Kevin Rowland has responded to the action by publishers of Bruce Springsteen‘s ‘Thunder Road’ that resulted in his version being removed from forthcoming album ‘My Beauty’.
Rowland was forced to pull a version of Bruce Springsteen‘s song from his forthcoming Creation album ‘My Beauty’ because The Boss didn’t approve the change in lyrics.
The former Dexys Midnight Runners singer said he was “naturally disappointed” at the decision but wouldn’t fight it.
He said: “It wasn’t meant to be. Had I chosen to rerecord the vocal, staying true to Springsteen‘s lyrics – which was an option – I would have felt I’d compromised the whole record. The whole thing about this album is they are my interpretations, not covers, and that would have rendered it artistically invalid.”
He added that he still felt the album worked well without it and may still yet perform the song live. Copies of the album had already been pressed featuring his version of ‘Thunder Road’.
Rowland continued: “I doubt Bruce Springsteen got to hear my version, which is a shame because I think he may have understood it. I believe the refusal was actually a management decision.”
A spokesman for Zomba Publishing, who safeguard the copyright of the music and lyrics of ‘Thunder Road’, told NME that the decision to refuse permission for Rowland was because he had changed the lyrics.
He said: “We found there were substantial changes in the lyrics and as is Bruce‘s contractual right, permission was denied to use that particular version. We gave them the chance to rerecord the song with the original lyrics, but Kevin didn’t want to do that.”
He declined to say whether or not Springsteen had been directly involved.
A similar situation happened recently when Oasis‘ Noel Gallagher refused permission for the Smurfs to record a version of ‘Wonderwall’ called ‘Wondersmurf’, where the lyrics were changed, but allowed The Mike Flowers Pops to cover the song by keeping the words the same.
The re-pressed version of Kevin Rowland‘s ‘My Beauty’ is now released on October 11.