Heaneyland!

And still I am thwarted

Andrew Bird's "Weather Systems" album featured a great but short song called "I", which, I learned while at one of Mr. Bird's concerts, was a truncated version of a song called "Capital I", which he was apparently unable to release for legal reasons, although he did not elaborate at the time. The song didn't appear on "The Mysterious Production of Eggs" (although I suspect a studio version exists, based on the fact that every song on the album had artwork created for it by Jay Ryan, and this was one of the pieces, not included in the album package). I held out hope that the song would be released in some fashion eventually, and I was excited and then slightly disappointed in rapid succession as I learned that Andrew's new album would include "Imitosis", a reworked version of "I" -- but then I listened to a live recording and discovered that one of the key parts of "Capital I" (the chorus) wasn't included. So I did some Googling, and finally I know why:

"The chorus "We all live in a Capital I' is taken from a Sesame Street song. Even though the melody is totally different, Sony Music wanted tons of money for publishing, so I couldn't afford to put it on the record."

Uh...the hell? A seven-word reference to a lyric from another song that doesn't even use the same melody isn't fair use? Rose, your boyfriend works for the EFF, can't they get on top of this?

Ah well. At least there are still a zillion live recordings of "Capital I". You can get a bunch at the Internet archive, including one from this 2003 show (a bit quietly recorded, but a lovely rendition; my favorite of the ones I've linked here), an early version with a rather different instrumental arrangement from 2001, and a sparse but very clearly recorded version from a 2003 radio session. Then you can compare, if you wish, to the live version of "Imitosis" here.