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GOODNESS GRACIOUS THE SECOND SONG OF OUR 3rd PODCAST SZN IS HERE!! “Anonymous Pleasure” was written by Texan songstress, actress, person, and place, Buffalo Hunt AKA Stephanie Hunt, and inspired by the true real life confession of an older Australian woman. Get your bath salts & licorice sticks warmed for this one, y’all. It’s steamy. THIS IS PART ONE OF A TWO PART EPISODE. Clap HANDS!!
Big thanks to Visit Austin and Brand USA for sending us down to the festival.
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The full transcript of this episode of Song Confessional is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Zac Catanzaro The Song Confessional podcast is a co-production of KUT/KUTX Studios and Good Taste Society.
Walker Lukens Hey, this is Walker Lukins and you are listening to…
Intro [sung] It’s the Song Confessional.
Walker Lukens Let me explain what we do here at Song Confessional. We travel all over the world recording people like you, telling us stories anonymously. We call these anonymous stories confessions. So we pick our favorite confessions, and we give them to songwriters and bands who turn them into new, original songs. In each podcast episode, you hear a confession. You hear the song and inspired in an interview with the songwriter who wrote it. I’m sitting here with the best thing I’ve ever found on a train platform besides loose change. Tell them your name.
Zac Catanzaro What’s up everybody? This is Zac Catanzaro.
Walker Lukens Zach. We’ve got we’ve got a killer new song today.
Zac Catanzaro We really do.
Walker Lukens It’s called Anonymous Pleasure. It was written by Buffalo Hunt. We actually both play on the recording. Which isn’t always the case.
Zac Catanzaro No. It’s not. It was a really fun session, too. Great musicians, great song.
Walker Lukens So Stephanie Hunt wrote this song for us. This confession came from an activation we did in Sydney, Australia.
Zac Catanzaro First time we went international, Song Confessional.
Walker Lukens Yeah, baby.
Zac Catanzaro Officially international.
Walker Lukens We went very far international. Australia is incredibly far away.
Zac Catanzaro It’s it’s like opposite side of the world from Texas. It’s it’s other Texas.
Walker Lukens I’m also pretty good at adjusting to jetlag. Like my body is, does it pretty quickly compared to other people I’ve noticed. I never adjusted to being in Sydney.
Zac Catanzaro It’s about. What is the time difference?
Walker Lukens It’s another day.
Zac Catanzaro It’s another day. That’s what I thought. It’s about as far a time difference as we can get in this world.
Walker Lukens We were at South by Southwest, Sydney and I, me and Rylan, and basically I would wake up, eat the hotel breakfast buffet and then just not eat the rest of the day or night because I my body was just like, where are you? What are you doing? And, Rylan didn’t really have much interest in taking confessions. So I sat in this cushy, cute little VW Can-Ham van that we converted into a confessional booth. I just, it had a bed. So I got to live my dream of laying down and listening to people tell me smutty, awesome things.
Zac Catanzaro Hell, yeah.
Walker Lukens It was awesome.
Zac Catanzaro With really cute accents.
Walker Lukens With adorable accents. And one day when I was really tired, this woman was, was very excitedly, or passionately, I should say, saying “no” in an Australian accent, which is “naur” and I. I am so, tasteless that I just said it right back in her accent. So she’s like, no. And I was like, no.
Zac Catanzaro How did she feel about that?
Walker Lukens I just immediately covered it up by asking a question. But before we talk about this confession, I want to talk a little bit more about Buffalo Hunt.
Zac Catanzaro Yeah, you might know them from, their debut album in 2022, Ambitions of Ambiguity. There’s been several singles, a little bit of collaboration with Shakey Graves, KUTX Artist of the Month back in 2022, I remember.
Walker Lukens Yeah. And and also Stephanie is part of a project called Popecoke, which way back in the early days of Song Confessional, actually wrote and recorded a song in the Song Confessional trailer at, RIP, Native Hostel.
Zac Catanzaro The pre-podcast days.
Walker Lukens The pre, the precast days where we would get artists to basically write and record a song in like 3 or 4 hours.
Zac Catanzaro Yeah, those those days were interesting. It was a completely different concept from what we’re doing now. But like the spirit was the same. We wouldn’t even take the confessions ourselves. The artists would take the confession. And then, just like Walker said, immediately start writing and recording in our dinky little trailer.
Walker Lukens If you’ve never if you’ve never heard Popecoke, they’re really cool. And it’s it’s different from Buffalo Hunt. And what I learned in my interview with Stephanie, is that this woman is involved in tons of creative projects.
Zac Catanzaro So many.
Walker Lukens Stuff related to acting, screenwriting, in addition to music. And in this process of putting out this song, which are writing and recording and releasing this song, which just happened over a few months, she has mentioned to me a TV show that she’s working, on a film. And literally last week, so the end of February 2024, was making a live album at Sagebrush while eight months pregnant.
Zac Catanzaro Yeah. And apparently she also broke a foot recently, so she’s really busy.
Walker Lukens Yeah, she’s very busy. And now she’s very busy on one foot, now.
Zac Catanzaro On one foot. About to have a baby.
Walker Lukens What what can we say about this confession?
Zac Catanzaro It’s like a 60 year old woman telling a memory from 40 years prior. So a completely different world, different timeline. We’re talking early 80s, it seems. Meets a little stranger on a platform and gets in a little stranger times.
Walker Lukens Yes, she has a stranger. Strange time with a stranger. And it was a true confession, a true confession.
Zac Catanzaro She had never told anybody.
Walker Lukens I’m the first person to ever hear. And I was giggling with delight.
Zac Catanzaro You will hear Walker’s wonderful giggle now. [barbershop quartet-style harmony] Confession.
Confession When I was around 20. I went overseas and, visited family that lived over there. Had a boyfriend in Sydney. When I went back, I was at Heathrow Airport and I was flying standby, so I had a few hours to kill, like, four hours. So I just went and had a coffee in the airport and started chatting to this guy who was saying goodbye to a friend and. Basically, I was bored and we went down to the train station and on the train platform we were intimate. And then I basically had to hide that because I couldn’t share it with anybody in case my boyfriend found out. And I do remember the other passengers waiting at the train station who was basically giving us dirty looks. And having just said that, that letter doesn’t actually sound like anything terrible, but I know it was, because it’s not the dumb thing. Well. Yeah.
Walker Lukens So, so. But when you say you were intimate on the, how public was this?
Confession So on the platform where there’s seats when you’re waiting for the train and my hand was in his pants and his hand was in my pants.
Walker Lukens And so you’re pretty sure that the other people knew.
Confession Oh, it was very obvious. Yes.
Walker Lukens That’s had to be kind of hot, though. Yeah?
Confession It was very hot. It was very hot.
Walker Lukens Well. No regrets, then. I bet those other people enjoyed it, too.
Confession I had told him my name but didn’t give any details, and he actually tracked me down like he didn’t know my address, but he knew the university I went to, and he sent a letter to the university just with my name on it. And that letter came to me. I still have the letter, but I’ve had to hide it because, I mean, I’m since divorced, so it doesn’t really matter. But it is. Yeah. Something that I’ve had to keep to myself.
Walker Lukens So? So how long ago was this?
Confession Well, I’m 60 now. So 40 years ago.
Walker Lukens That’s an amazing story. I love that story. So you never saw him again?
Confession No. No.
Walker Lukens That’s amazing. What? What did he say in the letter?
Confession Oh, how much he enjoyed meeting me. And he’d like to keep in touch but knew that I probably couldn’t because I had a boyfriend.
Walker Lukens That’s amazing.
Confession That was the gist of it. And he lived in a in a room in a pub. So. So he didn’t actually have a fixed address himself. But I was very impressed with his initiative to, you know, just send an email out to a university. Yeah, yeah. I mean, my name’s not very common, so and in the end that it made its way to me.
Walker Lukens Well, yeah, I admire that. That is, that is a great story. Thank you so much for sharing.
Thank you.
Walker Lukens And now here’s Anonymous Pleasure by Buffalo Hunt.
Song My train was delayed at the station / I was lookin for some kind of entertainment / There was a stranger, a man / We shared a glance / All at once we knew that we could not refrain / From anonymous pleasure on the platform of train / I barely even told him my name / For once in my life, I forgot I was a wife / It felt so good it was bad / I’ll never do it again / We felt the shame in the spectators who stared / But we did not even care / Cause we were getting off / Before we stopped / Two lovers who could not be tamed / Anonymous pleasure on the platform of a train / I barely even told him my name / For once in my life, I forgot I was a wife / It felt so good it was bad / I’ll never do it again / He tracked me down and wrote me a letter / I buried it away like a treasure / A little piece of me / No one would ever see / For a moment I was truly free / Anonymous pleasure on the platform of a train / I barely even told him my name / Now its just a memory of what could never be / It felt so good / And we never did it again / Anonymous pleasure on the platform of a train
Walker Lukens Anonymous Pleasure was written by Stephanie Hunt. That’s Stephanie on vocals, Zac Catanzaro on drums, Sam Pankey on upright bass, I’m playing guitar. That’s Dan Cramer on Rhodes and synthesizers. It was engineered and mixed by Adam Mason and mastered by Max Lawrenson.
Zac Catanzaro I think this song is one of those perfect examples of taking something out of the story and just really owning it, because when you hear the confession, this woman doesn’t. It’s not scandalous. It’s kind of a victimless crime at this point. She’s she’s very light about it. But the song has this, like dark, almost sinister, serious nature that matches the content but not the actual story in a way. And I like the contrast between the two. I just, I kind of love that difference that the pictures paint. Same story, same content, different vibes.
Walker Lukens See, I think the confession is dark. But not by the end, because she hasn’t told anyone for 40 years. Because she did cheat. And I think it’s cool that Steph picked up on that aspect that darkness and like super blew it up and made it really cinematic.
Zac Catanzaro Yeah I guess I guess the reason I feel like it’s a victimless crime is because they’re divorced. The relationship didn’t work out anyway. And if she didn’t tell anybody, it’s not because of this moment that it didn’t work out. There were other reasons.
Walker Lukens Definitely. Well, yeah. Yeah, but I guess we don’t know. It’s like maybe she did just continue to cheat for 40 years.
Zac Catanzaro That’s very possible. I mean, she started strong so we don’t know. But we do know that she doesn’t care because she’s. Even though she held it in, she’s laughing the whole time she’s telling the story.
Walker Lukens When Steph came in she mentioned Tom Waits. And I brought up, Portishead when we were sort of talking about before the band got going and man she, she, she did it. It’s got that smoky, late night Tom Waits thing. I think the, the production on the song leans into that Portishead thing, but even Portishead feels very, very, you know, vintage in some weird way that you can’t place, you know, and that is totally in the song. And I literally just imagine two adults from The Greatest Generation banging on a train platform.
Zac Catanzaro I love it. They’re not quite Greatest Generation, though. Aren’t they boomers? 60.
Walker Lukens Yeah, she’s a boomer.
Zac Catanzaro That’s a young boomer.
Walker Lukens No, you’re correct. The confessor is a boomer. But in my imagination, they’re from the greatest generation. And you can’t take that away from me.
Zac Catanzaro I won’t even try. Something about a train station, too, makes it feel like. Like she says 40 years ago. We know it’s in the 80s, but also, I agree with you. Like when I first heard it, I was like, was this in the 60s, the 50s or something? You want it? You picture a train station with like no technology. It’s like, old, you see the steam, you hear the brakes. Yeah. It’s like a whole thing.
Walker Lukens Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come to think of it like I, I, I didn’t realize until we talked about this right now that I do imagine this woman being like, at least 30 years older than she actually is.
Zac Catanzaro Right? I know, I don’t know why that is, but it’s just that’s the story feel so nostalgic. I think that’s what it is. The way she tells it feels like a time before now. It’s like now everybody’s out there with their cell phones videoing this shit and it ends up on TMZ.
Walker Lukens Do you, do you think this woman did something wrong? Like what I’m saying is she was engaged or she had a boyfriend and she cheated and she never told him. And they had this whole life. In your opinion do you think she did something wrong?
Zac Catanzaro I mean, I guess, you know, technically cheating is always doing something wrong. She was in a relationship, but she. I don’t think she never said she was engaged or married. She said boyfriend at the time, which, so many people have made a little mistake while they were dating someone.
Walker Lukens Well, just to clarify, it is the guy she’s married.
Zac Catanzaro Yeah, but at the time, it’s a boyfriend.
Walker Lukens Okay. Cheating, nonetheless.
Zac Catanzaro So the relationship had not progressed yet, but definitely cheating. But like, also the relationship didn’t work out. She’s got this good story I don’t know. I’m like, I’m such a dotted line person with judgment on this kind of thing because it is relatively normal. I don’t want to get cheated on and I’m not going to cheat on my wife. It’s not, not who I am. But you know, the relationship didn’t work out. He never knew. She never told anybody. She had a little fun when she was really young. It was 40 years before. I mean, if anything, there’s, there’s a clause that says it was too long ago, and we can’t judge her at this point.
Walker Lukens Okay, so if I can surmise what you just said, you don’t think it’s that bad because they were only boyfriend and girlfriend and because the relationship ultimately didn’t work out.
Zac Catanzaro Correct.
Walker Lukens So what you’re saying is that there was some seed of something in this relationship that made it not work out, and because of that, maybe it’s not such a bad deal.
Zac Catanzaro But maybe that seed was this and the guilt just destroyed her the whole time she is in the relationship. So, you know, we need a few more details. But from what I’m hearing and the way the tone of her voice, her relationship to the story, I don’t know who cares.
Walker Lukens Given the fact that she didn’t tell anyone for 40 years, she must have been wracked with guilt, which I find interesting. You know, I, when I was… One of my best friends growing up, was actually in AA. He’s older than me, and he quit drugs really, drugs and alcohol really early. And I remember him telling me that the AA kind of approach to infidelity is you should never tell the person you cheated on if you know it. Basically, you have to figure out why you did it. And if you know why you did it and you intend to stay with the person, you will cause more harm by telling them. And this is your cross to bear, right? So like it doesn’t do anything but relieve you of your guilt to tell them if you intend to stay.
Zac Catanzaro I think there’s some truth to that. It’s like, I mean, it sounds deceitful because it is totally.
Walker Lukens Totally, yeah.
Zac Catanzaro But I am curious. The reason I would love to go back to this confessor and be like, I mean, her her reason in the confession was she was bored. That’s a very few reason for cheating.
Walker Lukens Her reason for cheating.
Zac Catanzaro For cheating, yeah. Just boredom at a train like we’ve all been at an airport or a train station waiting for something. And it doesn’t mean that you go mess around with a stranger. So it had to be something besides boredom.
Walker Lukens Like it’s also, we’re saying, too, that, like, a lot of our feelings, me and you, our feelings about infidelity comes from our culture where it’s very, very wrong.
Zac Catanzaro Yeah, absolutely.
Walker Lukens But I remember I, I used to teach ESL for a living and I had some Italian students. This is a stereotype. But but my Italian student did tell me that like, infidelity is less frowned upon in Italian culture, meaning that it happens and it’s not always this thing of like, oh, the relationship is instantly over, or it’s this terrible sin that can’t be worked through, you know, and there’s something I think there’s an element of that that’s nice in talking to this woman because I can imagine why she didn’t tell the guy.
Zac Catanzaro Absolutely.
Walker Lukens And it’s nice to hear her just laugh about it. Yeah.
Zac Catanzaro Yeah, I think it’s great too. And like, to echo what you just said, you know, Americans tend to have a Puritan mindset societally, whether you are religious or aren’t, it’s still in the American societal archetype to have this kind of Puritan ideal towards specifically sex and monogamy, which throughout history is not that accurate, like there’s been lots of times in history where it was just accepted, where here’s here’s your spouse, then you have your lover or your concubine or whatever it is on the side. And that’s just like normal.
Walker Lukens I think you’re accurate. I think you’re totally right about us and us as Americans. And I think part of that is that we’re just really good at living with guilt.
Zac Catanzaro Yeah.
Walker Lukens It’s very normalized.
Zac Catanzaro Well said.
Walker Lukens And, apparently in Australia, that’s true too.
Zac Catanzaro I think another reason I actually am giving this woman a break, though, is because she was like 20 when it happened. So she’s like already in a relationship with somebody who she ends up marrying way too young. She needed to have some kind of experience. And who knows if she had had anything like that before this guy. Maybe it was just like this guy that she was dating that ended up being her fiance that she ended up marrying. We don’t know when that relationship started. We do know that she’s 60, telling us a story from 40 years ago. So she’s young as shit. So that’s part of why I give her a break.
Walker Lukens Okay, so what you really heard here first is if you’re in a relationship and you’re under the age of 24, you can cheat.
Zac Catanzaro If you think you have a story that we would want to feature on this podcast and could be turned into an amazing song, come by one of our booths. We’ve got a permanent booth at the Mishawaka Amphitheater outside Fort Collins, Colorado. We’ve got another permanent booth here in Austin, Texas at the Long Center. . Come in. Record a confession. We will hear it. If that is not convenient for you, go to the liner notes of this episode. Click on the link to our website and see where we’re going to be next. We might be coming to a festival near you, or you could always send us an email and contact us directly.
Walker Lukens This podcast is produced by me, Zac, Jim Eno, Aaron Blackerby, Tate Hoeven, Zahra Crim and distributed by KUTX.
Zac Catanzaro The theme song you heard at the top was written by myself and Walker Lukens. It was performed by me,Taylor Craft, John Calvin Abney, Dan Kramer, Will Van Horn, and some beautiful vocals by Tyler Brown.
Walker Lukens We want to give a special thanks to Elizabeth McQueen and Matt Reilly at KUTX, ONErpm, Jesse Rosoff at Mint Talent Group, Bobby Garza and The Long Center, Danny Grant in the Mishawaka Amphitheater, late teenage trauma, psychedelics and you nasties out there who trust us with your stories.
Zac Catanzaro If you like this podcast, you can support us by sharing an episode with someone you know would like it. You can also support us by following us on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook at Song Confessional.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
