"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:
“After all, it is hard to master both life and work equally well. So if you are bound to fake one of them, it had better be life.”
—Joseph Brodsky (b. 1940)
“Americans living in Latin American countries are often more snobbish than the Latins themselves. The typical American has quite a bit of money by Latin American standards, and he rarely sees a countryman who doesn’t. An American businessman who would think nothing of being seen in a sport shirt on the streets of his home town will be shocked and offended at a suggestion that he appear in Rio de Janeiro, for instance, in anything but a coat and tie.”
—Hunter S. Thompson (b. 1939)
“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)