Baby Got Back

Jonathan Coulton

I was planning on featuring this song down the road apiece, but a recent newsworthy event bumped it up on the schedule a bit.

Apparently, indie musician Jonathan Coulton's hilarious 2005 recording of the very naughty (by 1992 standards) Sir Mix-A-Lot song, "Baby Got Back", was covered by the cast of "Glee" for the TV show's "Sadie Hawkins" episode. That's all fine and good, except for the oversight of Coulton not being credited for his arrangement of the song or receiving acknowledgment of any kind by Fox. There is also reasonable suspicion that Fox may have actually lifted some, most or possibly all of Coulton's audio for the backing tracks of the "Glee" version. That's a problem and according to Coulton, Fox told him that he should be happy for the (uncredited) exposure and basically told him to get lost. Coulton had a very mellow response and even asked his fans not to direct their anger at Fox.

Jonathan Coulton's iTunes page for "Baby Got Back"

Unable to get any satisfaction from Glee, 20th Century Fox Television or their lawyers, Coulton put his version of "Baby Got Back" up on iTunes as a single, under the title "Baby Got Back (In the Style of Glee), calling it "my cover of Glee's cover of my cover," and will give the proceeds from sales through February to charity. For good measure, he changed his iTunes icon to a picture of him making the L-for-Loser hand gesture, which is used in Glee's logo. Way to stick it to the man, dude.

Sir Mix-A-Lot

Incidentally, it appears that Sir Mix-A-Lot, as the composer, did get paid for the use of his song because Glee producers purchased the usage rights from his publisher. They just never bothered to contact Coulton about using his original arrangement, for which he had secured a Creative Commons licence. Bad dogs.

Ok, time for Exhibit A. Here's Jonathan Coulton's recording of "Baby Got Back" from his 2009 album, "JoCo Strikes Back", a "best of" from his "Thing-A-Week" series.

Now, here's the "Glee" version that's on YouTube. I should point out that at 2:16 in Coulton's version, he changes the lyric "Mix-A-Lot's in trouble" to "Jonny C's in trouble", as a reference to himself. This lyric change, along with a duck quack at the 2:40 mark, has been edited out of the "Glee" version on iTunes and Amazon, which is also nearly 2 minutes shorter than Coulton's, removing not only some parent-inflaming lyrical references but covering potential evidence of unauthorized chicanery as well.

So, did "Glee" rip off Jonathan Coulton? You be the judge.

Aaaand just in case you haven't heard Sir Mix-A-Lot's original version since the 90's, here 'tis. Probably still NSFW in some less than progressive regions.

I just realized how much serious talk is going on about such a ridiculous song. But hey, funny makes money. So, as long as we're on that subject, you can pick up some of Jonathan Coulton's music at Amazon, and I highly recommend that you do. Sir Mix-A-Lot's original version of "Baby Got Back" is available on a variety of compilations, along with his own albums.

Here at Kool Kovers, we support independent musicians. So if you're seriously interested in buying any "Glee" merchandise, I'm sorry, but you're on your own.