My Very Own Piece of Internet Flotsam

written 1/10/2024, by Maxwell Dibromide

Around five to six years ago, I was listening to an internet radio service while playing a game about dinosaurs.
I would've been around 13 years old. I didn't think much of it. It was a relatively nice song, with a melancholy ring, so I tabbed over to replay the song once it had faded out.
It wouldn't let me.
It's not available for replay on this service. Alright. Sure. So I look up the song- it's from a band i've never heard of, and it doesn't appear to be extensively catalogued online. The rest of the album is easily located on YouTube and Spotify, and I enjoyed that thoroughly as well, but the song on the radio is still out of my reach. It wasn't easy to find anything at all.. former advertisements, and a spotify page, with the entire album listed.

The song is there, in spirit, and it still is to this day, but you can't listen to it. The play button is greyed out. Clearly the song exists, I didn't confuse it for something else. It's not available anywhere but on a singular internet radio. It appears to be a bonus track from one of their CDs, but I wasn't able to figure out why it was listed on multiple websites and services but unavailable to listen to, when the rest of the album (and other bonus track) were.

The radio I was using had a feature where you could replay songs on demand a limited number of times for free, even if you weren't actively listening to a channel. This one, which you'll expect at this point, was not eligible for this. Listed but unavailable. It mocks me.

So, I had to wait.

I had to play the station until the song was selected next, at random, just to hear it again. I did this, of course. And then I did it again. I wasn't able to just buy the CD due to availability in the US. The second time was to record the audio... It was a shitty recording, using bad, free trial software, with beyond sub-par audio quality, but it was a recording nonetheless. I uploaded it to YouTube ASAP, making it the only way to on-demand access to this song I can find on the internet.

The video is still up if you'd like to see how muffled the audio was:

It's bad.
Now, eventually I realized that the song was blocked likely due to like, copyright, and regional issues. It's not from the US. But it didn't really explain why only THIS particular song was subject to this, and none of the rest of their discography. The video itself is actually copyright claimed. It's presumably by the record company, and not the band, so that doesn't really give me a lead. In fact, if you go to the page as of today, and open the description, you can see where it's claimed, and there's a little link that's supposed to lead to an "official" upload of the song that would give the company royalties. It's also removed, obviously. Why would it ever be that easy.

This was the only way to listen to this song here. A recording a 13-year-old made at some point. It still is, actually. You can find other websites with it available to listen to now, but it literally just links back to my video. If you live in a different country, you might be able to hear it for yourself another way, but I can't test this with the tools at hand. (Try and report back maybe?).

At this moment the video itself only has 800 views. It's not a particular popular or remembered song, nor searched for. If it was, I imagine there's be any mention of it all out there, an upload, a post wondering if anyone's heard it before... That's why I'm the only upload of it. I'm probably the only person who cares about it. I can remember parts of the lyrics though there's no written sheet of them I can find. I can't make most of them out either. See:

Salt in the water
Perfectly together
It means to be alone
I never thought, i never hoped
I never started to fall
The way, back home
Awake and calmer(?)
[Indecipherable]
And look at the sprinkled blood
When you talk [Indecipherable]
[Indecipherable]
You deserve to be far gone
I won't be awake for long
I won't stop for hope(?), I'm hopeless
I won't be awake for long
Now it's over
[Indecipherable]-goes together
Sticks and stones the weather
The mournful(?) tears of home
I'm still awake, I've woken up
I'm the worst at being caught(?)
I'm not a worthy cause
[Indecipherable] is forever
Manage to [Indecipherable]
He works himself till dawn(?)
[Indecipherable]
You deserve to be far gone
(Now it's over still..)
(Now it's over still..
(Now it's over..)
I won't be awake for long
I won't stop for hope(?), I'm hopeless
I won't be awake for long
Now it's over

.. I'm taking suggestions on the parts I don't know, if you can hear better than I can. It's rough.

Thanks to someone very close and dear to me, I now own the official CD, one of the few in the US. The cover in the case is removable, and on the inside printed in small text is the lyrics to each song. Except this one. It's the only one that doesn't. Of course.

What I do have, after nearly six years, is the high quality, non-fuzzy version of the song in my claws. I've had it for a couple months now, as I wasn't sure how I wanted to share it with the world. I already put a video on youtube. I could easily put another. However...

Take a peek for yourself of the entire album ripped from the CD, exclusive bonus track included. You can even hear the bit of the intro I accidentally cut out the first time around because I couldn't figure out the recording software.

Download KYTE-LOVE TO BE LOST

If you don't want to click that... fair, good on you. Don't download random shit you find online. It's some MP3 files in a .RAR, if you're worried, you can check or ask me to prove it if it's a concern. I also don't know the band all that well, there's not much I can find online, so if they've done something objectionable.. i don't know about it. Let me know if you do, but stastically, you probably don't know any more than I do.

It's not really all that special of a song, at the end of all that time. It has a sort of airy, whispy sound, synthy and questionable vocals. I like it. You might not. That's fine, you don't have to. I saved it the way I did because the idea of something being out there, i'm aware of it, but just can't touch it, angers me. It makes me SO mad. Media like this should only ever be a click away. So I made it that way.

and yes, it's only one song. A tossed scrap in the waves. 800 views. It was worth it, though. To me. To know I can just have it whenever I want. So that anyone else can have it, too. Even if you don't want it, even if you hate it. It's always here now. Because of a recording off a shitty internet radio, and a CD produced in 2009. I'm sure there's countless songs lost to time out there, that someone will find. I found this one, though, and that means a lot to me.

I owe that CD all the credit here, really. It gave me the high quality rip of not only this song, but the rest too. Something I couldn't find anywhere else, not Youtube, Spotify, anywhere. They de-listed it, blocked by copyright and regional distribution. CD is CD though, in my hands, it's mine. It'll always be mine. And now it's yours. It'll be ours as long as the CD doesn't rot, as long as there's a mirror of the download somewhere out on the web. I give you full permission to re-host the download, share it, do what you will.

It's ours now.