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The name of this show is This Exists. So this is probably breaking our own rules, but there
is a song -- a song that reached the Billboard charts in 1979 -- that does not exist.
We're not talking about John Cage's 4'33", unquestionably the most famous silent piece
of music.
4'33" is three movements ostensibly of silence -- lasting four minutes and thirty three seconds,
this most famous of Cage's works is intended to challenge the very concept of music by
making accidental environmental sounds its focal point. But it has sheet music. It exists.
Rock 'N' Steady does not exist. There is no score. There are no funny YouTube videos about
it or TED Talks debating its merits as cultural commentary. But in 1979, it debuted at 106
on Billboard "Bubbling Under" chart.
Credited to the band DA and the label Rascal Records, Rock 'N' Steady wasn't just a one
week clerical error. It spent three weeks just outside of the Hot 100, peaking at 102
before disappearing.
Music historian Joel Whitburn has spent years trying to figure out who DA was, who Rascal
Records was -- going so far as the visit an old address credited to the label, and finding
only an empty office.
Here's where the astonishing conclusion would go if there was one. But literally no one
knows how this happened. Was the song a fake? Is it just lost to time? Rock 'N' Steady might
be our mysterious piece of non-existent music, but it's not entirely alone. Tell me if this
sounds like Mick Jagger. Singing about nookie.
The Masked Marauders were a joke, the wholly non-existent basis for a phony review that
Greil Marcus wrote for Rolling Stone. Supposedly a supergroup consisting of Jagger, Bob Dylan,
Paul McCartney, and John Lennon, the joke took on a life of its own when readers started
calling record stores looking for the album. So Marcus recorded one, Warner Brothers released
it, and sold 100 000 copies.
"Grunge speak" was as real as the Masked Marauders -- in a 1992 New York Times article about
grunge and the success of Sub Pop Records, someone who worked at the label invented a
whole secret grunge language, like "cob knobbler" and "swinging on the flippity-flop." The Times
printed it.
More recently, an art student uploaded a fake Vampire Weekend cover and legit music outlets
like Complex and FACT all reported it like it was the real thing. I'm still waiting for
Lemon Sounds. Because they also uploaded this teaser.
So those things don't exist. I guess this show is a lie.
Do you think Rock 'N' Steady exists? Have you ever thought something was real that wasn't?
Let us know in the comments, and subscribe for new episodes of This Exists every week.
Now please enjoy my performance of John Cage's 4'33" in its entirety.