Musician 'Matt Farley' Explains The 'Your Name + Poop Song' TikTok Trend And Why He's Written So Many Songs About Poop

Matt Farley is a filmmaker and songwriter with tens of thousands of tracks under his belt. Recently, his work became the subject of the "name + poop song trend" on TikTok, which has users look up their name plus the term "poop song" on YouTube to find one of the thousands of personalized poop songs released by Farley under the moniker "The Odd Man Who Sings About Poop, Puke and Pee."

Chances are, you've already got a poop song floating around online too and it's all thanks to Farley.

We recently talked with Farley to talk about his illustrious music career, find out why he's written so many songs about poop and get his reaction to the viral trend.

Q: It's good to talk with you, Matt. For those who aren't familiar with your work, could you introduce yourself?

A: My name is Matt Farley and I'm a prolific songwriter. It's kind of become my goal to write a song about everything.

Q: So when did you get started writing music professionally?

A: Since I was a teenager I was very interested in writing songs. I slowly developed the realization that the best way for me to write songs was to just write one after the next after the next after the next. That always worked better than trying to write one perfect song. For me, that never works because you just lose all the energy and spontaneity and kind of ruin it by trying to make it perfect, where I feel that songs are a little more interesting if they're flawed and human.

Anyway, I just got good at writing a lot of songs. Once streaming music, or even just MP3s started happening, I realized people kind of liked my weird, silly comedy songs. So I wrote 25,000 of them.

Q: So how long does it take you to write and record a song?

A: For the "name + poop song" series I've done 50 in a day for sure. Lyrically, that's not too challenging because it's a name followed by "poop." But for the more complicated stuff, maybe six hours.

Q: That sounds like a musician's dream to be able to pump out songs that fast.

A: A lot of people are like, "I worked three months on this song," but the truth is they worked on it for three hours and then they didn't think about it for three months and then they picked it back up and worked on it for another three hours. So my approach is like, "Let's just take away that three-month gap and get it all done at once."

Q: Do you ever record anything that you think is too rushed or bad to release, or do you just release everything?

A: I find that if I don't release a song, that can kind of clog up the through-way for the other songs, because my brain is like, "Hey, clearly this song isn't done if we didn't release it." In terms of just the flow, releasing it is part of the way that I keep the flow going.

Also, I'm not a good judge of my own work. It's so frequent that I think, "This is a terrible song, I'm going to release it anyway." Then I have this brilliant song that I also release and nobody likes the brilliant song, everybody likes the terrible song. So who am I to judge? My job is not to judge it, my job is just to make it.

It's embarrassing [to release a song people hate] but being humiliated is just part of the deal if you're going to be a creative person.

Q: So what are some career highlights for you regarding your songwriting career?

A: Being on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, that was a big one. I bring that up in conversation after meeting people, still. It's been like six, seven years since it happened.

Quitting my day job. In 2017 I finally was able to quit my day job. I worked in social work from graduating college for the next 17 years, but all the while I was recording songs and working my way towards making it full-time.

Other highlights? New York Times, that happened earlier this year. Frankly, this whole "name + poop song" phenomenon has been pretty cool too.

Q: So I've read that you started recording songs based on online search interest and what people might be searching for. Can you talk about that process and how you came to realize that was a good move?

A: My original band was called Moe's Haven. That was me and another guy named Tom Scalzo. We had a mix of singer-songwriter kind of serious stuff, but also we had the theory that if someone says we should write a song about a pickle sandwich, it was our duty to write it. Basically, every idea whether good or bad, we had to do it.

Pickle Sandwich was more popular than the songs we spent more time working on. Then other songs we had like "Shut Up Your Monkey" and "I Love Hugh Grant," and this was back in 2004 or 2005, they were on iTunes. In a year, one of those songs might earn like, $3 or $4. Most people would say, "The dream is dead, our most popular song earned us $3." But I looked at it and I was like, "Okay, I see what all these songs have in common, they're all about unusual, specific topics."

Like, if you wrote a song called "Love" it would very much get lost in the shuffle because there's millions of love songs. But there's not a lot of pickle sandwich songs. So I kind of had that in my head for a few years and by 2007 I was like, "I'm gonna give this a try" and just started thinking of funny, unusual topics that most people aren't writing songs about. That's what I've been doing ever since.

Q: So when did you start writing all the poop songs specifically?

A: Tom and I had poop songs way back as far as 2000 or 2001. Again, it was this whole -- it's funny to say "philosophy" while discussing poop songs -- but we did have a philosophy which was, "you never say no to an idea."

So somehow the conversation while we were writing was poop and we said, "Let's do a song called 'Toilet Troubles.'" We just wrote it. You know, kids love toilet jokes and toilet humor. The third album I did once I was doing these novelty songs was "The Toilet Bowl Cleaners: Songs About Poop, Puke and Pee." It's not like it was a chart-topper, but the songs kind of proved my point. I was like, "Look, they are earning money and all I have to do is write tens of thousands of it and then that could be my job."

Q: So what was the most popular or viral poop song when you first started mass recording them?

A: I wouldn't call it "big and viral" for any of them, it was just like, there were a lot of them. Any one on its own would maybe earn me $150 in a year. For me, it's like that's good because if you have 1000 songs that are making you $150 a year, that's $150,000.

There's never really been any kind of "overnight moment" for me. Even when it's major media exposure like the New York Times or The Tonight Show, you see a little bump but basically, the whole thing has just been an incredibly slow process. But always in the right direction. Every year is better than the last.

Right now, "name + poop song," they're still pretty popular on TikTok. I see dozens of new videos every day. Back over the summer it was "cities and towns," I have 50 albums, one for each U.S. state with at least 50 songs on it about cities in that state. One video randomly got big on TikTok back in July 2024 and I saw a spike there. So there are those spiky moments, but it's never been just, "Oh great, I'm set for life now."

Q: So how many poop songs do you think you've recorded now?

A: Just for the "name + poop songs" I think I've done around 3,300 or so. Just in the last month, I've gotten 1,000 new names requested by people who tracked down my contact info and asked if I'll add certain names to the list.

Here's the list right here: Tenley, Sherman, Georgina, Nadav, Tamson, Guinette, Leonarda, Tanith, Lee. You know? I think it's just hilarious to do these incredibly obscure names because people listen to it and half the fun for them is being like, "Why would this guy do this?" That's half the fun, is just to cause confusion in the listener.

Q: So when was the first time you saw the TikTok trend taking off and what was your reaction to it?

A: I suddenly got an influx of direct messages on Twitter saying "Will you do such and such name" and I was like, "Why have I gotten 50 of these requests in the last six hours? This is weird." So I did a little research and found out it was going around TikTok.

That was at some point in 2020. That kept me busy, all those names, for the next couple of years. I didn't exclusively do those albums, but any time I was uninspired, "What should I do next?" it's like, there's always more names that need poop songs. So that was a big spike then. Then the one that started at the beginning of October 2024, this spike is bigger. It's much bigger of a trend.

It seemed to get caught up in the algorithm for the first couple weeks where I was multiple with 10, 15, 20 million views. Now people are still making the videos at about the same rate, but maybe the algorithm is like, "Okay, enough poop."

Q: Do you ever interact with these TikToks? Have you ever thought of trying to capitalize on this by getting on social media, or do you think it's better if they just discover it organically?

A: I think it's best if I stay out of it. You know, this happened on its own. I'm good at writing funny songs and so that's what I should be doing with my time. The only social media I have is Twitter or X, I guess. I'll promote some stuff there, share news about the "name + poop songs" on there. But I don't want my full-time job to be social media. That was never the goal.

Q: So how organized do you keep the poop songs? Do you have a spreadsheet where you keep names you've already recorded?

A: It's very unorganized, to the point where I've actually recorded some names multiple times and didn't realize it. But I kind of like that, because again, imagine you search a certain name and two different songs come up and both of them have the same lyrics, but different music and they're on different albums released years apart from one another. I would imagine that would create a certain frenzy in a person's mind.

I like to leave things open to serendipity. Basically, I get a request of a name, I put the name on the list, I don't even check if I already have the name on the list. It's too much effort. Sorting through emails, I don't know about you, but it makes my mind go crazy trying to keep track of everything.

I give out my number very freely. I currently have 20-something unread texts on my phone because they're all requests for poop songs. It's not like I have a secretary or anything, I am both the secretary of the company and the talent. So it's a lot to juggle.

Q: So what do people in your life think about all these poop songs?

A: In the last month it's been great with friends who have kids. They're like, "You're not gonna believe it, my kid just came up to me and said 'hey, your friend Matt Farley popped up on my TikTok.'"

So that's good. That earns me major credibility with the next generation, because if I show them my songs they're like, "Okay, whatever weirdo." But if they discover my songs on their own they're like, "Oh, maybe Uncle Matt's not such a bad guy after all." They see their favorite TikTokers dancing to my poop songs and I mean, come on, that's the best. I can't wait for Thanksgiving.

Q: I see a lot of TikTokers use the "Aoife" poop song if they can't find their own name. Does it ever make you upset when people can't find their own poop song?

A: Yeah, I feel bad for all those people, but it's funny. That song's got such a wacky beat to it. You see a sad person while that weird drum sound is happening and it's funny.

I'd like to point out that every one of these name poop songs is an original music track that I'm making on my keyboard. Which is insane, it would have been easier and probably nobody would care if I just used the same music track and just kept changing the name. But I'd like to have some artistic integrity when I do name poop songs.

Q: That's what separates you from an AI. An AI could do it, but never as well.

A: Yeah, I like to think that. Plus, if a person's listening, they want to know that an actual human being spent the time doing something this ridiculous and silly.

Q: Do you have any advice for aspiring songwriters or creatives?

A: My general advice is don't say no to any of your ideas. If an idea pops into your head, it's your duty to follow through on it. Don't judge your idea, either. You might think it's good, you might think it's bad, who cares? You got an idea and now it's your duty to do something with it. As soon as you've finished with it, your brain is going to reward you with another idea, then you just start the process again.

Make lots of stuff, then you don't have to worry about if it's good or not. You don't even have time to worry if it's good or not. What'll happen is some of the stuff people will like, some people won't like, some people won't even notice. But if you make enough stuff, almost by accident, you're going to make stuff that people enjoy and that's a good feeling.