August 17, 2004 / 889 reads
Billy McCarthy recently answered Metal Sludge's 20 Questions with... Billy was asked about the authorship of the song "Talk Dirty To Me". A few excerpts follow below:
ME: You used to be in the band Screamin' Mimi's with C.C. DeVille, way back in '84 before C.C. joined Poison. There are bootleg home videos circulating around that essentially prove that you guys wrote and performed the song "Talk Dirty to Me" long before it appeared on Poison's Look What The Cat Dragged In. Yet you weren't given any kind of writing credit on that release. Rumor has it that the situation was about to get really ugly, but an out-of-court settlement made it all better, provided that you didn't speak to the press about the subject. In your own words, what's the truth, and how was the dispute finally resolved?
BMC: Without getting too Grisham, Poison's version of "Talk Dirty to Me" is a Karaoke'd version from the original members of "Talk Dirty To Me" (TDTM), who are, Screamin' Mimi's. Poison re-recorded "Talk Dirty To Me." No member of Poison ever paid monies to any Screamin' Mimi's member to teach them their respected parts to TDTM. Just like Thin Lizzy isn't giving any musician a dime to re-record "Jailbreak" because the musicians type their name as songwriters on the CD, spend thousands on the recording, or manipulate the tempo of the song. Ironically, the only one from Poison that's ever mentioned anything about credit to TDTM (on audio tape) is CC Deville, who is sole developer of the bulk of top-ten singles in Poison?s catalogue, yet credits the entire band of Poison as songwriters. That's because CC conceives a song and Brett, Bobby and Rikki sew it up by lending their twist to it. All I'm saying is, I'm not hearing any original instrumentation or vocal phrasing on TDTM in Poison's version compared to Mimi's original in '84. (I take that back, there was the line, "CC pick up your guitar and talk to me" which was not in the Mimi version.) For one line, quite a fucking door prize.
