Back to basics.

As my first true musical love, hip hop showed me that no idea is original.  No matter how great I thought beats by DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Large Professor, DJ Shadow or Jay Dee were, there were very high chances that the beats were sampled from someone else' song.  My mind was blown by many songs, for many years.  But ultimately, I got used to it. 

By the time I became a Radiohead fan and found out that one of my favorite songs of theirs was a sample, I knew that it was game up. 

Everything was fair.  Nothing was really that surprising anymore. 

Sure, it was still fun to track down and hear those songs that had been borrowed from, but I didn't really take inspiration from that exchange like I used to.

Until now. 

It never occurred to me until last week that it was very strange that the song title 'Heirloom' on Björk's Vespertine showed up as 'Crabcraft' when I imported the album into my iTunes.

I did some research, asked around and finally came up with this:

For reference, here's 'Heirloom.'

I don't know why this has taken me aback as much as it has.  Maybe it's the image I had held up in my own mind of Vespertine as this singular masterpiece that was created in a fleeting momentary rush of emotion that came completely from within Björk's heart and mind

But, no.

Even masterpieces as unique-sounding as Vespertine even have their pre-existing seeds of inspiration. 

~Austin