 ron | Dear Bruce Springtseen and John Mellencamp: What the Actual Eff Were You Thinking? John Mellencamp’s new album, Strictly A One Eyed Jack, features three collaborations with Bruce Springsteen. Hurray! People who really, really really care about college football will be so excited! Curiously, one of these three recordings is a fairly exact cover of Van Halen’s “Finish What Ya Started.” True, Mr. Springsteen is well known for his often unexpected covers, but this one still took many of us by surprise. Probably the most astonishing thing about the Springsteen/Mellencamp version of “Finish What Ya Started” is that they changed the lyrics around a bit, gave it a different name — “Did You Say Such A Thing” — AND THEY ARE CLAIMING THAT IT’S A DIFFERENT SONG ENTIRELY, one that Bruce and John wrote all by their little selves! But our ears know the truth. Now, how about that. “Did You Say Such a Thing” is unreservedly, unapologetically, and unmistakably a COMPLETE and utter rip-off of Van Halen’s “Finish What Ya Started.” This is unaraguable, and by unarguable, I mean inarguable. I mean, this is one of those “Oh WHAT the factual uncle, COME ON, they’re not SERIOUS, are they?!? SHUT THE DOOR HENRY, this HAS to be a joke, right?!?” But it’s not a joke. This is actually happening. One of these guys is a billionaire (or damn close to it). The other one is, well, whatever Mellencamp is (a halfway decent painter, and I mean that sincerely). Yet we are supposed to believe that somehow neither of ‘em noticed that they had written and recorded a song that had already been written and recorded by someone else? |
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