An artist has no way of knowing how their music will transform with the passing of time, which is why songwriter Roger Hodgson felt more than a little blindsided when a Supertramp classic became potential fodder for a legal battle between him and his ex-bandmate, Rick Davies. Hodgson and Davies parted ways in the early 1980s, but the two would remain connected to their rock band roots throughout their decades-long career.
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This continued association inevitably led to the two musicians butting heads again, especially when one of them felt like the other had gone back on a binding verbal agreement about the use of each other’s music.
This Supertramp Classic Was a Major Point of Contention
When Supertramp founders Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies parted ways in the early 1980s, each musician took the songs they brought to the table with them. For Davies, that meant songs like “Goodbye Stranger”, “Rudy”, and “Bloody Well Right”. For Davies, that meant songs like “The Logical Song”, “Breakfast in America”, and “Dreamer”. Either artist could claim their part in the formation of Supertramp as long as they didn’t use the other’s music to do so. Trouble started in the late 2000s, when Davies seemingly did just that.
Supertramp (sans Hodgson) embarked on the “70-10 Tour” in celebration of the band’s 40th anniversary in 2010. According to Hodgson, Davies broke his verbal contract with his ex-bandmate when he used songs like “Breakfast in America” to promote his upcoming show dates. Calling the use of his music “outrageous,” Hodges told Undercover, “The thing is, Rick has so many great songs that he doesn’t need to do my songs. I don’t know why he thinks he has to do them. Rick doesn’t even like most of my songs.”
“He is an old jazz and blueser,” Hodgson continued, “he fought me like crazy over ‘Breakfast in America’. He hated the song. I don’t think he even played on it. I had to fight for some of my songs because he didn’t like them. To do them and not even like them feels even worse.”
Hodgson asserted that he wasn’t bringing up the issue to start a “battle or fight” but that, for the sake of the fans and his and Davies’ musical integrities, he felt like he needed to speak out. Considering the background of “Breakfast in America” and the circumstances under which Hodgson first wrote it, it’s unsurprising that he’s so protective of the Supertramp classic.
Roger Hodgson Had This Song Ever Since He Was a Teen
The longer you have a song, the more protective of and attached to it you might feel. Such was the case for Roger Hodgson, who wrote “Breakfast in America” during an incredibly prolific songwriting period in his life when he was only 19 years old. “I was dreaming and having fun one day, and this song just flowed out,” Hodgson told Classic Rock. “I think the lyric was written in about an hour. It just came out of me. Never could I have imagined when I wrote this song at 19 that it would be gaining in popularity, if that is even possible, over 45 years later. It has that magical, playful, fun, jubilant quality that people love to hear and sing along to.”
Having written the song so young and at such an integral moment in his musical career, it’s no wonder that Hodgson would have wanted to save those songs for himself after he left Supertramp to pursue a solo career. As for the verbal agreement between him and Davies, bandmate Dougie Thomson said in a 1998 interview with Stephen Majewski, “Nobody except Rick and Roger were privy to that conversation. Rick and Roger had several dialogues that no one else was privy to. Again, that’s hearsay.”
Photo by Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix via Getty Images
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