I’m not happy about this news.
If you haven’t heard of Cledus T. Judd before, he’s been called the “Weird Al” Yankovic of country music. And he released a parody of Ella Langley’s “Be Her” called “Meet Her”.
Cledus was proud of this parody too. He said, “Dearest Ella. My friend Shania Twain changed my life in 1997 when my video ‘If Shania Was Mine’ was one of the most successful videos in CMT history.
Now 29 years later and over 40 music videos later I’m asking ya to help change my life again so I can catch up on my child support and pay off my vet bill from 2003…love you and hope to ‘Meet You’ someday soon.”
Now it appears Ella’s label are being haters. In a new video posted to social media, Cledus revealed that he received a demand from Sony Music telling him to take down the song.
“I’ve been doing these parodies and trying to make a living and a career out of doing them for the past 30 years, and it’s been an absolute wonderful journey doing them.
I don’t know how many I’ve done. Everybody from Shania Twain, Garth Brooks, Joe Diffie, Wynonna, Trace, Rascal Flatss, Toby. I mean, the list goes on and on and on.
And never in my 30 years, I don’t think I’ve ever had somebody not comment or say, ‘Great job,’ or ‘That sucks,’ or whatever the case may be.
But I got a letter this week … from Sony Music New York that said, ‘Hey, take the Ella tribute video down off your social medias, off the platforms everywhere. Get it down.’”
Cledus said the request caught him by surprise, but says that while he’s disappointed, he’s still a fan of Ella and all that she’s accomplished…
“Am I disappointed? Ridiculously, professionally and personally disappointed, because I’ve never done a song where I’ve beat up on the artist or took advantage of a bad situation, you know? I mean, it ain’t like I’m ever gonna do a parody of ‘Go Rest High on That Mountain.’ But this one kind of shocked me. I know she never commented, and we got a little text from her attorney yesterday that just said she wasn’t interested in participating.”
He also noted the irony that the request came from Sony – a label to which he used to be signed. And he said, “I used to be an artist on Sony. I got records at Sony. I was a writer for Sony ATV and Nashville. Half my music catalog’s there, and they still said take it down.”
He said that he intends to honor the request and will be removing the song saying, “I guess everybody ain’t got a sense of humor like a lot of ’em do.”
Ella is bigger than her record label/attorney or who ever it may be that said to take this down. If she doesn’t come out and change this. Country music ain’t what it used to be. She’s made millions off that song and Cletus isn’t taking anything away from it. If anything it will make her song even bigger, because every country music fan knows when you hit it big, Cletus is about to write a new parody song.
Ella be the elegant, beautiful, bright country star that we all believe you are. Take control of your trolls working on your behalf and let Cletus do his thing. It is only mean to be an honor, no cheap shot at you, no cheap shot at “Be Her”. Having him take this down is making you look petty, which we all don’t believe you are. But it sure is looking that way, so straighten out who you need too in your organization and let it be.