On this day (November 3) in 1995, Hootie & the Blowfish and Bob Dylan reached an out-of-court settlement after the legendary singer/songwriter accused the up-and-comers of plagiarism. The issue arose from the band’s 1995 hit single “Only Wanna Be with You,” which borrowed heavily from one of Dylan’s songs and mentioned the title of another.
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Hootie & the Blowfish wrote “Only Wanna Be with You” and released it as the third single from their 1994 debut album, Cracked Rear View, in July 1995. The track quickly became their biggest hit, reaching No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also placed within the top 5 of the adult contemporary, adult airplay, and mainstream rock charts.
The song features a few lines from “Idiot Wind,” a song from Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks. It also uses the title of another track from the album, “Tangled Up in Blue.” In an interview with Rolling Stone, Darius Rucker revealed that Dylan’s team only came for the band after the song became a major hit.
Darius Rucker Reflects on Bob Dylan’s Lawsuit Against Hootie & the Blowfish
“That was a straight tribute to [Bob Dylan],” Darius Rucker said of the offending lines in the Hootie & the Blowfish hit. “I wrote it around the time I was listening to Blood on the Tracks every day. The line, ‘They say I shot a man named Grey and took his wife to Italy / She inherited a million bucks and when she died it came to me / I can’t help it if I’m lucky’ was just so vivid. That was a straight tribute to my love of Dylan,” Rucker explained.
“When we first did that song, we sent it to the publishing company and everything was fine,” he recalled. “We played it for years and had a really big hit with it. Then, they wanted some money, and they got it. We weren’t trying to rip anybody off. It was like, ‘If you think that’s the case, sure,” he added.
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