With apologies to Three Dog Night.
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In the wake of recent events, we feel it’s time to speak up. We’ve heard your calls for a statement on the subject of Jeremiah, a bullfrog we’ve long referred to as our friend. Your comments, your direct messages, and your anthrax threats have all prompted us to take action.
Last week, Jeremiah the Bullfrog was convicted of severely harmful crimes and was sentenced to life in prison. Please believe us when we tell you that we were as shocked as you to learn of what could at best be described as a lapse in judgment, and at worst as a psychotic and unfrogivable series of misdeeds.
We initially kept our silence to keep from shifting the spotlight away from the victims and to allow justice to run its course. Now that the trial has ended in a conviction, we feel it’s time to share a truth that has troubled us for a long time:
Jeremiah was, in fact, a mere acquaintance.
Honestly, we met the frog like twice, tops, and didn’t really remember much about him. That’s why he’s only in the first verse of the song.
Only in retrospect do we know just how sinister he truly was. How much wine he drank and famously offered to others. While we hardly knew him and were not among those he deeply hurt, our hearts go out to all his victims. We cannot imagine what this has been like for you. We are ashamed to have aided in any way in his rise to fame and for giving him a leg up on portraying himself as a wholesome, fun-loving froggy.
But we were victims too—of manipulation. We often felt pressured to overindulge around him, and as one of the bog’s most powerful amphibians, we worried that our careers would suffer if we refused. Little did we know that he would eventually use us and our eventual powerful position to protect himself. This, of course, pales in comparison to the crimes Jeremiah later committed. At the time, we assumed he was just a pushy, business-savvy guy with a sweet bachelor’s lily pad.
There is no way to undo the damage our song has caused. We know it was on the radio constantly, eventually reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100. We understand his victims must have been haunted, jarred by the now-infamous line that painted him as a friend, and not the wart-ridden monster he truly was and is.
Please believe us when we tell you we barely knew him. And we certainly did not see the evil resting beneath his slimy skin.
However, the later verses of the song still ring true for us, and are what we wish for everyone—especially his victims: We wish for joy to the world, all the boys and girls. Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea, joy to you and me.
