Melbourne-born, internationally recognised RnB artist Daniel Merriweather has obviously been a key inspiration on Canadian warbler Celine Dion, the highest-selling female artist of all time has not only recorded her own version of one of Merriweather’s songs, but named her new album after it, reports News Ltd.
But Merriweather was less than impressed with the ‘My Heart Will Go On’ star after she failed to give him proper credit as the writer of ‘Water And A Flame’, the tune that Dion has covered and named her new album after, her first English language album since 2007’s Taking Chances.
Dion appeared in an exclusive feature interview with US host Katie Couric for her talk show, discussing her new album, but failed to recognise that it was not an original composition while previewing the title track to the American presenter. Something that was brought to Merriweather’s attention via a post from Samantha Ronson, the sister of celebrity DJ/Producer Mark Ronson who has worked with Merriweather before.
“It is astounding that Celine Dion tries to pass off lyrics that I wrote as her own,” wrote the RnB artist angrily on a post on his Facebook page. A clip of Dion’s appearance on the TV programme shows her discussing the lyrics as representing a “rougher me” (the song begins at the 5:10 mark).
In his fiery post, Merriweather writes: “Now, if I had written the song for her, it wouldn’t bother me so much, but ‘Water and a Flame’ is a very personal song that I wrote right after a break up I was going through and is one of my personal favorite songs on my album Love & War.”
“This song has every ounce of my heart ache and pain in it and she pretends as if she wrote it her self,” he continues. “It actually is quite strange… like what more do you want? You have sold 200 million albums worldwide but you cant give credit to the artist (me) that wrote the song you have named your album after.”
During the interview, the Canadian singer conveniently dodges any mention of Merriweather, but finds time to mention his collaborator Adele, who duetted with Merriweather on the original recording of ‘Water And A Flame’ for Merriweather’s 2009 album, Love And War.
“She mentions my friend and one time collaborator Adele, but Adele didn’t write one word or melody of Water and a Flame and she’ll be the first to tell you that,” adds Merriweather. “I asked her if she would sing the song with me to turn it into a duet, I had originally written it for one person but then adapted it to suit a female perspective in the second verse… My friend Eg White wrote the chords and arranged and produced the song, but I wrote the melody and the lyrics, every word!”
“All anyone has to do is call up APRA/AMCOS and ask them what the percentage splits are and they will tell you it is 50/50 between myself and Eg White… why would an artist of Celine Dion’s calibre and prowess need to steel [sic] credit like this?… as I said, it is absolutely astounding!”
Dion’s Water And A Flame is due for release in October and contains covers of Janis Ian’s ‘At Seventeen’, Rodgers & Hammerstein show tune ‘Climb Ev’ry Mountain’ from The Sound of Music, and a cover of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Overjoyed’ in a duet with the music icon himself.
Meanwhile Merriweather is gearing up for the release of the long awaited follow-up to Love And War, having released the lead single to his sophomore effort last month in ‘Breathe’ featuring Sydney DJ/production team Wordlife and available as a free download from Soundcloud (or below).
