By Professor Anna Sun

Dear Editors,

I really enjoyed the article “Walk the Moon Rockets to Summer Success” (Sept. 8, 2011). It’s great to learn that a Kenyon band has been making a splash nationally and I know that the song “Anna Sun” is poised to become a campus classic.

But the article mentions that the song is “about” a professor of sociology and Asian studies at Kenyon, which is a common misconception that I, Anna Sun, hear all the time.

The truth is that “Anna Sun” is not about me, but is a great song about college life that borrows my name for its chorus. A member of Walk the Moon, Adam Reifsnyder ’08, wrote me an email in July 2009, opening with the line “You may or may not know me,” asking politely (the way our Kenyon students do) for permission to use my name for a new song they’d just written. I liked the song very much, and told them that they could certainly use my name.

In the acoustic version of the song on YouTube, you can hear a band member explaining that the song is not about Anna Sun (“We use it only because she has a really cool name; the song is not about her”). And in a video clip from a Carson Daly interview, the same explanation is offered by the band (“The song is named after a Kenyon professor, but it is not about her”). I do feel very honored that an absolutely amazing song about life at Kenyon uses my name, even though it is not about me!

Professor Anna Sun

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