Who Wore It Better: Heart or Spoon?

Who Wore It Better: Heart or Spoon?

by Rob Tannenbaum

On any given night, there are dozens of rock bands in New York. Tonight, we’re hosting an unusual convergence of which, it seems, only I am aware. The rock band Heart is playing a concert at the Hammerstein Ballroom tonight, and the rock band Spoon is playing a song on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” then opening for Arcade Fire tomorrow and Thursday at Madison Square Garden. If I had personal acquaintances with both bands, I would suggest they meet while they are in town together, and discuss a similarity between two of their songs.

First, listen to “Fitted Shirt,” which Spoon released in 2000.

Then, listen to “Bebe Le Strange,” which Heart released in 1980.

Yes, the opening guitar riffs and patterns of drum syncopations are overwhelmingly similar. Maybe some musician will come along and explain, in the comments section, the musicology of what’s happening here. In the meantime, it’s kind of like the People magazine feature “Who Wore It Better?,” where two actresses are shown wearing the same Vivienne Westwood dress or A/X Armani Exchange romper.

Unlike truly great discoveries, mine was not the result of effort and insight, but of an iPod shuffle sequence: randomly, the Spoon song played not long after the Heart song, and I had the feeling of déjà vu. Or deja ecouté, if that’s a phrase.

I Googled the words “Heart” “Bebe Le Strange” “Spoon” and “Fitted Shirt,” to see if this similarity was already a meme, and found no previous mention of a relationship between the songs. It’s possible that there’s no overlap between the audiences of Heart, a mainstream rock band, and of Spoon, an alternative-rock band. In a Venn diagram, if set A is Heart fans and set B is Spoon fans, perhaps I comprise the entirety of the union.

Let me put this another way: Who cares? Musicians borrow or steal many things, including instruments, drugs, girlfriends, underwear, cans of AquaNet, and of course guitar riffs. Sometimes lawyers get involved, and then the musicians have to wear suits and ties to court.

But given this set of circumstances, it’s fun to speculate. Mirroring the set A/set B disparity between Heart fans and Spoon fans, it’s possible that Spoon songwriter Britt Daniel has no interest in mainstream rock, and knew nothing of “Bebe Le Strange.” If his song were a kind of homage to Heart, surely he would have mentioned it by now; it’s voguish for Pitchfork-favored musicians to reference older mainstream acts, like Hall & Oates or even sometimes Billy Joel. And sometimes, very different people make very similar discoveries. Before the Venn diagram, there was the pretty similar Euler diagram.

Venn and Euler both died way before blogs and social media, or else someone would have probably asked Venn, “Hey, did you ever read anything by this other guy Euler?” We are not so unfortunate. You can link to this post, and tweet about it. There is a Spoon account on Twitter, @spoontheband, and when word reaches them, maybe Britt Daniel will email notes@theawl.com and explain his relationship to Heart. Or to Billy Joel.

Rob Tannenbaum is identified as a ‘veteran music writer’ in this week’s New York magazine, where singer Rosanne Cash also refers to him as ‘fucking arrogant.’ He is working on an oral history of MTV, for publication by Dutton in 2011.