Last Blog On Earth

A lot of people have asked my opinion on this whole hoopla over local singer/”songwriter” BC Jean and how she reportedly co-wrote Beyonce’s hit single, “If I Were A Boy.” If you don’t know the full story yet here’s a rather succinct and abbreviated version that definitely has some satirical conjecture (would you expect anything less from me?):

1.) Mediocre San Diego singer (Jean) teams up with established German producer/songwriter Toby Gad (who’s responsible for literally tons of hit songs from everybody from Fergie to Ricky Martin). Collaboration doesn’t work out and Jean’s record company rejects the resulting songs, with her record deal falling apart altogether shortly thereafter.

2.) Gad and his Midas touch, suspecting he can spin some of his pure bullshit songs into gold once again (after all, were talking about the guy who gave us Fergie’s “Big Girls Don’t Cry”) starts quietly shopping the songs he co-wrote with Jean to other buyers. Perhaps attracted to Matthew Knowles (Beyonce’s father/manager) for his striking, Hitler-esque presence, Gad sells Beyonce “If I Were a Boy.”

3.) Jean gets mad. Ensuing internet, viral video controversy ensues. Jean claims via her website: “To set the record straight from the horse’s mouth – IF I WERE A BOY is my song; YES, I wrote this song; It is my story; a painful one, and the song is very dear to me. You can hear the original version on my myspace site.”

4.) Matthew Knowles’ head explodes for the first time since that fourth chick he kicked out of Destiny’s Child started running her mouth. Especially when Fox News’ Roger Friedman writes, “she [Jean] and her manager/mother [ha, how coincidental!] have been strong-armed by Beyonce’s people and others who saw gold in ‘If I Were a Boy’ and didn’t care how they got it.”

5.) Nobody cares. Song becomes big hit anyway. If anything, the controversy adds to the popularity of both Beyonce and Jean.

6.) In the future: Jean gets a big check from Knowles family co-funded by Jay-Z. Jean shuts her big mouth.

All that being said, I don’t think there’s much debate that it’s the same song considering both versions have the same melody and mostly the same lyrics. So what do I have to say? I say, well, is it really that surprising? After all, Gad was one of the principals behind Milli Vanilli and (even more horrific) the title song from Neverending Story III. This guy made more deutschmarks in 1988 than the West German treasury alone so how crazy is it that he would try and make some more money off a song that he might have co-written with a no-name singer from lowly San Diego. This shit happens all the time! The only thing the Knowles clan is guilty of is not paying Jean in advance. They tried to get money for nothing and their chick song for free. But Matthew Knowles-who I imagine is a lot like John McCain and didn’t yet know the full power of the internet and still communicates through carrier pigeon-is a notorious asshole in the vein of Yoko Ono and Suge Knight, so I imagine it’s only a matter of time before a former teen-queen from Oklahoma City comes forth claiming she wrote “Crazy in Love.”

I could get into a whole reductive argument on how the history of the recording industry is littered with the corpses of the has-beens and could-have-beens who got ass-fucked by the powers that be who made tons of cash off their sweat and tears, but that’s a story that’s already been told by writers better than myself. Coldplay might have ripped off the Creaky Boards. George Harrison might have ripped off The Chiffons. And Gad almost certainly ripped off Prince’s “If I Was Your Girlfriend” when he wrote “If I Were A Boy.” But unlike those songs, both versions of “If I Were A Boy” suck ass. So I could give a shit who gets rich and who gets ass-fucked.