Who Say You Say?

How could a song that rose to number three on the iTunes Singer Songwriter Charts and a YouTube video with over 100,000 hits just go away? Or more puzzling, why? That was the question I kept whisper–screaming (so as not to wake the family) while every search result produced either dormant, revoked, or completely irrelevant links. As the hours waned I began questioning something else, my sanity. I slammed the laptop shut (again, quietly) and resigned in frustration. I lay in bed, the day's events replaying in my head to a soundtrack stuck on repeat.

Not but 12 hours earlier I was blissfully unaware of the single, “You Say” by George Morgan. Going about my day as though it were any other, listening to Pandora's desperate attempt to curate a playlist worthy of such eclectic tastes as my own. Then it just happened. Their algorithm struck paydirt! Something I like to call the Pandoradox Effect. I began thumbing up (that's a good thing) every track that came through. Joyfully discovering new songs and reading bios of artists I'd never even heard of. I felt so alive! As I was in the midst of living my best life now, a very catchy, appropriately timed song began to play. And if you guessed You Say then you right. Like many of the other songs that afternoon, I immediately clicked over to the artist page to learn more. This was the moment in which I unwittingly opened the other Pandora's box.

This is his only song? Oh he died in '75. Cut down too soon. Tragic. Wait 1975? When was this released? There's no way this song is that old. Whose voice is this?

One word: who. It was the catalyst that triggered a chain reaction of virtual clicks and technological tricks that would last nearly 48 hours before producing definitive answers. I'll spare you some of the monotony and try to sum up.

Misattribution

The few references to You Say that I could find were attributed to the genius of George T. Morgan, a very famous and very dead country artist… like Grand Ole Opry famous. Believe you me the Internet LOVES this guy. I'm talking page after page of search results praising his contribution to country music. But You Say's singer had an unmistakable accent and not of the corn–fed variety. It sounded more like The Beatles English. I shifted my focus to the UK and stumbled across a tiny newspaper blurb. It mentioned that a young local man's first hit single was climbing the charts in 2013. His name – George (friggin') Morgan! His single – You (friggin') Say!

So it really was written by a George Morgan. Just not the George Morgan. George H. Morgan to be precise. Or so his deleted Twitter account would lead me to believe. More on that later. But the middle initial was not enough to supplant Country King George from hogging the online spotlight.

YouTube Royalty

Armed with this intel, however, I was able to find an insightful blog post. It mentioned that our boy George's first song was made popular via a music video filmed by none other than YouTube sensation Sawyer Hartman. It had gone viral thanks to a little influencing by the social media duo Jackson and Finn Harries. I located said influential posts but found every link, retweet, and pin pointed to an unavailable video. Twitter posts often included @GeorgeHMorganMusic mentions but the account has since been deleted.

Listening to music by the beach

There was a side comment about a moniker that George Morgan goes by, The Beach. Now, if you've ever Googled for music by The Beach then you know how you'll get everything from surfing to cake and nothing by George Morgan. iTunes and Spotify were a little more forgiving and I found his discography. It's great stuff too! But not a peep about the very song that started it all.

I was beginning to think that The Beach was yet a third George WTF Morgan but I found a setlist from one of his shows and it included You Say. Then I beheld, in all its glory, some shoddy cell phone footage of a live performance of You Say by The Beach. And there we have it: George Morgan is The Beach and he sang You Say!

Dead Ringer

So where did the official video go? Same for the song? Finn Harries posted an iTunes link years ago but like every other reference to You Say, it was dormant. The truly puzzling thing was not that it had been taken down, but why no one was missing it? What… if you see it do you die or something? I decided to go full–blown The Ring and track down the video no matter the cost.

Using some Internet prowess, and free time that should have been directed elsewhere, I combed through lines of source code until I acquired the URL of the original video stream which is different than the actual YouTube page. Meh, tomayto–tomahto, what's the difference? I didn't bother getting my hopes up. I half heartedly pasted the URL into my browser's address bar and it burst into life with song and dance (well I was mostly doing the dancing). The original music video streamed across my very eyes in its entirety, and I lived to tell about it.

My first thought was to continue Ring–ing it and follow in the footsteps of Naomi Watts. SPOILER ALERT. I would free the artist formerly know as George H. Morgan by releasing his forgotten video to the masses. Although I couldn't help but feel a little guilty. Did The Beach want it buried? Maybe he grew tired of it. Maybe he hates it! Or worse, maybe it's wrapped up in a lawsuit and I was about to entangle myself in a World Wide Web of international copyright infringement. I slowed my roll and contacted the top five people I believed to be responsible, if partially, for the success of You Say.

George Morgan/The Beach (Talent)
Max Honsinger (Audio Producer)
Sawyer Hartman (Film Director)
Jackson Harries (Promotion)
James Byfield (Manager)

I have reached out to them but to no avail. I am arguably nobody in their world but a fan and fellow George. I hope that they will rerelease the song someday so that everyone can experience You Say as it was originally conceived.

For now, I'm content to write about it and patiently wait for the tide to wash this treasure back up on the beach… or maybe it's just lost and gone forever. Who's to say?