Who Am I Really Fooling Anyway
Imposter syndrome as a pep talk: let go, lighten up, and admit the recurring dream where you're short two credits on the degree.
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The chorus sounds like self-help — let go, lighten up, laugh it up, don’t sit in it — but the title keeps undercutting it. Who am I really fooling anyway? The advice and the doubt run on parallel tracks until the hook makes you admit you’re mostly talking to yourself.
The middle is specific. The recurring dream: you graduate, you’re short two credits, you get the job, they’re fine until they find out you never earned the degree on your resume. Then the fantasy ladder (superhero, textbook author, rock star at the Grammys) and the laptop crash with no autotune to save you. Living like a fraud, unraveling bit by bit, someone should’ve stopped you at the doorknob. It’s imposter syndrome named plainly, without dressing it up as philosophy.
Same Kōan-era question as What Makes You You: if you’re faking it, who’s the you underneath? The Bent Stick picks up the other side: standing behind what you can’t prove anyway, because authorship requires the risk of being wrong.
Written, performed, and mixed by Luke Francis Walton. Mastered by Riley Knapp. Artwork by Grizzard Graphics.
Lyrics
Let go of it There no point in it Don't sit in it Yeah lighten up Don't run from it There no good in it Go deal with it Yeah, laugh it up No time for it Ignoring it I don't need it Who am I really fooling anyway? But who am I really fooling anyway? Yeah, who am I really fooling anyway? Living like a fraud Dumb luck cannot make up for it I'm faking it Unraveling my brain bit by bit How'd I end up here Someone should've stopped me at the doorknob Alone in it How freeing it would be to quit right here Let go of it There no point in it Don't sit in it Yeah lighten up Don't run from it There no good in it Go deal with it Yeah, laugh it up No time for it Ignoring it I don't need it Who am I really fooling anyway? But who am I really fooling anyway? Yeah, who am I really fooling anyway? I have a recurring dream In my senior year of college I graduate But I don't know I'm short two credits Then I get a job Everything is good until they find out I never really Earned the degree on my resume I wanna a superhero I wanna be an expert Writer of the textbook That probably gets rewritten by smarter people I wanna be a rock star Wanna be a singer Dancing at the Grammy's But then my laptop crashes and there's no autotune to save me Let go of it There no point in it Don't sit in it Yeah lighten up Don't run from it There no good in it Go deal with it Yeah, laugh it up No time for it Ignoring it I don't need it Who am I really fooling anyway? But who am I really fooling anyway? Yeah, who am I really fooling anyway?