9 Songs That 'Rip Off' Other Songs
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- Опубликовано: 10 июн 2024
- I've made various videos in the past about songs that seemingly rip off, or at least borrow from, other hit songs that came before them. But there are still plenty more examples of these dubious likenesses in pop songs, so today we'll be looking at nine more examples of songs that are based on other songs.
The outro music to this video is my track "The Longest March" which you can hear in full on Spotify: open.spotify.com/artist/0wKKJ... 🎶
SOURCES:
Interview with Paul McCartney (2007): www.avclub.com/paul-mccartney...
Interview with Ray Davies (2014): web.archive.org/web/201411280...
Avril Lavinge sued, MTV (2007): www.mtv.com/news/j2jqc3/avril...
Rod Stewart’s autobiography: archive.org/details/rodautobi...
Streissguth, M. Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison: The Making of a Masterpiece: ereader.perlego.com/1/book/12...
Interview with David Whitaker (2001): web.archive.org/web/201403190...
Will Champion of Coldplay on copyright lawsuits, MusicRadar (2009): www.musicradar.com/news/guita...
This video was edited by David Hartley. Check out his RUclips channel here: / davidhartley94
And, an extra special thanks goes to Douglas Lind, Vidad Flowers, Ivan Pang, Waylon Fairbanks, Jon Dye, Austin Russell, Christopher Ryan, Toot & Paul Peijzel, the channel’s Patreon saints! 😇
SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: / davidbennettpiano 🎹
0:00 Introduction
0:28 TLC vs. Paul McCartney
1:29 Michael McDonald vs. Chuck Jackson
2:25 Avril Lavinge vs. The Rubinoos
3:32 Do Ya Think Rod's Sexy?
5:38 Elton John vs. Speedy Gonzales
6:35 Johnny Cash vs. Gordon Jenkins
7:38 The Doors vs. The Kinks
8:36 Bitter Sweet Symphony vs. The Last Time
10:26 Viva La Vida vs. Joe Satriani, Cat Stevens & some other band that no one's heard of
13:24 Patreon
![Woo-hoo!: How Blur Mocked Grunge & Destroyed Britpop ["Song 2"] | New British Canon](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Q29G7YDCq9Y/mqdefault.jpg)
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IF they included a Saxophone Class I’d be ALL OVER this deal 😂
9 songs?
Couldn't you find just one more to make it a top 10?
Lady A's "Need You Now" rips off Alan Parson Project's "Eye in the Sky". There are several smashups on RUclips that points out the similarities. "Eye in the Sky" was release in 1982. "Need You Now" was released in 2009.
@@klaxoncow 🤣👍
@@klaxoncow Here's one more. Can't post links, but look these two up:
1. Blinker the Star -- Below the Sliding Doors
2. The Helicopter Of The Holy Ghost - Tony Got A Car (from Afters)
Listen all the way through, to each, and tell me if you think #2 is an homage or a rip off of #1.
I wonder if the writer of “twinkle twinkle little star” got a chance to sue the writer of “The ABCs Song” 😂😂😂
Exactly! Lol
This is how stupid some of these examples sound.
Don't forget Baa Baa Black Sheep.
They were all taken from a Mozart song 😂
As a songwriter the scariest stories are the ones like from Rod Stewart where he felt he came up with a song of his own only to find out a melody he heard once got stuck in the back of his head and inadvertently came out. Beware the song that seems to "write itself" which is why I'm always dubious when I dream a "new" melody.
I mean, realistically you'd need success on the level of Rod Stewart first, before fearing any kind of law suit :D
That was McCartney's reaction when he woke up with Yesterday - he spent weeks trying to find out if it was somebody elses
@@kassemir I never said I was afraid of a lawsuit, I would just hate to think I wrote a great song, put in all the effort of recording and mixing a demo and then realize it sounds an awful lot or directly copied someone else's song. Clear enough for you?
i hear you. its def a real thing. i did it subsconsciouly last week while humming a tune out for a walk. its only after realizing i had heard something similar a few days earlier was i able to recall it. i left feeling that my take was original enough, diff key, diff timbre, most of it quite diff that now i do not hear the similarities at all, but i'm still glad i caught it while in the process as some have not and paid the price. i think what helps is i have an extensive background djing many styles of music over past 30 years but am only just now arriving at writing songs. so in many cases what i come up with is quite derivative, sometimes intentionally just so i can learn the ropes of what makes a 'good' melody or muscial idea. but i always tend to toss it in the trash as i see it as a learning tool. then occassionally, here and there something that is quite original emerges and i go with it. i cross ref if i have knowingly lifted anything and if i cannot recall, even after a few days im satisfied and keep it. who knows where original creation comes from but it certainly HAS to happen in some instances or else we would have nothing of manufactured value in our material world.
Yup. I've played new ideas to friends before, thinking they must have been written by other people first. It can be unnerving.
An infamous case involved the flute hook from Men at Work’s mega hit song “Down Under”. It was inspired by the Australian 1930s children’s song Kookaburra. However, it wasn’t brought to action until years later. The flute player, Greg Ham, was deeply affected by the plagiarism allegations that he thought destroyed his legacy, and that of the song. Tragically, after the case went against Men at Work, Greg spiraled into depression and drug addiction that led to his death. In my opinion Greg’s work on that part was wonderful and very tasteful. Down Under is basically an Australian anthem, and Kookaburra fits in perfectly as a nod to their history and culture. Who would believe that a few lines from a 50 year old children’s song would drag you into court.
Waterfalls is such a great song. I had no idea the first line was possibly “co-opted” 😮
Theyre strecthing that idea imo, completely bs
The George Harrison 'My sweet lord' Vs Chiffons 'He's so fine' Is a classic, ended costing George a fortune and the publishing, but the funny thing is years later The publishing came up for sale and George bought it, so not only did he own the rights to his own song he owed the rights to 'He's so fine' 😂😂
Harrison was effectively "forced" to buy the Chiffons' catalogue as part of the settlement of the case. The man that sold it was... Allen Klein, a man who made millions from other people's songs.
I've a feeling Allen Klein had his grubby hands on this one, too...
...the guy sounds like he was a *_really_* nasty piece of work...
Again blame Allen Klein for that one too.
@@bettyswunghole3310 I don't know if Allen Klein was a particularly nasty person, but he was one of the first to realize that there was much more money in publishing than in actually creating music or managing bands. The whole system is unfair, since you could spend your time writing and playing songs, but only get 5% of the money (depending on the contract), while the publisher got 7% or 10% for owning the rights to the sheet music or the mastertapes. It evidently makes more business sense to buy other people's songs than write them yourself! Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson were among the artists that realised that buying the catalogues of other artists could be just profitable as writing their own songs. (In a curious irony, Michael Jackson's publishing company ended up owning loads of Beatles songs). I don't know the specifics, but I heard that Taylor Swift was "swindled" by the publisher of her early albums, so she's been re-recording them so that she owns the masters of the new versions and can control their licensing and get a fairer share of the royalties. It's a really murky business, with lots of men in suits buying catalogues of music dirt cheap, causing the artists to receive a one-off payment (that is very tempting when you're a newbie) but then lose out on long-term income. Then again, you have companies like Hipnosis buying the catalogues of Bob Dylan and Justin Bieber for hundreds of millions of dollars. Those lump sums must be tempting for the artist to "sign their rights away", as they obviously won't earn that much from royalties in the rest of their lifetimes. (I struggle to understand how Hipnosis will ever earn its money back, unless it's still gonna be around in a hundred years!)
@@AutPen38 Saul Zaentz must b a protégé of Allen Klein.
For "Bittersweet Symphony," the Verve never should have had to give up ALL songwriting credit. Regardless of how much of the music was borrowed (with permission, or so they thought), the lyrics were theirs, not the Rolling Stones', Andrew Oldham's, Allen Klein's, or David Whitaker's. I think they should have shared the songwriting credit with Whitaker and paid some royalties to Klein, but they definitely shouldn't have had to give up all credit.
Klein was a notorious (insert insult here). He'd have sued his own children for plagiarising his DNA.
Completely agree. Their use was transformational enough that they absolutely deserved to retain credit. Sucks that they don’t get anything for what is an absolute classic of a song.
Completely agree. Their use was transformational enough that they absolutely deserved to retain credit. Sucks that they didn’t get anything for what is an absolute classic of a song until the Rolling Stones did the right thing eventually.
Based on Wikipedia it sounds like Oldham was still credited for the lyrics, but not for the music, at least according to the liner notes.
the verve didnt steal ANYTHING from the rolling stones though, only from the composer of that orchestral arrangement- which happened to be of a rolling stones song- who received zero royalties
It's funny, I only recently heard the McCartney "Waterfalls" song, and the lyrics immediately struck me as shockingly similar to the more well-known (to me) TLCsong, to the point that I wondered whether the essential idea of "Don't follow dangerous waterfalls, please stick to safe lakes" was some old saying that both were quoting. Genuinely surprised to learn it's original to McCartney; makes me think even more highly of his lyric-writing ability since it's a poignant expression of concern using involving vivid imagery and analogy. This being the case, its originality makes it seem almost guaranteed that whoever wrote the TLC song was influenced by McCartney. But again, to give McCartney credit, his quote about the whole thing sounds more amused than upset--and certainly he wasn't litigious. Pretty laid back guy.
And now I'm wondering about a similar pair that David didn't mention: "Blackbird" and "Broken Wings." Just like McCartney/TLC's "waterfall/lake" line, I've always assumed "take these broken wings and learn to fly" is some old homily that both McCartney and Mister Mister included because it's a lovely expression of triumphing over vulnerability. I'm gonna have to check if I've been wrong about that one too. If so I will *really* be even more impressed by Paul, and I didn't think that was possible! (I'm guessing it did already exist, but I'll be really psyched to find out it's Paul's.)
Edited to add: Holy crap. I'm not finding an earlier source of that specific line. (The idea of mending broken wings in the sense of being emotionally or spiritually injured, and then being able to fly, is of course not a new one. I'm talking about this particular expression of them.) Am going to ask around & do more research.
Incredibly... it does appear to be McCartney's phrase. Mister Mister's song, according to lyricist John Lang, was overall influenced by a 1912 novel called "The Broken Wings," but the line itself is not in the book. Richard Page (singer & co-writer) said in an interview about the similar lines that he always thought McCartney was influenced by the same book. But everything I'm reading by Paul or music historians about the writing of "Blackbird" indicates that the lyrics were not at all connected to a specific source like that. (The music, specifically the guitar accompaniment and not the melody, was loosely inspired by a Bach piece, as McCartney has mentioned and demonstrated often.)
So in short: um, wow!
>>>But again, to give McCartney credit, his quote about the whole thing sounds more amused than upset--and certainly he wasn't litigious. Pretty laid back guy.
I don’t think he’s that laidback. I think McCartney knows the history and the difficulty of litigating song publishing ownership. For the longest time, starting from around 1967, he owned a very small percentage (20%?) and eventually even less of a share in the song publishing rights to The Beatles song catalogue. Arguably the most expensive music catalogue in the business, and yet he had so little rights to it. And he was very upset when Michael Jackson bought the rights to the songbook in the 1980s. In 2017 he brought a lawsuit against Sony to try regain publishing rights to The Beatles catalogue, as there had been a change in Copyright Law, which made him eligible to recover his rights. The matter was finally settled out of court and although the conditions have not been made public, it is assumed McCartney now has more ownership rights to The Beatles Songbook than before 2017. It was very long and hard slog, for his own work.
This was a brilliant watch. I would love to see your coverage on UB40's Burden of Shame vs Van Morrison's Moondance! 😊😊😊
jorge ben jor is one of brazil's best artists ever. it's so great seeing him getting his deserved recognition!
simmm! samba esquema novo is in my heart
There's a Brazilian song that was plagiarized that should be in the following video. It is “Mulheres” by Martinho da Vila, which Adele took it to make “A Million Years Ago.”
amém
Another case of a Brazilian artist being copied is the famous riff of Smoke On The Water, which is taken from Maria Moira by Carlos Lyra.
I agree with that statement. Incredible music!
I remember when Vanilla Ice got chastised terribly for ripping off Pressure. Years later, I've come to the realization that his statements were absolutely spot-on and they match what the guy from Coldplay said. Essentially, no one really cares about copyright until you make lots of money.
Yes and no. You have to look at the melody/context. Queen deserved some royalties for the obvious sample. Some ... but not the majority. It was too obvious to all.
Critics actually liked the song and the sample, it was Suge Knight that "chastised" him. My recollection is a bit different, I remember it was a number one single that made his career. He later settled with Queen management but I think he had already paid for its use when Suge visited.
@@nimrodery What about David Bowie?
@@lordprotector3367 He was given a wet noodle and told to ride some spiders to Mars.
@@lordprotector3367 Technically the bassline was created by John Deacon, not Bowie, or any other band member. Only from 1987 did Queen start sharing songwriting credits equally, regardless of who conceived each song.
Both Waterfalls sound very different to me. Ok, the melodies are vaguely similar with their descending contours but they're otherwise very different, TLC's going down the scale to the tonic while McCartney's incorporates jumps of thirds and fifths and doesn't fall on the tonic. Their chord progressions are very different too. I don't think there's a case even for borrowing here, apart from the waterfall metaphor.
The lyrics are very obvious a copy.
@@celinhabr1 bullshit
@Jacob Hanson again bullshit
@@edwardmyles4114Not bullshit. No effin way the writers of TLC’s Waterfalls came up with this line that just happens to be almost the same as Paul McCarthy’s song. “Don’t go jumping waterfalls, please keep to the lake” Is not some common phrase. It’s poetic. And the writers of TLC just happened to write an almost exact line on their own?? GTFOH!!!
@@dinard38 again 🐂 bullshit
Its crazy sometimes as a musician/ song writer when it's very hard to not let go of a certain melody. I agree with one of the last statements. You hear that melody for those chords and it just makes sense. How do you let go of / alter what sounds right ?
One of the worst cases, very well known here in Australia, was Men at Work's "Down Under", the flute part of which was coincidentally similar to an old Australian song "Kookaburra". The ensuing case is widely viewed by Australians as one of the most egregious and frivolous suits, with the fallout eventually contributing to the suicide of one of the band members.
And it was just a flute lick that occupies precisely one bar of the song.
@@simon_patterson I feel sorry for the founder of Larrikin Music Publishing, Warren Fahey. His name often gets dragged into this conversation even though he'd sold Larrikin to Festival Records in 1995 which was 14 years before the thing went to court. There's an excellent breakdown of this case on RUclips where he is interviewed (on the Traxploitation channel). He's still traumatized by the whole thing himself. A tragic affair all round.
I was going to post this reference. It was utterly appalling, particularly since it was some scumbag businessman just out to make money.
@Simon Patterson Cheers mate! I just happened to stumble across it one night. Such a tragic story.
It was the dumbest copyright lawsuits in history. Furthermore, the original writer of the flute part wouldn't have cared if she was alive. She gave her estate to charity after her death.
I also want to say the Avril song seems very self aware and really falls into the category of art commenting on art.
Same with Crocodile Rock.
As ever, a superb video. Always look forward to new ones!
Your pop music repertoire is absolutely incredible ✨
You may have covered it before, but Purple Rain by Prince apparently sounded similar enough to the song Faithfully by Journey that Prince actually called up Jonathan Cain to ask for permission (and was given an enthusiastic thumbs up) before releasing the song. Great songs both! 🥰
Interesting. Never heard that story despite being a massive fan of Prince for decades.
Shows how awesome Journey is.
@@ethanweeter2732 Apparently Prince was kind of cool that way as well. The story of Stevie Nicks and Stand Back is a great one. Saw a part of a interview where he was basically saying that the thing that bothered him about people using his songs/music was when it was done without asking and/or through the record companies. taking control away from the original artist.
Reaching
Love both songs! Now I have listen to them back to back to catch the simularities
Great video David Bennet. Very informative and interesting. I even discovered some more songs that have copied parts of their melodies from other songs.
The thing that is the most infuriating to me is not the song similarities, but that so many artists don't own the rights to their songs and thus get no royalties from them!
And the record companies will go to court and settle and none of that money goes to the artists 😊
Because they already sold them.....
@@SpectraStarShooterHappened to Badfinger. Their manager and record company fucked over the band members leading them to suicide!!
@@dimitriberozny3729 I’m giving you thumbs up, not because I’m happy about the result, but I am appreciative of the knowledge shared
Uptown Funk is a great example of multiple people suing over similar melody and rhythmic elements where they can't all be right but they all sued anyway. A few of the suits were dropped, many songwriters were added.
Uptown Funk got to be so popular because it was a modern take on all the old funk clichés and just a damn good song.
That explains why I see so many writers on a lot of the 'newer' music.
@@Kylora2112 I owned some of recordings that were referred to in "Uptown Funk" like female Rap group Sequence's "Funk Up Right On Up," The Gap Band's "Oops Upside Your Head," I guess because those words were spoken in the song and were recited in thee originals is why he was sued. Strangely, Journey's song "Raised On Radio" names Rock classics in its lyrics. True plagiarism are Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen" and the Beach Boys "Surfin' USA."
*Originally, no one sued over this song. The lawsuit brought against BLURRED LINES made the writer's 'decide' to credit another song and include those writers out of fear of a lawsuit due to them being 'the same VIBE' as what won the lawsuit mentioned here. < Because of this, other bands with songs 'with the same VIBE' went after them with fingers crossed.*
My favourite copyright story is the fight between Huey Lewis'' I want a New Drug and Roy Parker Jr.'s Ghostbusters. It was settled but later on Robin Scott of "M" fame pointed out his song Pop Muzic came first. It seems Lewis & Parker copied him. I don't know if Scott sued.
Parker definitely stole from Lewis. The producers of Ghostwriters originally asked Huey Lewis to write the theme song. Huey Lewis declined. Coincidentally, Parker came up with a riff very similar to Huey Lewis. Parker paid up ... but the agreement forced Lewis not to speak of it ever.
Come to think of it, ''Ghostbusters' does sound exactly like 'Pop Muzik' .
Ray* Parker Jr.
@Chris Sadowski ummmm mutt Lange wrote we both believe in love. Huey changed 1 line
RAY
not ROY😂
Interestingly, another aspect of Viva La Vida not mentioned here is its string riff, which is also similar to the string riff of Alizee's 'J'en Ai Marre', albeit mainly due to the 4/5/1/6 chord progression. In this case both songs are also in the same key.
2:45 that “Hey, You!” Reminds me of Rolling Stones’ Get off of My Back. 🤔
Sweet Home Alabama and Werewolves of London (Kid Rock actually combined those two.) and Take the Money and Run (Steve Miller). Down Under (Men at Work) and So Lonely (The Police), though MANY songs have that same chord progression (Springsteen's I'm Going Down, uses it as well.). Whitney Houston's Greatest Love of All and Gordon Lightfoot's If You Could Read My Mind, a section of it at least.
Yes, as I was learning piano I noticed similarities between the Skynyrd song and Zevin's "Werewolves In London."
The Stones Midnight Rambler has the same progression as Sweet Home and Werewolves
I'm surprised you didn't mention the Beatles song "Something", which was inspired heavily by "Something In The Way She Moves" by James Taylor...
I think George Harrison's "Something" literally just borrowed the title from the James Taylor song. The two songs are really very different and James Taylor even quotes "and I feel fine" in his song! Harrison knew about the James Taylor song because it was released on The Beatles' Apple record label 😊😊
@@DavidBennettPiano true, but in the same way your first two examples just borrowed a line and went in it's own direction, I thought this would fit that idea
@@jasonremy1627 Well the first two songs have similarities between the first bars of text and melodies, the Something melody sounds nothing like Something In The Way She Moves. Two great songs though!
@@jasonremy1627 yeah good point 😊
James Taylor in an interview said he didn't think George Harrison intentionally did that, but the last line of something in the way she moves was inspired by I feel fine by the Beatles.
So what goes around comes around.
The songs 'It Takes Two' by Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock and 'Two To Make it Right' by Seduction both contain the lyrics, "It takes to make a thing go right. It takes to make it out of sight" (albeit some sources credit the Base/Rock song lyrics as 'outta sight' instead of 'out of sight').
Love your videos. Makes me wish I learned music in general, the piano in particular
In many of these examples, the lyrics and melody are not the same -at all - strikingly so in the TLC/McCartney song and many of the others. Some of this stuff is just absolutely ridiculous, we are running out of combinations. The Blurred Lines ruling was absolutely insane.
The necessity of acting on copyright to ensure that it can protect uncompensated artists from unfair exploitation is one of the sad results of the generally unfair economics behind the past and present recording industry.
@ghost mall The great irony of Paul being upset about that is that the Beatles lifted the first line of "Something" from a James Taylor song. I know it was written by George, but Paul didn't object in that instance.
@@MrExplosionFace Where does it say Paul was upset? After all he didn't sue.
The melody is completely different in the waterfalls example.
@ghost mall its not obvious at all lol, songs are completely different.
Music is an evolutionary thing and as such, something has to have come before. We are all influenced by the sounds we've heard and liked through our lives, many examples going back to childhood. We don't necessarily know where the sounds we liked came from, or if we even made them up ourselves or not, only that it was a sequence of notes that we liked the sound of and it pleased us. For example, there are sequences of notes that I know I like very much, but I can trace that back to hearing my Mum playing Chopin on the piano when I was 4 years old. So, it's not surprising that snippets or even whole passages pop up accidentally from time to time. Given that we've got 12 notes to play with, it's actually quite amazing that there aren't more cases of plagiarism than there are. Our human brains are highly stimulated by combinations of frequencies and rather than remembering a tune we once heard in terms of notes, our brains remember sets of frequencies that pleased it, which can lead you to write a certain piece which you are unknowingly plagiarising, retrospectively. Frequency is everything. Without it, we would cease to be!
I have a question...... what if I made a theme of a melody without knowing there was one similar... my melody starts with wind storm then you'll hear some strings along with a Norse code and then it takes off but I didn't finish it. One day am working again on it I get frustrated and turn to watch TV when I click on a movie the same theme melody is there.. it's a foreign movie so there is no way I would have subconsciously heard it somehow.. what happens there? I have another too. Where their melody changes by the last notes only... weird... It's like I tapped into somebody else though somehow...
One example that comes to mind is Bring Me The Horizon’s “Nihilist Blues.” Evanescence got a songwriting credit due to BMTH subconsciously “ripping off” their song “Never Go Back.” Oli Sykes actually directly mentions it on “Underground Big {HEADFULOFHYENA}” in the midst of his rambling monologue. And the best part is that the communication between Amy Lee and Oli Sykes led to her being featured on BMTH’s “One Day the Only Butterflies Left Will Be in Your Chest as You March Towards Your Death.”
This could be a many part series, really.
It already is ruclips.net/p/PLlx2eo2tD6KrUTSE_8wp7mAGTPfMV0MBf 😊😊
@@DavidBennettPiano Maybe George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" is there? (Unconsciously lifting the melody line from "One Fine Day").
@@christopherheckman7957.
Do you mean He's So Fine by The Chiffons?
@@APH1991 Yes. I don't know how I got those mixed up.
The Chiffons' record label was so thrilled with the success of 'He's So Fine' that they quickly snapped up Goffin/King's 'One Fine Day' (which was based on a Puccini aria) as a follow-up. When that 'fine' song hit the top 5, the Chiffons' rushed to the studio to record a third song with "fine" in the title ('A Love So Fine'", which even has backing singers singing 'He's so fine, doo-lang doo-lang' in the background), but it peaked at #40. Three songs, all very similar, all written by different people, and Allen Klein bought them all and then sold them to George Harrison for nearly 600,000 dollars. The performers (the Chiffons) remained so poor that they had to work day jobs while performing at the weekend.
Much respect to Tom Petty for not caring to go after Red Hot Chili Peppers for Dani California's similarity to Mary Jane's Last Dance.
he also could have easily won a lot of money by suing Sam Smith for "Stay With Me" (aka "I Won't Back Down") and he chose not to. Tom was a real one.
@@thechief00 Petty did sue Smith and they settled for an undisclosed amount.
Tom Petty has been plagiarized a few times (and maybe he did the same- "Saving Grace" vs ZZ Top). Interestingly, he never showed interest in suing before "stay with me". "Last Night" by the Strokes was admitted plagiarism, they even admitted that it was a tribute to "American girl". "Dani California" is very similar to "Mary Jane". Both times, Tom said 'bless them' and showed no interest in suing. With "Stay with me", a lawsuit was made, and Tom Petty and Jeff Lynn are now credited as co-writers of the Sam Smith song. Tom was very vocal with an explanation, almost an apology for the lawsuit- My guess (this is my own opinion) is that Tom didn't want to sue, but as he was only a co-writer with someone else on "Won't back down", other parties wanted to push the lawsuit.
@@obiwan5999 yeah it was "Last Nite" by the Strokes that I was thinking of, mixed up the songs.
@@thechief00 All good.
You asked for more examples of songs that sound similar. Here's one (and I commented this before on another older video you've uploaded): "Always Thinking of You" by Donna De Lory (from the "Three Men and a Little Lady" soundtrack) sounds almost identical to "Forever Your Girl" by Paula Abdul.
I remember I "wrote" a song with the same melody as Culture Club's song "Victims." I had not heard that song for years & when I heard it one day, I realized that I unconsciously plagiarized their song so I can see how that can happen.
*brilliant song!*
You could argue that Crescent City Blues and Folsom Prison Blues are also inspired by Leadbelly's Midnight Special. Music's not the same, but theme and lyrics are similar.
@ghost mall Led Zeppelin moment
Why unfortunately?
If you could sue for that, country music would be nothing but lawsuits.
The chorus in Crocodile Rock is the verse in Monster Mash. I was in a cover band that blended the two songs.
It should have quoted "See you later, alligator" for additional nostalgia.
I've got two songs I wrote that use parts of existing melodies- one uses the first bit of Amazing Grace before breaking off into a blues riff, and one that uses a basic military marching cadence before breaking off into a blues riff.
Thankfully, those are both open domain... not that I've had any commercial success with them. :/
I'm sure they are great songs. Do you post them publicly?
Man, that piano outro was Marvelous...beautiful notes, an otherworldly feel...😎
Buffalo Soldier/Banana Splits theme
How weird that this just came out, because a couple of days ago my wife was listening to an old NKOTB album and several of the songs had small sections that reminded me of other songs. Two of the songs that I thought were similar are in this video- Bittersweet Symphony and Viva La Vida. The Coldplay and NKOTB albums were released within months of each other
Robin Trower was very open about his being inspired and borrowing from the band WAR's song "Four Cornered Room" to compose his hit "Bridge Of Sighs".
Brand New Heavy's "Dream On, Dreamer" lifts the melody from Prince's "I Wanna Be Your Lover."' I recognized that immediately when I heard the Brand New Heavy's joint.
There are 12 notes, 7 fit together, 5 sound very good together. So it is no wonder, that short parts of songs sound sometimes similar.
Although you're correct about the major scale in the pentatonic scale I would say that as a songwriter it's not that difficult to pull a Melody away from another one. A Melody that similar can also be some in a rhythmic manner that's different than the original to also make it sound different. If it's an accident it's an accident but some of these Melodies I believe were lifted intentionally.
@@edsimnett Its not that simple. Sarcasm...😆🤣😆
@@edsimnett Mathematics aside, rhythm is the trick to originality in music. All styles of music are distinguished by notes played to and against a particular RHYTHM.
tell it to allan holdsworth, monkey boy
Yup, 11 notes really, 5 chords that sound good in sequence plus passing chords. Then you have singers who 99% of the time sing the root and the third. In pop music it's just who got there first. And in a lot of these lawsuits the melodies don't even exactly match.
I can't believe you didn't mention the "He's So Fine" / "My Sweet Lord" lawsuit.
I've actually covered that case in a couple other videos in this series. Check out my "Beatles songs that Rip Off other songs" video 😊😊
@@MikeShawaluk No worries! You can catch the series here: ruclips.net/p/PLlx2eo2tD6KrUTSE_8wp7mAGTPfMV0MBf
He covered that recently in another video.
Do lyrics count? James Taylor's "Something in the way she moves" was used as the start off point for Harrison's "Something", I believe. Completely different songs, though.
@14:12
The Beatles’ Come Together from their last album, Abbey Road borrows some lyrics and similar rhythm to Chuck Berry’s You Can’t Catch Me. The tempo is slowed way down and the lyric that really sticks out is the “here come a flat-top, she come cruisin up slowly…” line.
In the 80s I was in a few bands. One of them we recorded a tape in the guitarists bedroom, still got it somewhere in the attic.
We only ever played one gig, we didn’t do the song in question.
I had a really good synth solo.
Role on to a few years ago, Absolute Radio played a song and the keyboard solo was exactly the same as my one, note for note.
They had never heard my song, but there’s only 12 notes in an octave and only so many ways to use them.
Point being, it’s quite easy to think up your OWN tune only to find out later that others had the same idea previously.
I really thought the example from "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" would be The Black Keys similar melody at the start of "Tighten Up"
According to Wikipedia, the first time a copyright has appeared, it was to be used by the ruling government to have power over the freshly invented printed content. With such a start, no wonder artists sue each over a sentence or a short melody. The copyrights' roots simply are not to defend the original creator, but to exert control.
Wikipedia isn't a reliable source for information.
Bad Finger 'Day After Day' and Joe Jackson 'Breaking Us In Two' always reminded me one to one another...
Another great vid. Thanks David. Always an eye-opener.
Thank you!
I'm half way between 'There are only so many notes and rhythms' and 'They are all just seeing what they can get away with'.
Every time I hear the similarity between the Coldplay and Satriani songs, my brain immediately goes to the chorus of "Hearts" by Marty Balin, which was a hit way back in 1981.
Right? I was very surprised Hearts never came up during that whole business, it's the same melody just over a slightly different chord progression.
I always hear "Hello" by Lionel Richie, from 1983. I think the video nailed it and it's just a natural melody to write over this chord progression.
@@mistabook Hm. I don't really hear that melody in this.
The baseline that starts the song "Sunday Morning" by No Doubt closely resembles the guitar outro from the song "Bad to Me" by Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas. "Bad to Me" was actually written by Lennon and McCartney.
Check out these 2 early 1960s songs: "APACHE" (Jorgen Ingmann 1960 Original Studios Masters) and The Ramrods - "Ghost Riders In The Sky" (1962). Fast forward the Ramrods to 2:28 and pause. Jorgen starts "Apache" with arrow sounds for 8 seconds and ends at 2:55 with the same opening notes. These opening and ending notes of "Apache" are the same as the ending notes of"Ghost..." note for note. I recorded both on an audio cassette and I play it for friends as one song blends into the other. I discovered this in the 1960s and I wrote a letterr to the editor of Goldmine and asked him to have someone investigate it but nothing came of it. I had tried to contact Claire Lane, the Ramrods's drummer for an interview but she declined. This musical mystery lives on.
Gerry Rafferty's 1978 hit "Baker Street" has an unforgettable sax line similar to Steve Marcus's obscure 1968 song "Half a Heart."
As an Australian, it would be downright unpatriotic not to mention "Down Under" by Men At Work, and its flute solo allegedly copying of "Kookaburra" by Marion Sinclair.
Despite both songs being insanely popular, this was only "noticed" after it was mentioned on a TV game show almost 30 years after "Down Under" was released, and 20 years after Sinclair died.
SWV's song "Rain" was sampled from Jaco Pastorius " Portrait of Tracy"
Years ago someone sampled one of my songs without permission. My label said let’s wait and see if their song blows up on the charts and then we’ll take action. It never did so we did nothing.
Well at least you admit profiting of someone else's work.😊
@@jonnawyatt lol read my post again
"Where there's a hit, there's a writ."
If there's no money to be made, it's pointless giving money to those poor, penniless lawyers that make the record industry what it is.
The authors of "You raise me up", performed by Josh Groban, were sued by Icelandic author Jóhann Helgason. He claimed that the song "Söknuður" written by him was the inspiration to "You raise me up". I believe the case was thrown out, but there are similarities between the two songs. Also, both are somewhat similar to "Oh Danny boy".
Mick Jagger and Kieth Richard just went up in my estimation. Resolving the controversy with the Verve in such a magnanimous way was a classy move.
Those royalties are like pennies to them and they did nothing to earn them in the first place, to give them back to the creators of the song which earned them is, to put it most generously, nothing more than basic good manners.
@@badinfluence3814
Yes. But since good manners are so rare these days, Jagger and Richards seem like superheroes just for having that power. 😉
It took them a long time.
Two decades later they quickly resolved the rights issue
@@michaelross1452
As many drugs as Jagger and Richards have taken, I'm surprised if they do anything quickly anymore. 😂
to add to the thing about the Avril Lavigne song, I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend by Lush is a cover of the song by the Rubinoos, which might have also been an inspiration behind Avril’s song. it’s interesting how deep the rabbit hole of that type of song goes
A very recent example is "Tattoo" by Loreen (the Swedish Eurovision entry for this year) being accused of ripping off "Flying Free" (1999) by Pont Aeri, and "В плену" (2005) by Ukrainian singer Mika Newton. To my knowledge, there hasn't been any lawsuits yet, but Newton herself (also a former Eurovision competitor) pointed out the similarity with her own song.
I have never understood why the music industry does not police itself. Why are greedy record companies and tricky lawyers allowed to fool an unknowing jury, with no education in music history, into making a verdict about todays pop music.
Love the subtle shade towards the Creaky Boards in the episode title
Ed Sheeran also had a similar situation. His song *Thinking Out Loud* was said to infringe copyright from Marvin Gaye's song *Let's Get it On* about two months ago.
One example I can think of, Focus's album title track Focus III uses a "bridge" section from "Don't Sleep in the Subway" composed by Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent. As far as I know it never resulted in a court case, the genres of music being so different.
Oh good lord... how have I never noticed this?! 😮
Can't post links, but look these two up:
1. Blinker the Star -- Below the Sliding Doors
2. The Helicopter Of The Holy Ghost - Tony Got A Car (from Afters)
Listen all the way through, to each, and tell me if you think #2 is an homage or a rip off of #1.
When you start composing, by that time you have heard so much music that you can never be sure that what you write may have been there before. I feel it is an absolute nightmare to me thinking that I invest weeks to make up an idea, and a day or more to write it down, and then somebody finds similarities and claims the reward. It is so difficult to say if similarities were on purpose or just chance. I just hope I will never have to deal with that, but I cannot be sure.
I really enjoyed this clip , when one sees this kind of thing on one's feed it's like OK here we go again, it is so good when some one actually cares and puts work into something that is important to those that care about such things.
Madonna's "Beautiful Stranger" is quite similar to "She Comes In Colors " by Love, from many years earlier.
I can't believe Savage Garden ("I want you" ) did not get sued by the composers of "Life is a Rock (but the radio rolled me)" by Reunion. They are even in the same key.
Well, there are only so many keys.
@@IndigoJo 🤔True. But changing the key could help hide things a little better - for those perfect pitch people it's a totally different color.
I could see where you’d think that a lawsuit would succeed here, since they do have a similar “feel” in the fast talking part, and are reminiscent in pitch and overall structure. I’d argue that they are such different styles and themes that it really isn’t an infringement; maybe more of an inspiration.
It's interesting to hear about intellectual property issues in the music industry. It's also a significant concern in some other industries, and the different perspectives are valuable.
There’s another one that borrowed from another song called “Saint Paul” by Terry Knight in 1969, but it borrowed other Beatles’ songs like “Hey Jude”, “All You Need Is Love”, “Hello Goodbye”, “Strawberry Fields Forever”, “Lovely Rita”, “A Day In The Life” and “She Love You” without permission from Lennon & McCartney. That was around that time the whole “Paul Is Dead” rumor took place.
the stupidest one is Down Under vs. Kookaburra. Kookaburra was written for an Australian Girl Scout organization. A big company bought the rights and proceeded to sue Men At Work over the flute riff in the song
I mean, they did take the melody 🤷🏾♂️
@@JediKnightmare No, the flute player PLAYED ONE BAR quoting the super-familiar beginning single line of the kookaburra melody. AND ONLY in his little flute solo/break, not in the song's verse or chorus. It was an amusing "patriotic" quote. Most people including the flutist thought Kookaburra was a folk song, of course. But neither the melody of Down Under nor the whole rest of the song ever bore the slightest resemblance to Kookaburra
I can't remember if you've ever talked about how Sublime's "What I Got" ripped off The Beatles' "Lady Madonna." I'm always surprised that that one rarely gets mentioned in conversations about plagiarism. It's so blatant. Maybe it's because it's not one of The Beatles big hits. My apologies if you've already talked about it.
And I can hear what you mean but I think the Sublime song is adequately different. Similar though!!
Lady Madonna was copied from a Humphrey Lytellton band record. HL said,"It was just a Boogie-Woogie,piano riff and we stole it so why sue?"
Yes a complete rip off.
Has much more the feel of 'Loser' by Beck. (and heard no resemblance to The Beatles)
“Don’t You Think I’m Sexy” was a note for note lift . Harmony parts in instrumental arrangements are tough to prove .
I wrote a simple horn introduction for a song my band was performing. The first time we were due lto play it I heard another band on the same gig play it in one of their songs. There was no way I would have heard this before but there you are. I decided to drop our intro as I didn’t want to be accused of nicking it.
A couple of my favorite examples of this:
"My Sweet Lord" by George Harrison, which David covered before. The Chiffons actually released their own version of "My Sweet Lord" afterwards, which I think stands up as a great song on its own.
"Deja Vu" which sampled the bass line from Steely Dan's "Black Cow" and ended up having the writing credits for "Deja Vu" assigned for Becker and Fagen of Steely Dan.
The earlier video with My Sweet Lord and He's so Fine:
ruclips.net/video/t4ITk0yrISc/видео.html
Wrong !!! George always said he was sued for the wrong song. He stated the song he had in mined was Oh Happy Days.
@@BobGeogeo wrong see my post below. George said it was Oh Happy Days and was sued for the wrong song
@@pandaman1968 agreed. In the Chiffons version of "my sweet lord", they use both sets of lyrics to really show that they are the same song.
@@BeatlesTranscriber Your entire focus seems more on bring right than setting the record straight. You could throw in your information without being a jerk about it.
The Offspring's "why don't you go get a job" borrows heavily from the Beatles "ob la di ob la da"
Very interesting video! Need to find it: the great instrumental tune Europa, by Carlos Santana is almost note for note the same as an older Brazilian romantic song. I forgot the title, I only remember the word "aniversário" in the lyrics, meaning either birthday or anniversary.
no wonder as this is exactly the purpose of Santana, to play melodic latin lines in a rock context.
@@metacosmos oh yes, that's true. Latin and blues rock.
I always thought Bittersweet Symphony actually shares a slight resemblance with the classical piece “In The Hall Of The Mountain King”, and I’m beginning to wonder if that’s where Andrew got his original inspiration from for The Last Time.
I'm really aging myself here, but I remember there was a time when it was really popular to blend together existing hit songs into a new(ish) hit song. Some Mashups were just fun sounding combinations while some showed how similar the melodies were.
It's called songwriting
Indeed. 'He's so Fine' was an example of a song that was essentially a pastiche of other popular tunes. It was turned down by around 10 labels for being too formulaic. But after it hit number one, Goffin and King, stalwarts of Tin Pan Alley, were called in to write a couple of follow-up songs that sounded just like it. They even used the "Doo-Lang, doo-lang, doo-Lang" hook that had been on the sheet music of the first recording. As I understand it, Tin Pan Alley songwriters spent 10 hours a day bashing out "cover versions that are a little bit different" in the hope of 'writing' the next big hit. Leiber and Stiller, Goffin/King, and Holland/Dozier/Holland at Motown were essentially just the best at churning out "rehashes" of earlier hits. Talent borrows, genius steals.
12:44 "The Songs I Didn't Write" haha, how ironic
😂😂
An early song by the Cars “When you come Back Down “ is ridiculously close to the Velvet Underground’s “Here She Comes Now”
The Beach Boys' "Surfin' USA" borrowed the music and melody from Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen".
It was so similar (and deliberate) that the Beach Boys' manager, Murray Wilson, gave the publishing rights to Chuck Berry's publisher before the song was even released.
The original writing credit went to Brian Wilson, but was changed to Chuck Berry a few years later. Eventually, it went to Chuck Berry-Brian Wilson.
Surely at some point we simply run out of melodies that are pleasing to the ear and there music dies or nobody makes any money any more. It is completely plausible to write an exact melody that someone has written before without ever knowing or hearing that song.
Music is evolving closer and closer to its final form: a I V vi IV over a 909 kick drum.
The surname Davies in Britain, though sometimes pronounced DAY-veez, is often pronounced DAY-vis or DAY-viz or DAY-vəs. Ray Davies pronounces his surname as DAY-viz (with the z being weakly pronounced).
Rod Stewart sings “Oh, Georgie’s dead” in his “The Killing of Georgie Part II” to the tune of “don’t let me down” in “Don’t Let Me Down” by The Beatles. John Lennon noticed (though in an 1980 interview he misremembered which song had copied his) but said that “the lawyers never noticed” and he didn’t care to sue.
Mexican 80’s band Timbiriche sampled Mike & the Mecanic’s “All I need is a Miracle” in their song “Si no es Ahora”. Also, Thalia’s “Love” samples Rozalla’s “Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)” I wonder if anything happened to those two.
Thanks! This is very interesting, some are outright copies, others are kinda vague, it's hard, it would seem to have a consistent standard of rules. I mean, it's only so many sounds right?!?
Honestly, all these songs have more or less very simplistic melodies consisting of scalar passages or arpeggiated passages. Well, that is basically the bread and butter of every musical piece ever composed. So it really is expected that songs will sound like others. Consequently its always going to be the case that one composer will be suing another for plagiarism.
People like to cry "rip off" but it's right there on the screen. A 4 chord progression plus a linear melody that runs up and down the scale within the singers limited range. Or you get a chord progression with a root, 3rd and 5th arpeggio. It's like suing because someone made a house with a door and a window on the front.
Unless you are Bach, every songwriter derives a new song from a previous song. Although I'm sure Bach had his inspiration as well. If you trace the evolution of music it must go back to the songbirds, the beating of our hearts and the cadence of the waves as the original authors of music.
Oh I'm a massive Bach fan but I did read that he may have gotten a lot from Vivaldi (whom I also worship).
indeed there are some truly massive original artists out there like bach (stevie wonder, nina simone, ellington, etc...) but we are all influenced by the matter around us. i think the universe offers up little nuggets here and there...those that are tuned a little more attentively can tap into that without interference, others get a little interference here and there (by interference i mean to suggest songs floating around in the ether at the time of your creation). for me this more easily explains why we cannot go from Bach to Ellington, we need those hundreds of years in between to slowly add on to the larger canon of music...one small drop at a time. some wholly original drops, some slight dervitive, some wholly derivitive.
Yeah, Bach is not a good example! A lot of his music is either arrangements of works by other composers (such as the organ concertos based on Vivaldi and Johann Ernst), or works based on Lutheran hymn tunes (although the parts we remember are Bach's additions, not the underlying hymn), or things he wrote down somewhere that were mistakenly attributed to him (such as the famous Minuet in G, the "Lover's Concerto" tune).
@@MXB2001 I think that it was the opposite actually. That is how I remember it. Because Vivaldi was such a fan of Bach. He got alot of inspiration from Bach ... I think I saw it in a documentary about the 4 Seasons. i think that you can find it here on youtube.
The monks that did Gregorian chants should sue Sting (and Enigma and anyone that uses a lot of major chords, for that matter).
I’m interested in the usage of an instrumental hook in other songs , as they often become the most recognisable parts of the song eg the guitar riff in ‘You Sexy Thing’ by Hot Chocolate is the main hook of the song , yet the guitarist is not credited as songwriter. Similar to the Rod Stewart case , Robbie Williams ‘Love Supreme’ lifts the string solo section from ‘I Will Survive’
They probably have an agreement amongst the bandmates.
George Harrison's Something borrowed the first line from James Taylor's"Something in the way she moves". George probably heard it being worked on when James Taylor worked in the same studio as The Beatles.
This was fascinating. Of course there's a whole minor industry of unknown musicians who regularly sue the writers of big hit songs for plagiarism but they're usually tossed out unless they can prove a connection where the hit songwriter would have been aware of their song. I believe you've already covered the suit over Radiohead's Creep and the Hollies' The Air That I Breathe (written by Albert Hammond who sang It Never Rains in Southern California). A legal precedent was recently established that made it clear that a chord progression cannot be the subject of a lawsuit in the case of a member of the 60s band Spirit vs Led Zeppelin over Stairway to Heaven.
Here’s a really interesting one:
Beyoncé song “Halo” vs Kelly Clarkson song “Already Gone”
Both were co-written by Ryan Tedder
Songwriters reusing the same melodies/progressions for different songs is a really good video idea actually.
He did a video like this already. Taylor Swift's chord progressions are mostly the exact same few
You've told me about that before, still ironic that both songs were written by the same guy
Ryan Tedder is a truly skilled musician.
@@scpjack7856 john fogerty from credence clearwater revival was sued for plagiarizing himself!
Most people know of this, Huey Lewis and News Sued Ray Parker Jr for Ghostbusters, it said it copied New Drug.
David, would you tackle Kansas's "Carry On, Wayward Son" and Journey's "I'm Gonna Leave You" please? Check the release dates of the respective albums and the fact that Journey opened for Kansas in 1975 when Kansas was touring for their third album and Journey their first.
There's a funny story in Keith Richards' autobiography about the Stones song "Anybody Seen My Baby" from their Bridges to Babylon album. According to Richards: "My daughter Angela and a friend were at Redlands and I was playing the record and they start singing this totally different song over it. They were listening to k.d. lang's 'Constant Craving.' It was Angela and her friend that recognized it." Keith goes on to say that it was Mick who came up with the melody, and he unknowingly copied lang's melody. The Stones acknowledged Lang and her co-writer Mink as co-writers. Lang said she was "completely honored and flattered" by receiving the songwriting credit. From Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anybody_Seen_My_Baby%3F
As far as I know it's the only case of the stones "ripping off" another melody
@@whiskeywolfgang I hope you're not being serious. The Rolling Stones are infamous for ripping off other musicians. For example, the melody of "The Last Time" was lifted directly from "This May Be the Last Time," by the Staples Singers. They also stole two Robert Johnson songs, "Love in Vain” and “Stop Breakin’ Down."
@@danriess3858 As for the obert Johnson songs, they are covers, as are many of the songs from their early days. Johnson is credited and there is no attempt to disguise the similarity.
That shows class.
There's an even wilder case I recently learned of, about a songwriter who hadn't expected the credit.
Judy Collins was the first to put "Me And My Uncle" on a record. She credited John Phillips of the Mamas and Papas as writer but, when he got the royalty, he phoned her up to say he didn't even know the song and doubted it was his! What Ms. Collins picked up & used wasn't a phrase or passage or chord progression or even melody, but the whole entire song. She told him um dude we were in the same room when you sort of ad-libbed it, and luckily someone had a tape deck. There was tequila.