Walmart has a sweet (and slightly sour?) commercial featuring one of my favorite fruits – strawberries! Take a look then scroll down for more info about the ad…
The Music. The soundtrack to the commercial is a song called “I See It, I Like It, I Want It” by Shirley Ellis. Here’s the full track from 1965.
Same Thing Again. You might recognize the song from another national ad. This one was from Samsung advertising a couple of Galaxy phones, the fold and the flip.
Controversy. The decades-old song reminds me of one from Ariana Grande called “7 Rings,” released in 2019. Lyrics repeat the same lines I see it, I like it, I want it… then adding another line: I got it. I know it’s probably difficult to claim any kind of royalties or copyright infringement for a few short sentences but you’d think Ms. Grande would at least mention the peculiar similarity to to the song by Ms. Ellis. I haven’t found anything online mentioning the duplicate lyrics but what I DID find is other controversies about Grande’s song. Allegedly the song cadence was “stolen” from a 2010 Soulja Boy hit. Another part of the lyrics were called out as sounding like another female rapper, Queen Nokia in her song, “Mine.” Of course, the main melody of Ariana’s song is from The Sound of Music. Because of that, Ariana agreed to forfeit 90% of song royalties, which will go to the writers of the song featured in the movie.
How’s that for a little bit of a rabbit hole? Did you enjoy the Walmart commercial, which was the point of this whole post! Do you think Ariana Grande should address the similar lyrics as the Shirley Ellis song? Chime in below!
-Out of the Wilderness
Out of the Wilderness 