British pop sensation Robbie Williams was found guilty of appropriating a lyrical portion of Loudon Wainwright III's "I Am the Way," a satirical take on a Woody Guthrie song, for his 1998 album track "Jesus in a Camper Van." The British High
Court ruled that the ex-Take That star and co-writer Guy Chambers, formerly of World Party, had infringed the copyright Ludlow Music holds on the Wainwright track.
The song "I Am the Way" itself has a long history. Wainwright's tune is a rewrite of American folk legend Woody Guthrie's original piece "New York Town." Guthrie's examination of rural folk moving to urban settings contains the lyric "Every good man has a little hard luck sometimes."
On his 1973 album, Attempted Mustache, Loudon Wainwright III adapted Guthrie's song into "I Am the Way," a tune that questioned Jesus Christ's omnipotence. The acerbic songwriter sang, "Every son of God has a little hard luck sometime, especially when he goes around saying he's the way." The song is credited to Guthrie and Wainwright.
In "Jesus in a Camper Van," Williams and Chambers amended the lyric: "Even the son of God gets it hard sometimes, especially when he goes around saying, 'I am the way.'"
Williams told MTV News how the song came to be. "I was in rehab one morning, and there was a strict regimen where you get up at 7 o'clock in the morning, every morning. I didn't even know there were two 7 o'clocks in one day. So I got up and started having a cigarette, and this guy was looking out the window and he went, 'Even the son of God gets it hard sometimes, especially when he goes around saying "I am the way."'
"And I went, 'What?' And he said it again, and I said, 'That's brilliant. That's a lyric.'" And then somebody, one of the counselors, turned up in a VW camper van, and he got out and his hair was all like Jesus, and I went, 'Jesus in a camper van, he said, "Sorry to leave you, but I've done all I can."'
"I found out afterwards that Loudon Wainwright III actually wrote the lyric 'Even the son of God gets it harder, sometimes, when he goes around saying "I am the way."' So, I phoned him up and asked, 'Can I use it?' and he said yes. So, cheers to Mr. Wainwright III."
Too bad Wainwright didn't actually speak on behalf of Ludlow Music. The New York-based publisher has the copyright on both the Guthrie and Wainwright versions of the song. It sued Williams in March for copyright infringement.
In his ruling, High Court Deputy Judge Nicholas Strauss wrote that the Williams track took "the central idea from 'I Am the Way,' namely that the son of God attracts bad luck by going round, saying, 'I am the way,' and [embodied] it in virtually identical words."
The next step is for Williams and his music publishers, EMI Music and BMG Music, to go to trial to see how much money Ludlow Music is owed from sales of Williams' 1998 album, I've Been Expecting You, and the 1999 American compilation of Williams' songs, The Ego Has Landed.
Despite his ballad "Angels," which appears on The Ego Has Landed, receiving substantial airplay, Williams has yet to truly "crack" the U.S. There's some good news for him this week, though. He received five nominations at this year's MTV Europe Awards, including Best Song and Best Video for his current release "Rock DJ."
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