb 2022 pop mistaken-identity jargon academia
@otagoseaburials who is a published author is plagued by the publications of another identically named author, the latter in a technical scientific field. The rest is a desperate scramble for citations.
I've based this not wholly happily on fragments of a song of 20 years gone, actually bluegrass, but with major alterations. It's not yet a happy marriage but I'm happy with the vocals and the rest can wait till after FAWM
WISH I'D THOUGHT OF THAT
Words & Music Copyright © 2022 Andrew Male & TJ Fatchen
All Rights Reserved APRA-AMCOS
isrc: auney2200181
There's this person I can see
Has the exact same name as me
But he's academic,
Publishes on-line
And so it's come to be
Every other day or three,
Old friends message me
Asking if all this stuff is mine
I'll say "look, I write a bit"
And I'll go and take a look at it
Then it really makes all my work
Seem old hat
Then I'll get back in a hurry
To the growing e-mail flurry
But all I can say is "damn, I wish,
I wish I'd thought of that"
CH
I wish I'd thought of that
I wish I'd thought of that
I wish I'd thought, I wish I'd thought,
I wish I'd thought of that
I wish I'd thought of that
I wish I'd thought of that
I wish I'd thought, I wish I'd thought,
Damn, I wish I'd thought of that
There's thermo-nucleic sheening there,
Proto-invasive tractile resistance,
Some modern Herculean leaning, where
Generation verses universal insistence
This academic who shares my name
Has really belled the cat
I wish I'd taken science classes,
I wish I'd thought of that
CH
I wish I'd thought of that
I wish I'd thought of that
I wish I'd thought, I wish I'd thought,
I wish I'd thought of that
I wish I'd thought of that
I wish I'd thought of that
I wish I'd thought, I wish I'd thought,
Damn, I wish I'd thought of that
I still struggle with the notion
that four and four make eight
The daily dump on my computer screen
Leaves me more and more irate
And someone asked of my department
And I thought she meant my flat
But Geo-Tactile Escarpment?
Well, I wish I'd thought of that
CH x2
I wish I'd thought of that
I wish I'd thought of that
I wish I'd thought, I wish I'd thought,
I wish I'd thought of that
I wish I'd thought of that
I wish I'd thought of that
I wish I'd thought, I wish I'd thought,
Damn, I wish I'd thought of that
@jaegerin Mar 2022
Heheh, lovely! Such a fun topic, and a fun listen too.
@elainedimasi Mar 2022
Ah hahaha this is so great! I've been lucky. There's an N DiMasi who published in biology and that confused no one. And anyway I don't care about my pubs anymore. But I love Karan's reaction: how does the other academic feel?
Geo-Tactile Escarpment?
Seriously, I wish ~~I'd~~ thought I could put a phrase into a song like that!
Agree with comments below about the deceptive simplicity of the chorus. Love the vocal high-rise at the very end!
@headfirstonly Mar 2022
That chorus is so simple but it works so well. And oh, the struggle is real. My discography on Spotify is shared between me and some other guy with the same name. It's... irritating—but part of my brain keeps thinking, "I don't remember recording this." I'm empathising with this song more than any other I've heard this month, I think.
I'm going to use this as an excuse to relate James Whistler's legendary retort to Oscar Wilde when he commented that he wished he'd come up with a particularly pithy line that somebody else had dropped into a conversation: "Don't worry Oscar, you will."
@kahlo2013 Mar 2022
Ha! I love this! And can totally relate. There is another academic with the same first two initials and last name as mine and we work in similar fields and were at the same institution for awhile - and every time I update my publication list I end up reading her papers and think that was a great study too bad it wasn’t me. So love this catchy chorus, the nerdy nod to science, the fun uptempo music, and now a new author to look up :)!
@roddy Feb 2022
This is a very good song. The lyrics are witty and tell a very interesting story. I really like the piano and how it works with the drums and bass. Nice harmonies. Great singalong chorus.
@billwhite51 Feb 2022
a lot of people must have similar tales to tell. when i began publishing, i used my full name, william thomas white. after researching authors names in the publishers index, i found several writers under that name but no bill white. no author wished to go by such a stupid, common name, so i took it. since then several bill white's have emerged as authors, none of whom i want to be confused with
@oaksnprairie Feb 2022
Very clever! I understand the frustration. Someone has a YouTube channel named the same as mine, but with the last name repeated. If you search under my name, the other one comes up first with a picture of a boy picking his nose. No! This is not me!
@karan Feb 2022
This is a lovely song! And I wonder whether perhaps the namesake feels exactly the same when he finds out about the things @otagoseaburials does?