The Dawson's Creek Theme Song Has A Tragic Problem - But Paula Cole Has A Solution
With the right tone and theme, a TV show can become inseparable from its opening song. It's impossible to listen to "I'll Be There for You" and not think of "Friends." The same could be said of the theme song of one of the best teen TV shows from the '00s, "Dawson's Creek" — "I Don't Want to Wait" by Paula Cole. The singer-songwriter has a special message for everyone thinking of using that song on social media.
Cole posted a TikTok informing everyone that she doesn't actually own the masters to the original recording of "I Don't Want to Wait." As such, she doesn't get any money when that version is played. She explains, "I don't see anything from the master use of the song, so I re-recorded it and in 2016 put out my version." People can tell which one is the re-recorded track because it's titled "I Don't Want to Wait (Artist's 20th Anniversary Edition)."
It makes sense for Cole to get this message out over TikTok because users will often make videos with songs playing throughout. Musicians do make money (albeit very little) when their songs are used on TikTok, so it's understandable Cole would want to direct people toward the variant that allows her to benefit from her work.
Paula Cole scored a major victory after Dawson's Creek came to Netflix
Paula Cole re-recording her song so that she can more directly benefit from it will sound familiar to all Swifties out there. It's very much in the same vein as upending bad record label deals so that artists get more from their labor. The practice pre-dates Taylor Swift, as other artists from Def Leppard to Blondie have redone songs so that they can get greater financial compensation. While Cole is now providing an update on TikTok, she's been vocal about this issue for a while.
Due to cost-saving measures, "I Don't Want to Wait" isn't the song that plays during the opening credits of "Dawson's Creek" on some of the DVDs. On some releases, it's "Run Like Mad" by Jann Arden. That remained the case when "Dawson's Creek" came to Netflix. Anyone who wanted to binge-watch the seminal series was greeted with something different than they remembered when watching the show on The WB all those years ago. Fortunately, the issue was resolved over time, with Cole taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, to announce, "I re-recorded 'I Don't Want To Wait', and [Netflix is] using the master. All artists should be compensated for their intellectual work. Thank you @SonyTV @netflix and most of all the fans who made this happen."
The show has since been taken off Netflix, but you can still watch every season of "Dawson's Creek" on Hulu. Sadly, "I Don't Want to Wait" isn't used during the title sequence there, but Cole continues to get the word out, bringing greater attention to how little money many musicians make from their work.