Hank Williams' I saw the Light is playing on The Current as I write this. What a strange moment in my personal songography.

I've only heard this song one other time, when Johnny Cash was singing it as the nogoodnick Evalgelical singer on a particularly amusing episode of Columbo. At the time, I assumed the song was a Johnny Cash original written for the Columbo episode--particularly since the singer was supposed to be shooting up the music charts with that ditty. Now I realise that Cash's character was climbing the charts via a cover.

I'm reminded of the saga of The Adjusters, a funk/soul band whose album I bought because I liked their modern take on the 60s soul sound. When I got the album home, I discovered that my favorite song of theirs, "Toehold," was a Wilson Picket cover. Doh!

The question of the remake arises, then, as a question of context. How much responsibility lies with the writer to make sure the reader knows the text is a remake? I remember being told that the European tradition is to leave off citation, expecting that a competent reader will recognize a quote when they hear it. In the American academy, we make no such assumptions. If we want to look to the remake as a model for intellectual practice, what do we do with the citation? (Does it go in the liner notes?)

Addendum: I read/ heard somewhere about a child who, upon finally seeing the film Annie, commented that they'd ripped off Jay-Z.