The Cackling Hen: Don’t hold it against Britney – Archive
Written by Crow's Nest Staff, Jan 24, 2011, 0 Comments
Robbie Crowley
Campus & Beyond Editor
Hello 2011. It’s a new year and time for more cackles from this hen. A new year always offers the prospect for fresh starts and resolutions for an improved self. Then after a week, we realize it is the prime winter month of January. It’s cold, the days are short, and Sarah Palin is still making a public fool of herself.
No need to fret. Although your new workout plan may have gone out the door by Jan. 3 and you have excess holiday chocolates you must eat before they go bad, at least a few hearty belly laughs can count as an ab workout, right? And thankfully 2011 has brought us what we’ve all been waiting for: a new song from Britney Spears.
Although indie music fans, feminists and straight men are probably turning the page right now (or at least scoffing), Britney’s new single, “Hold It Against Me,” is almost inescapable. Although Ms. Spears is the subject of frequent criticism (she can’t sing, she doesn’t sing, she’s overweight, she has kids with K-Fed, her weave’s falling out, etc.), America apparently still has an obsession with Britney that’s almost frightening. Within days of being released, “Hold It Against Me” broke records for radio airtime, rose to the top of iTunes sales and flooded Facebook newsfeeds from the posts of every gay male in the U.S.
With all its success and rave reviews, Britney still couldn’t escape some controversy. And wearing heels sure doesn’t help. The Bellamy Brothers country duo who we haven’t heard from since 1979, is considering legal action against Britney for allegedly ripping off their ’79 country hit, “If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body.” Cue an eye roll from this lil’ clucker.
Yes, there is a very similar lyric in Britney’s song. Compare Britney’s “If I said I want your body, would you hold it against me?” to B. Bros’ “If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?” However, let’s end the comparison right there. Sorry, Bellamy’s, out of the millions of song lyrics and musical inspirations out there, I doubt Britney or her producers sought to advertently copy a 30-year-old, slow-tempo country song. And Lord knows her music video will not draw any inspiration from their cowboy hats and chaps.
If we’re going to split hairs about ripping off lyrics and originality, let’s bring the Black Eyed Peas’ new jam, “The Time (Dirty Bit),” into the conversation. I’d prefer another “My Humps” to this cheap remake of “The Time of My Life.” And what is a dirty bit, anyway? Try again, Peas.
Let’s say hypothetically that Britney Spears purposely took that line from the Bellamy Brothers. She sat in her California home, searching her entire music collection for inspiration for her next big hit. She found nothing in the millions of songs, so she turned to her dad’s dusty record collection. There, in the midst of thousands of records, she finds the Bellamy Brothers and this perfect lyric to tweak into something relevant in the 21st century. If any of this is true, at least Britney had the smarts to steal a line from a group that none of her fans even knew existed.
