Canadian pop sensation Avril Lavigne is being sued by U.S. songwriters for an alleged copycat version of an original song. The 1970s Rubinoos band have claimed Avril Lavigne’s hit single Girlfriend is a ripoff of their 1979 song I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend.Lavigne’s manager Terry McBride denied any credibility to the Rubinoos claim. “This (I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend) is a song she’d never heard of that was a minor hit before she was born. This is a stretch and there is no basis for it,” he said in an interview with CanWest News Service.
As soon as McBride received the allegations six weeks ago, he hired a musicologist to compare the two songs. The music expert reported the songs are completely different and not even in the same metre, McBride said, dismissing the allegations.
Songwriters Tommy Dunbar and James Gangwar filed the suit at California’s Northern Federal District Court, also naming Lavigne’s publishing company Avril Lavigne Publishing and her co-songwriter Dr. Luke as defendants.
The Rubinoos I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend has an upbeat chorus that sings “Hey hey you you, I wanna be your boyfriend’ while Lavigne’s lyrics sound — in an edgier tone — “Hey hey, you, you I want to be your girlfriend”.
Although four words are similar, McBride pointed out “hey you hey you has been used in so many other songs — you could say they (the Rubinoos) ripped off the Rolling Stones lyrics ‘Hey! You! Get Off of My Cloud.’”
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