Did Kenneth even know the frequency? Five classic songs with enduring mysteries
Just about everybody loves a good mystery, but it’s not always for the same reasons. Some folks are obsessed with sleuthing and rapidly forming hypotheses on limited information in order to feel a sense or order and control in the universe—true crime docs and Reddit conspiracy threads are their playgrounds.
For others, the mystery itself is the draw; the romantic idea that something, somehow, can actually remain bewildering in a world of overwhelming surveillance and data bombardment is quite the comforting thought. “May it always remain unsolved,” they might say.
Pop music is chock-full of little mysteries of its own, of course, although the number seems to be dwindling year by year, as obsessed scholars have nearly overturned every single stone ever touched by a Beatle, and every beard ever worn by Bob Dylan.
Fortunately, there are still 2,843 music mysteries classified as “vaguely uncertain” by the Council for Unnecessary Studies, which gives us the chance to randomly select five of them for an update on our latest investigations.
Five classic songs with enduring mysteries:
What wouldn’t Meat Loaf do for love?
The 1993 mega hit ‘I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)’ has caused decades of confusion. What exactly was “that”?
Songwriter Jim Steinman always maintained the answer was right there in the lyrics — each verse includes a list of things Meat Loaf would do for love, followed by the one thing he wouldn’t. For example: he’d “run right into hell and back,” but he won’t “forget the way you feel right now.” Still, Meat Loaf admitted he loved the ambiguity, and fans continue to debate it like it’s pop’s ultimate Zen koan.
Do we now know what the frequency was that Kenneth was supposed to know?
REM’s ‘What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?’ (1994) was inspired by a bizarre 1986 incident in which American news anchor Dan Rather was attacked in New York by a man repeating the phrase, “Kenneth, what’s the frequency?” The attacker, later identified after the song’s release as William Tager, was a mentally ill ex-con who was convinced that TV networks were beaming signals into his head. Michael Stipe didn’t know that detail at the time, however, so he spun the surreal event into a song about cultural dislocation.
But is the original mystery actually solved? Do we know for certain that Tager wasn’t being victimised by a TV signal, and that Dan Rather, aka Kenneth, didn’t know its frequency? Choose your own adventure on that one, I guess.
Was ‘You’re So Vain’ about Warren Beatty, or can we pretend Carly Simon didn’t ruin it?
Carly Simon’s sassy 1972 classic ‘You’re So Vain’ kept fans guessing for generations about which famous jerk might have inspired its biting lyrics. Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Cat Stevens, and Warren Beatty were all rumoured suspects, but it was just as fun to insert your own narcissistic ex into the story.
Then, for some reason, in 2015, Simon finally confirmed that at least one verse was indeed about Beatty. Simon insisted multiple men are still implicated, however, and she’s never revealed the full list, so again, the game’s afoot if you like a good scorn-based whodunnit.
Did MF Doom collaborator Mr Fantastik actually exist?
On MF Doom’s beloved Mm..Food (2004), a guest rapper billed as Mr. Fantastik appears on ‘Rapp Snitch Knishes,’ spitting arguably the best verse on the entire album: “True to the ski mask, New York’s my origin / Play a fake gangsta like an old accordion / Accordin’ to him, when the D’s rushed in / Complication from the wire, testimony was thin.”
Yet no one has ever confirmed this MC’s identity. No photos, no other credits, no social media trail. Some believe he was a New York underground rapper who never pursued a career; others suspect he was Doom himself under an alias, pitch-shifted and disguised. With Doom’s death in 2020, the mystery deepened. Unless tapes emerge from the vaults, Mr Fantastik may remain hip-hop’s phantom guest — a testament to Doom’s love of comic-book alter egos and unsolvable puzzles.
What did that person say to PJ Harvey that she’s never forgotten?
On ‘You Said Something’ from her 2000 album Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea, PJ Harvey sings of a fleeting but magical moment in New York: “On a rooftop in Brooklyn / At one in the morning / Watching the lights flash / In Manhattan. / You said something / That I’ve never forgotten.”
The song repeatedly mentions that “something” but leaves it poetically, romantically, ironically, and frustratingly unquoted. Was it a sweet statement of affection? A riddle? A secret confession? By withholding the detail, Harvey actually creates something far more interesting, as the listener is left to ponder the profundity of some rando’s rooftop remark that managed to inspire a song this good.
