American actor-musician Johnny Depp and Jeff Beck have been accused of lifting lyrics for their song 'Sad Motherfuckin' Parade'.
According to Variety, a report from Rolling Stone stated that the duo has been accused of lifting the song from an obscure "toast" sung by an incarcerated man and documented and released by a folklorist in 1974.
A large number of lyrics of the Depp/Beck song '18' are strikingly similar to lines from a toast, an often-profane form of Black folk poetry from years past, called 'Hobo Ben'.
Apparently, it had been written by a man named Slim Wilson who was serving an armed-robbery sentence at Missouri State Penitentiary and documented by Bruce Jackson in his 1974 book about toasts, 'Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me', and a companion album.
Wilson, whose name is a pseudonym, is not listed in the song's credits, reported Variety.
In the toast, 'Hobo Ben', the man in the song's title is at a party and says, "'Ladies of culture and beauty so refined, is there one among you that would grant me wine?/I'm raggedy I know, but I have no stink/and God bless the lady that'll buy me a drink.'/Heavy-hipted Hattie turned to Nadine with a laugh/and said, 'What that funky motherfucker really need, child, is a bath.'"
'Sad Motherfuckin' Parade' includes similar lines such as "I'm raggedy, I know, but I have no stink," "God bless the lady that'll buy me a drink," and "What that funky motherfucker really needs, child, is a bath."
"The only two lines I could find in the whole piece that [Depp and Beck] contributed are 'Big time motherfucker' and 'Bust it down to my level,'" Jackson told Rolling Stone, as per Variety.
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