Why Music Gets Ripped Off: Stella Lefty's "Boston," Noah Kahan's "Stick Season," and the Truth About Song Interpolation
Why Music Gets Ripped Off (And Why You Should Hate the Game, Not the Player)
Today, I wanna talk about why music gets ripped off.
If you want the real version of this, the deep dive into the economics behind it, go read "Why Cheaters Prosper" over on the Socioeconomic Market blog.
What you're getting here is the music version. The version for you, the listener, the artist, the person who heard a new song on the radio and thought, "Wait a minute, I've heard this before."
The SNL Skit That Started This
The reason I am writing this is because of this SNL Weekend Update skit:
If you haven't seen it, go watch it, then come back. The bit pokes at something a lot of people have been talking about. A new song came out that sounds a whole lot like a song people already love.
Here's the original.
And here's the interpolation.
"Boston" is an interpolation of Noah Kahan's "Stick Season." Listen to them back to back and you'll hear it right away.
What Is an Interpolation in Music?
Before we go any further, let me make sure you and I are on the same page. A sample is when an artist takes the actual recording of another song and uses it in their track. An interpolation is when an artist re-records or re-sings a melody, lyric, or musical idea from an existing song instead of lifting the original audio.
In other words, an interpolation borrows the composition, not the recording. That's why the songwriters of the original usually get credited and paid on the new song. When it's done right, everybody on the original writing side eats.
So when you hear "Boston" and think "Stick Season," you're not crazy. You're hearing exactly what the song was built to make you hear.
If You Don't Like Interpolations, You Don't Like Capitalism
Here's the truth. If you don't like interpolations, I don't think you like capitalism.
Like I talk about in "Why Cheaters Prosper" on the Socioeconomic Market blog, capitalism doesn't breed innovation. You wait for someone to build a quality product, then you copy them and outmarket them. That's the playbook. That's how most industries actually work, no matter what the business books tell you about disruption and genius founders.
The good thing about music is you can claim your competition's earnings rather than something like a car. If a car company copies another car company's design, the original company doesn't get a check. In music, when you interpolate a song, the original writers get credited and paid on the new version.
Music is the same way as every other market. You take an already known good asset and you make your version of it. The asset has already been tested. The audience has already proven they like it.
If you don't like that musicians do this, you shouldn't hate the musician. You should hate capitalism. I just wanna be consistent.
Lefty Paid Her Dues
As a true hater of the game and not the player, I'll say it plainly. Lefty paid her dues.
She took a known good asset, made her version of it, and credited and squared up with Noah. That's the system working exactly the way it was designed to work. You might not love the design, but you can't be mad at somebody for playing by the rules everybody else is playing by.
If you're going to be mad, be mad at the rules.
You Can Make a Song That Sounds the Same and Not Do It on Purpose
Now here's the other side of this. Not every song that sounds like another song is a calculated business move.
As Ed Sheeran will attest to with "Thinking Out Loud" in relation to Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On," you can totally make an original song that sounds the same as another song and not do it on purpose. Sheeran got taken to court over the similarities, and in 2023 a jury found that he didn't copy the song. The chord progressions and rhythms people pointed to were the kind of basic building blocks that show up in tons of songs.
That's the thing you have to understand about music. There are only so many notes, only so many chord progressions that feel good to the human ear, and only so many ways to say "I love you" in a song. Overlap is going to happen.
Cryptomnesia: When You Copy Without Knowing It
There's actually a word for unintentionally copying something you heard before. It's called cryptomnesia.
Cryptomnesia is when a forgotten memory comes back to you, but you don't recognize it as a memory. You think it's a brand new idea. Your brain stored that melody from years ago, filed it away, and then handed it back to you while you were writing like it was your own original thought.
The most famous example is George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord." A court ruled that it borrowed from "He's So Fine" by The Chiffons, and the judge called it subconscious copying. Harrison didn't sit down and decide to steal a song. His brain did it for him.
So think about it like this. Musicians might be adopting music from their favorite artists and producing similar work and not realizing it. You listen to an artist a thousand times, you study them, you love them, and then one day you pick up a guitar or open your DAW and something comes out that sounds a little too familiar.
Influence: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
However, this is where the whole word "influence" comes in.
Usually, most artists are a compilation of their top three artists with their own spin on their own thing. Ask any artist who their influences are and you can probably hear those influences all over their music. That's not theft. That's how art gets made.
Like Sir Isaac Newton would say, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Every industry does this and music is no different. Hip-hop was literally built on this. Producers dug through crates, flipped old records, and turned somebody else's foundation into something new.
Nobody creates in a vacuum. You don't, I don't, and neither does your favorite artist.
Why You Like Songs That Sound Familiar
In another respect, people are drawn to familiarity. That's not an insult to anybody. That's just how the human brain works.
You're more likely to listen to music that sounds familiar, which is exactly why an interpolation works. A big part of that is what's called the availability heuristic.
The availability heuristic is a mental shortcut where your brain judges things based on how easily examples come to mind. Whatever is already sitting at the front of your memory feels more important, more true, and more trustworthy. Psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman described it back in the 1970s, and it shows up in everything from how you judge risk to what you buy.
Here's how it plays out with music. When a new song reminds you of a song that's already in your head, your brain grabs onto it fast. That melody is already "available" to you, so the new song feels good before you even decide whether you like it.
That's why record labels love interpolations. They're not just selling you a new song. They're selling you a feeling you already had.
Ava Max Built a Career on This
If you want proof that this works, look at Ava Max.
Ava Max's whole career is built on interpolating hit songs, a lot of them rock and pop classics, and leaning into that familiarity. Her song "Kings & Queens," for example, borrows from Bonnie Tyler's "If You Were a Woman (And I Was a Man)." You hear it, something clicks, and you're singing along before you even know why.
That's not an accident. That's a strategy. And it's a strategy that works because of everything we just talked about.
As a Musician, I Think This Is Great
So where do I stand?
As a musician, I think it's great as long as the original artist is credited and paid. I mean, you mean I get credit and money from a derivative of my song and I didn't have to do any work? I'm not a producer, but sign me up!
Think about it from the original artist's side. You wrote a song once. Now somebody else is out there putting in the work to market a new version of it, introducing your song to a new audience, and sending you a check. That's a win. Especially if you support capitalism.
If you're an independent artist, this is something you should actually be thinking about. Your catalog is an asset. If someone wants to interpolate your work and pay you for it, that's your music working for you while you sleep.
Blame the System, Not the Artist
Again, this is capitalism, where the bottom line is profit. At least what the model is telling you is you should not care how your music or intellectual property is getting used as long as it's making money.
You might not like that. I get it. There's something that feels off about art being treated purely as a product. But that's the system we're all operating in, and every artist on the radio is operating in it too.
So if you're mad at Lefty because she made a song similar to Noah after crediting and squaring up with Noah, you hate capitalism. Stop hating the artist and start blaming the system, or shut up and enjoy the music.
And if you want to understand why the system rewards copying over creating, go read the full breakdown about "Why Cheaters Prosper."
On a side note, Gaia is totally telling me to be nice to you, Noah. "Stick Season" is a great song. That's exactly why somebody wanted to make their version of it.
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