"Fake Streets Hats" is the 11th and final track of The Streets' third studio album, The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living. The song is about an incident that happened during the 2004 edition of the Dutch Lowlands Music Festival, where a drunk Mike Skinner openly protested against the handing out of white hats with "The Streets" written on them, because he thought they were fake, and thus illegal merchandise. The hats actually were a gift from his label, Locked On. Mike Skinner also sees the song as a personal reflection on plagiarism in general.
Famous quotes containing the words fake, streets and/or hats:
“So cheat your landlord if you can and must, but do not try to shortchange the Muse. It cannot be done. You can’t fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“We had hardly got out of the streets of Bangor before I began to be exhilarated by the sight of the wild fir and spruce tops, and those of other primitive evergreens, peering through the mist in the horizon. It was like the sight and odor of cake to a schoolboy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“My consolation is to think of the women I have known, now that there is no longer such thing as elegance. But how can people who contemplate these horrible creatures under their hats covered in pigeon-houses or gardens, how can they understand the charm of seeing Madame Swann wearing a simple mauve cap or a small hat surmounted by a straight iris?”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)