The lawsuit relates to a song from the pair’s album 18 which shares lines with a poem documented from an inmate in Missouri State Penitentiary
Johnny Depp and Jeff Beck are suing the professor and folklorist Bruce Jackson over his allegations that the duo’s song Sad Motherfuckin’ Parade plagiarises a poem written by an incarcerated man on their collaborative album 18.
In August, Jackson accused Depp and Beck of taking lines from the poem which he documented in his 1974 book Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me. Various lines appear in both works: “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.”
