White Stripes / Citizen Kane

[SHAFTR]

did anyone notice that the White Stripes' Union Forever song off of White Blood Cells is all about Citizen Kane

here are the lyrics...
-----------------
It can't be love
for there is no true love
It can't be love
for there is no true love

Sure, I'm C.F.K.
but you gotta love me
the cost no man can say
but you gotta love me

Well I'm sorry but I'm not
interested in gold mines,
oil wells, shipping or real estate
what would I liked to have been?
everything you hate

There is a man
a certain man
and for the poor you may be sure
that he'll do all he can
who is this one?
[whose favorite son?]
just by his action has the traction
magnets on the run
who likes to smoke?
enjoys a joke?
and wouldn't get a bit
upset if he were really broke?
with wealth and fame
he's still the same
I'll bet you five you're not alive
If you don't know his name

You said the union forever(2)
You cried the union forever
but that was untrue girl
cause it can't be love
-----------

[xerxes]

yes

[Sleuth]

Yep

[Jeremy Blackman]

maybe

[SHAFTR]

well from what I can remember....

Paragraphs 1, 3 & 4 are lines directly from the film.

Paragraph 5:  Young Charles Kane is saying Union Forever when he is playing in the snow.

Paragraph 2: I recognize the last line.

[RegularKarate]

Movie's in songs... clever

[Sleuth]

CK is Jack's favorite movie.  
In other news, he helped score the upcoming Cold Mountain film and even has a part in it.

[joke08]

i didn't know that, but i do love that song.
so thanks. i never read the lyrics.

[Pubrick]

Ebert talked about it:
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Q. I recently took my 10-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter to see "Citizen Kane," which they loved. They were unnaturally alert during the scene in which Kane throws a party celebrating the hiring of talented reporters from his rival newspaper, and trots out a line of chorus girls. Whereupon everyone bursts into a song, "There is a man, a certain man ... " After a few lines, my kids were mouthing the words. I was incredulous until they told me these were the lyrics to a song by the White Stripes, "The Union Forever," on the hit album "White Blood Cells." While the tune is utterly different, the lyrics are exactly those in the film and they are bracketed by other significant lines from the "Kane" script. Yet the CD liner copy reads, "All songs written and performed by the White Stripes." "Citizen Kane" is neither mentioned nor credited. Is this flagrant, unpunished plagiarism, or did Jack and Meg White receive special dispensation from the Orson Welles estate?

Phil Freshman,

St. Louis Park, Minn.

A. Early in the White Stripes song, the lyrics say "sure I'm C.F.K.," which would be Charles Foster Kane. Later this dialogue is quoted from the screenplay: "I'm not interested in gold mines, oil wells, shipping or real estate." (In the movie Kane adds, "I think I might like to run a newspaper.") The song then quotes more dialogue by Kane: "What would I liked to have been? Everything you hate."

Here are some of the purloined lyrics:

there is a man a certain man

and for the poor you may be sure

that he'll do all he can.

who is this one?

[whose favorite son?]

just by his action

has the traction

magnates

on the run?

who likes to smoke?

enjoys a joke?

A contact tells me Warner Bros., which now owns the DVD rights, believes the lyrics were lifted from "Citizen Kane" without permission, and the studio's legal department is investigating.
-------

[joke08]

P -
this is weird. I don't think this is cause for investigation, though. I mean, if that were the case, everyone in the world would have sued TS Eliot a long time ago.

[Mesh]

Jack White's new personal label is called Third Man.