Johnny Depp and Jeff Beck’s new album “18” received little acclaim when it was released in mid-July, but reviews are now rolling back allegations of plagiarism—as their “Sad Motherf**kin’ Parade” song from 1960 Shares several lines with the ‘s. Uncredited poem in liner notes.
According to Rolling Stone, the “Hobo Ben” poem in question was written by Slim Wilson, a black tramp who was convicted of murder and later imprisoned for armed robbery. Wilson met American folklorist Bruce Jackson in 1964 while Wilson was at the Missouri State Penitentiary.
Although Wilson’s real name remains a mystery, Jackson stated that he was “one of the best storytellers” he had ever met. Jackson featured “Hobo Ben” in his 1974 book “Get Your Us in the Water and Swim Like Me” among many other toasts and poems by Wilson.
Wilson worked his way up to Jackson’s 1976 album of the same name, only to make a surprise return decades later for “Hobo Ben.” Jackson, who is now a Distinguished Professor at the University of Buffalo, believes that Depp and Beck completely “ripped” him.
Depp and Beck’s song includes several lines from Wilson, including “‘Cause if the man came you make a sad motherfuckin’ parade”; “I’m raggedy, I know, but I don’t stink”; “God bless the lady who’ll buy me a drink,” and “What that funky motherfucker really needs, baby, is a bath.”
“The only two lines I found [Depp and Beck] contributing are ‘Big Time Motherfucker’ and ‘Bust It Down to My Level’,” Jackson told Rolling Stone. “Everything else is in my book from Slim’s performance.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Jackson said. “I’ve been publishing content for 50 years, and this is the first time someone has broken something up and put their name on it.”
While Jackson gave everyone he interviewed in prison a nickname to protect him from potential conflict with the warden, he believes Depp and Beck have a legal duty to attribute copyrighted works to him, Wilson and others. in which the songs appeared.
According to The Guardian, his son, Michael Lee Jackson, stated that the liner notes “do not reflect the actual authorship of those songs”. The father and son are now considering possible legal action against Depp and Beck.
Michael Lee Jackson said, “In my opinion, it is not possible that Johnny Depp or anyone else could have sat down and composed those songs almost entirely without taking them almost entirely from my father’s recordings and/or some version of the book.”
A spokesperson for the “18” album has since told Rolling Stone that they have begun an investigation concerning the song “Sad Motherfuckin’ Parade” to determine whether “additional copyright credits will be added to all variations of the album.” .