Song You Need: Thanks For Coming’s “Plagiarizer” is the sound of striving

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Thanks For Coming is the solo project of Rachel Brown, a wildly prolific songwriter who has released dozens of DIY projects on Bandcamp dating back to their high school days (Brown is also part of Water From Your Eyes with their bandmate Nate Amos). Their ramshackle songs act as charming diary entries of an artist coming of age yet never fully finding their place in the world as they battle self-doubt and romantic woes. Brown's back catalog is, at this stage, colossal, so give it up for Danger Collective who have stepped in and put together You Haven’t Missed Much, a best-of compilation due December 16 and ideal introduction to the Thanks For Coming universe.

On "Plagiarizer," a previously unreleased song, Brown lands on a conclusion that many artists with huge discographies end up at; true originality is something of an impossible dream. "Honestly, I feel like all the best songs have already been written and I’m just showing up late to the party because I have no other way to express my inner emotional world," they say in a statement.

In spite of this, Brown imbues "Plagiarizer" with personality and wit, a core ingredient in anything wanting to stick out from the countless hours of art that precedes them. Writing lyrics like confessional texts, Brown comes clean about the things that chew them up, from the money they owe their therapist to the transactional nature of their relationships ("I've been using you like you've been using me"). A gently strummed guitar pushes Brown along throughout their stream of thoughts, calling to mind the anti-folk sound of Kimya Dawson or Jeffrey Lewis. Perhaps that's an easy comparison to make but as Brown acknowledges on "Plagiarizer"'s most truthful moment, "Life is what somebody else has already sang."