‘i write the songs that make the whole world sing’

On my way home from the pas­try shop.

Break­fast with the Bea­t­les was on the lo­cal clas­sic rock sta­tion (100.3) and they played a clip of an in­ter­view with Paul Mc­Cart­ney. He was ex­plain­ing how, once he got mar­ried, the mean­ing of “home” changed for him.

He then went on to talk about a song he wrote called
(this is where it gets crazy, so buck­le in)
“Wa­ter­falls.”

The song starts play­ing, and these are the first four lines:

“Don’t go jump­ing waterfalls
Please keep to the lake
Peo­ple who jump waterfalls
Some­times can make mistakes”

o_O

I was like “whu­u­u­u­u­u­u­u­utttttt” and thought maybe this was all a fever dream and I was still asleep and in for one hel­lu­va hang­over when I woke up.

Now, in typ­i­cal post-Bea­t­les Paul style, there’s also a re­work­ing of his cho­rus two thirds of the way through the song where he says (and I promise I am not mak­ing this up):

“Don’t go chas­ing po­lar bears
In the great unknown
Some big friend­ly po­lar bear
Might want to take you home”

Lol fuckin’ okay, Paul.

 

We all know the TLC ver­sion, which goes like this:

“Don’t go chas­ing waterfalls
Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you’re used to
I know that you’re gonna have it your way or noth­ing at all,
But I think you’re mov­ing too fast.”

 

In an in­ter­view with the Onion’s AV Club, Mc­Cart­ney brings this up and agrees that they ripped him off. I don’t know that I’d nec­es­sar­i­ly go THAT far, but, one of two things def­i­nite­ly happened:

· They to­tal­ly did bor­row from his song.
· They heard it at some point, for­got about it, and com­mit­ted sub­con­scious plagiarism.

Ei­ther way, there is no way that’s just a coincidence.

Paul fuckin’ Mc­Cart­ney wrote Wa­ter­falls. Lol.

 

—emi­ly duchaine

Flom­mist Emi­ly Duchaine lives in the Pa­cif­ic North­west. She likes to drink mead, learn about sharks, and lis­ten to the Talk­ing Heads. She pre­tends to be a pro­fes­sion­al busi­ness­woman most days. Copy­right © 2020 Emi­ly Duchaine. Pic­tured up top: John Fred­er­ick Kensett, A Wood­land Wa­ter­fall (cropped), c. 1855–65, source.

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