The following line in a new copyright-infringement lawsuit alleging Lady Gaga ripped off "Judas" from another song called "Juda" sort of says it all: "Plaintiff is an accomplished and well-known composer and performing artist who has been writing and performing her own songs in the Chicago metropolitan area since the late 1990s." Liz Phair, is that you? It is not. It is Rebecca Francescatti, a.k.a Rebecca F. a.k.a. the lead singer in Rebecca F. & the Memes... the accomplished and well-known Chicago artist we have somehow never heard of who has a tiny YouTube presence she began uploading five days ago and no official website.
Hear a comparison of the two tracks here:
Rebecca F. may be guilty of overestimating her significance in the music world, but is she also misjudging how much her own song "Juda" sounds like Lady Gaga's "Judas"? After reviewing the facts provided by the Huffington Post, The Amp thinks yes -- "Judas" is a disjointed pop concoction with multiple melody lines, and "Juda" doesn't really resemble any of them (it sounds more like an Alanis Morissette song than anything else). Rebecca F.'s lawyer tells TMZ, "Though the songs are different styles, the composition is the same and the chorus is the same melody."
So what exactly makes Rebecca F. believe she has a case? A sound engineer named Brian Joseph Gaynor who worked with DJ White Shadow and Gaga on "Judas" also recorded Rebecca F.'s "Juda" in 2005. Well, that is quite a coincidence, actually. According to the suit, "There is a substantial similarity between the two songs due to Defendants' copying." Also, Lady Gaga says "Juda" about 10 million times in "Judas."
We can understand wanting a piece of the Gaga pie, but "Judas" is seriously the worst song on her (overall awesome) album -- do you really want to associate yourself with this, lady? As far as we can tell, only one artist has a real case against Born This Way.
[Photo: Elisabetta A. Villa/WireImage.com]