Johnny Depp and Jeff Beck used lyrics they stole from an ex-convict in their new song?
A number of lyrics from "Sad Motherfucking' Parade" are very similar to those from "Hobo Ben" as recited by a certain Slim Wilson. The British guitarist Jeff Beck and the American actor Johnny Depp allegedly used the former inmate's lyrics in "Sad Motherfuckin' Parade" without acknowledging that he wrote them, it says "Rolling Stone".
A number of lyrics from the said song, which Beck and Depp claim to have written themselves, and which appears on their joint album '18', are very similar to those from Slim Wilson's song 'Hobo Ben', a pimp, robber and murderer since the 1960s.
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The poem "Hobo Ben" appears in the book "Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me" published in 1974 and edited by the folklorist Bruce Jackson.
Allegedly, lyrics from "Hobo Ben" 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" are part of the song "Sad Motherfuckin' Parade".
The author of the collection Bruce Jackson commented on the situation
"The only two lyrics written by Depp and Beck are 'Big time motherfucker' and 'Bust it down to my level,'" says Jackson. “Everything else is from Slim's performance in my book. I have never encountered anything like it. "I've been publishing stuff for 50 years, and this is the first time someone has stolen something and put their name on it," Jackson claimed.
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son of jackson Michael Lee, a lawyer who specializes in music and intellectual property issues, claims that this is no "mere coincidence".
"It's just not convincing, at least to me, that Johnny Depp or anyone else sat down and came up with these lyrics without taking them almost entirely from some version of my dad's tape or from the book," Lee asserts.
None of the stars or people associated with the album have yet commented on this new controversy.
