Le Tigre’s Kathleen Hanna and Johanna Fateman are countersuing singer-songwriter Barry Mann in response to his original lawsuit about their song “Deceptacon.” According to brooklynvegan.com “Mann sent Hanna and Fateman a cease-and-desist letter, claiming “Deceptacon” (the opening track on Le Tigre’s 1999 debut album) violated the copyright of his 1961 hit “Who Put the Bomp (in the Bomp, Bomp, Bomp),” which he co-wrote with Gerry Goffin. In Hanna and Fateman’s countersuit, they say Mann has no right the the lyrics, as they were not original.”
However, Hanna and Fateman have allegedly filed a countersuit against Mann in the Southern District of New York, alleging (via Pitchfork) that “Mr. Mann did not create these vocables or song titles; rather, it appears that Mr. Mann and his co- writer copied them from Black doo-wop groups active during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Specifically, it appears that Mr. Mann took “bomp-bah-bomp-bah-bomp” from The Marcels’ distinctive version of “Blue Moon,” which sold over a million copies, and “rama lama ding dong” from the Edsels’ then-popular “Rama Lama Ding Dong.” In short, the Bomp lyrics at issue are not original to Mr. Mann, and Defendants have no legitimate copyright claim in them.”
Le Tigre is alleging that because the lyrics in “Who Put The Bomp?” were not “wholly original” to begin with, Barry Mann and co-writer Gerry Hoffin have no legal claim to them in the first place. Le Tigre has not been active since 2016, when they released music while making it clear they would not be reuniting in the long term.
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