SemiNoTV: Country Songwriter Claims Mariah Stole 'All I Want' From Him

[Mark Jeffries]

Andy Stone, who is Vince Vance of the country band Vince Vance and the Valiants, perhaps best known for a 1980 parody of the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann" called "Bomb Iran," sued Mariah Carey and her record company and music publisher last year, claiming that she ripped off his 1989 country chart stiff called "All I Want for Christmas is You" for her now-holiday standard of the same title--the suit was dismissed, but today, as snow has appeared in various parts of the nation and the usual suspect radio stations in those areas have gone into Christmas music mode--TWO DAYS AFTER HALLOWEEN--Stone is refiling his suit, he wants $20M in damages:

https://www.thewrap.com/all-i-want-for-christmas-is-you-lawsuit-refiled-mariah-carey/

Here is the Vince Vance and the Valiants song for your comparison (you've heard the Mariah song many times before and will hear it again many times this year)--it's slower-tempoed than Mariah, doesn't have the same melody or the same lyrics and I don't think you can copyright a basic premise and there have been many songs with the same title--seems to me a musicologist would not even consider Carey's song similar in sound or structure:

https://youtu.be/w8HWHd0EYJA