The Sunday Read: ‘Why Did This Guy Put a Song About Me on Spotify?’

Have you heard the song “Brett Martin, You a Nice Man, Yes”?


Probably not. On Spotify, “Brett Martin, You a Nice Man, Yes” has
not yet accumulated enough streams to even register a tally. Even
Brett Martin, a contributing writer for The New York Times
Magazine and the titular Nice Man, didn’t hear the 1 minute 14
second song until last summer, a full 11 years after it was
uploaded by an artist credited as Papa Razzi and the Photogs.


When Martin stumbled on “Brett Martin, You a Nice Man, Yes,” he
naturally assumed it was about a different, more famous Brett
Martin: perhaps Brett Martin, the left-handed reliever who until
recently played for the Texas Rangers; or Brett Martin, the
legendary Australian squash player; or even Clara Brett Martin,
the Canadian who in 1897 became the British Empire’s first female
lawyer. Only when the singer began referencing details of stories
that he made for public radio’s “This American Life” almost 20
years ago did he realize the song was actually about him. The
song ended, “I really like you/Will you be my friend?/Will you
call me on the phone?” Then it gave a phone number, with a New
Hampshire area code.


So, he called.