Johnny Depp and Jeff Beck have filed a lawsuit against a teacher who alleges the duo plagiarized a Missouri prison inmate’s poem in their song, Sad Motherfuckin’ Parade, the magazine reports. RollingStone.
Posted at 4:46 p.m.
The song is featured on Depp and Beck’s album, 18, released last July. Professor Bruce Jackson claimed in August that the two artists took lines from the poem he recorded in his 1974 book, Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me. The poem in question is not attributed to an author, but a Missouri prison inmate, Slim Wilson, is said to have recited it to Professor Jackson.
Several lines of the poem appear unchanged in the book, such as the lines “I’m raggedy, I know, but I have no stink/God bless the lady that’ll buy me a drink” or “What that funky motherfucker really needs, child, is a bath”.
Following Professor Jackson’s allegations, representatives for Johnny Depp and Jeff Beck had assured that appropriate credits would be given “if necessary”. It is finally the duo who pursues the professor. The complaint claims that Beck sent letters to Depp claiming that the song’s title and nearly all the words were copied from a recording of a toast given by Slim Wilson.
According to the complaint, the song is “an original work of creation,” although some elements “mirror” the words of the poem.