The Doobie Brothers Ask Bill Murray to Stop Using Their Song to Sell His Ugly Shirts

PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 06: Actor Bill Murray plays his shot from the third tee during the during the first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am at Spyglass Hill Golf Course on February 06, 2020 in Pebble Beach, California. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
Photo Credit
(Harry How/Getty Images)

Look, the Doobie Brothers are cool dudes. They just really wish Bill Murray would have asked permission to use their song in one of his commercials for golf shirts, that's all.

Yes, really: back in 2017, actor, all-around awesome dude ad avid golfer, Bill Murray, and his five brothers got into the golf-shirt making business, launching William Murray Golf, an apparel company that "introduces fun and irreverence to the game of golf."

RELATED: October 1976: The Doobie Brothers Release First Greatest Hits Album

The company has been having a little too much fun making promo ad featuring the Doobie Brothers' 1972 hit, "Listen to the Music." Once the band's legal team got wind of the spot, they had no choice but to send Murray and his company a good, old-fashioned cease-and-desist letter, asking that they kindly stop using the unlicensed music. Being that it's the Doobies' lawyer dealing with a comic legend, they handled the situation in a lighthearted manner, to say the least.

"We’re writing on behalf of our clients, the Doobie Brothers. The Doobie Brothers perform and recorded the song Listen to the Music, which Tom Johnston of the Doobie Brothers wrote," the letter explained (via The Hollywood Reporter). "It’s a fine song. I know you agree because you keep using it in ads for your Zero Hucks Given golf shirts. However, given that you haven’t paid to use it, maybe you should change the name to 'Zero Bucks Given.'

"We understand that you’re running other ads using music from other of our clients. It seems like the only person who uses our clients’ music without permission more than you do is Donald Trump," the letter continues. "This is the part where I’m supposed to cite the United States Copyright Act, excoriate you for not complying with some subparagraph that I’m too lazy to look up and threaten you with eternal damnation for doing so. But you already earned that with those Garfield movies. And you already know that you can’t use music in ads without paying for it."

Finally, the legal team of King, Holmes, Paterno & Soriano sign off with a little twist of the comedic knife that even Murray himself can surely appreciate: " We’d almost be OK with it if the shirts weren’t so damn ugly. But it is what it is. So in the immortal words of Jean Paul Sartre, 'Au revoir Golfer. Et payez!'"

Bill Murray has yet to respond.

Artist Name

Read More

Little, Brown Book Co.
'Set the Night on Fire: Living, Dying, and Playing Guitar with The Doors' is out Oct. 12.
(Mick Hutson/Redferns/Getty Images)
Trump supporters "stand against rock n' roll," according to the Skid Row singer.
The Prince Estate/Jeff Katz

Fans are going wild for the deluxe edition of Prince's legendary 1987 album Sign O' the Times. On the

Facebook Comments