ABC/Paula LoboIf you were alive in the late ’90s, you probably know the song “Bitch” by Meredith Brooks; released in 1997, it hit #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 that year. Now fast forward 21 years: Brooks is back on the chart, sort of, thanks to Bebe Rexha.
Bebe’s latest hit “I’m a Mess” gives partial songwriting credit to Brooks and her co-writer on “Bitch,” Shelly Peiken, even though neither woman had anything to do with Bebe’s song.
“Of course, I’ve known that song, it’s an incredible record,” Bebe says of “Bitch,” which came out when she was eight years old. “That wasn’t our inspiration for [‘I’m a Mess’], but after playing it for a couple people, some people said that it reminded them of [it].”
It seems the part of the song where Bebe sings “I’m a mess/I’m a loser/I’m a hater/I’m a user,” was a bit too close for comfort to the chorus of “Bitch,” which goes “I’m a bitch/I’m a lover/I’m a child/I’m a mother.”
“So, I said, you know what? As a songwriter, I wanna respect other artists, and I don’t wanna come across something like that,” Bebe tells ABC Radio. “I just took the safer precaution and gave them publishing, as…an interpolation…so, it was really cool.”
Bebe’s experience isn’t unusual these days. On his hit “Shape of You,” Ed Sheeran credited the writers of TLC’s ’90s hit “No Scrubs” after people noticed similarities between them. And Sam Smith famously credited Tom Petty on his hit “Stay with Me,” after people noticed it sounded like Petty’s hit “I Won’t Back Down” — despite the fact that Sam said he’d never heard it.
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