Celine Dion has covered the Daniel Merriweather song ‘Water and a Flame’. It will be the title track of her next album and is furious that Celine doesn’t even know he wrote it. She thinks it is an Adele song.
‘Water and a Flame’ was the 4th single from Daniel’s second album ‘Love & War’, released in 2009. His version features a vocal from Adele.
UPDATE: CELINE DION MANAGEMENT RESPONDS TO DANIEL MERRIWEATHER
When Celine Dion appeared on Katie Couric’s TV show she said, “I love Adele because she writes her songs, she sings amazingly. Her lyrics, her passion, her rawness, earthy tones. I love her.”
Opps, Celine, Adele didn’t write the song. Daniel Merriweather did.
Celine’s faux-paus was noticed by Daniel’s friend Samantha Ronson who posted the interview and the comment “Dear Celine Dion, when you COVER someone else’s song- you might want to give them credit.”
“Adele didn’t write one word or melody of Water and a Flame and she’ll be the first to tell you that,” Daniel said in a Facebook post.
He said, “It is astounding that Celine Dion tries to pass off lyrics that I wrote as her own… 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… 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… 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… 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 credit like this?… as i said, it is absolutely astounding!”.
He then added, “thank you Celine Dion for singing my song, but if you had seen even half of what i have seen in my life time you wouldn’t be able to get out of bed in the morning let alone sing, so just be mindful of the fact that songs are a connection to the ether, and an insight to our inner most thoughts and feelings and for SOME of us it may be all we will ever have”.
Watch the Katie Couric interview with Celine Dion here and listen to Daniel’s original song below.
