Sorry about this, but we have to talk about Mariah Carey and “All I Want for Christmas Is You”

Yes, I know it’s just mid-August, but it’s only a matter of days before some radio station somewhere will starting playing “All I Want for Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey. I’m betting it will be in the Philippines where Christmas celebrations can begin as early as September. But this year, there’s a twist.

“All I Want” aficionados may remember that late last year, a songwriter named Vince Vance filed a lawsuit against Carey, saying the she infringed on his song of the same name from 1989. “[‘All I Want’] “a greater than 50% clone…in both lyric choice and chord expressions.” According to Billboard, Vance and the co-writer of the song insist that the songs both have a “unique linguistic structure” including but not limited to the title

Yeah?

Carey’s people have asked that the lawsuit be dropped, saying that any similarities are strictly coincidental and use common song compositional structures.

There are millions and millions and millions of dollars at stake here. We’ll see how this plays out.