5 Famous Guitar Riffs That Are Ripped Off
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- Опубликовано: 14 май 2024
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In this video we're analyzing some classic riffs everyone knows and find out that maybe it's not written by who you think it is!
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0:00 Riff 1
1:31 Riff 2
4:25 Riff 3
6:18 Riff 4.1
7:30 Riff 4.2
9:51 Electric Elevation
10:51 Riff 5
Hi, my name is Paul Davids! I am a guitar player, teacher, producer, and overall music enthusiast from the Netherlands! I try to inspire people from all over the world with my videos, here on RUclips.
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Everybody knows that Johnny B Goode was first played by Calvin Klein in 1955
Exactly!😂
In France, it was played by Pierre Cardin, the very same year.
@@FrancoisKerisitcette traduction n'empêche
🤣
The very first inspiration came in 1855 by Clint Eastwood. Never recorded it though...
-no intro
-no nonsense
-straight to the topic
-legendary beard
perfect video
you summed up paul davids youtube channel
His beard has always had that quality of epicness.
Watch and learn, Music is Win!!
The beard is truly epic indeed.
That beard is getting meaty, ngl
Chuck wrote in his autobiography that you took something good and "worked on it until it became original." And he actually mentioned that the JBG lick came from a song he knew from years ago.
Yes I'm sure he did
Nothing wrong with that, as long as you acknowledge it.
And then sued The Beach Boys for doing what he did?
@@Fishmorph He gets a writing credit on the single Surfin' USA. So he has nothing to complain about. OTOH, Chuck Berry is a fairly creepy guy IRL.
As well as musicians inspiring other musicians, every musician these days knows the feeling of writing the best piece you’ve ever made then realizing it’s literally just the last song you listened to
Unconscious plagiarism blights our lives. That said, I'm reminded that when Paul McCartney came up with the tune to Yesterday in his head one morning, he was convinced it must be someone else's song, so he reportedly hummed the tune to several people to see if they recognised it. When no one did, he ascertained that he had written it in his sleep. I wish I could do that. I always wake up with other people's songs as my earworms.
😂😂😂
“The 1-4-5 from the blues, the 2-5-1 from the jazz, the 808 from hip-hop” - what a good line!
I don't get the 808 from hip hop, can you explain me please?!
@@merlinrabiller-lahaye6343 the 808 is a classic Roland drum machine that defined the classic hip hop sound of the 80s. :)
@@merlinrabiller-lahaye6343 I think what he means is the 808 sound of early hip hop was itself derived from the same roots eighties metal used. Saying that Iron Maiden copied 80's hip hop is funny because the 808 sound came from the same source as the 80s metal sound. They are cousins.
"My dream is to fly, over the rainbow so high"@@Bacopa68
@@Bacopa68the TR-808 was a flop when it first launched. The hi hats were described as "a bunch of marching anteaters". Many of the units ended up in pawn shops being sold for cheap. Hip hop artists in the ghetto found that even though the hi hats were trash, the bass drum could "boom boom shake the room" and so one man's trash became another's treasure. Then the usual thing happened. Everyone wanted one and now if you have to ask what an original TR-808 costs, you can't afford one.
"Lets just call it inspiration and move on." Very sound advice. Excellent video, Paul.
Yes! Why do these people always talk about music being stolen? Who wouldn't love Nirvana or the Beatles or Led Zeppelin being inspired by your music? I would be thrilled!
@tomm1413 ikr, like I absolutely think that og songs deserve some form of credit, but it's not stealing as long as your not copying a whole song.
Plus I would be very happy if someone remixed a song of mine (if I had one)
@@tomm1413it’s more that people say that everything nowadays is stolen while the past was just as ‘bad’. Sampling and inspiration was everywhere. It’s how music has always worked.
Can we talk about Buddy Guy’s “Mary Had A Little Lamb” sounding almost exactly like Freddie King’s “Just Picking”??
Plagiarism is theft, plain and simple.... Calling theft "inspiration" is like calling rape "sex"....but I am sure all of you RUclips commentators are part-time Copyright Attorneys .....let's just "move on"....lol
I know this video is a few months old but for riff 5 I think it started with Deep Purples "Burn". It's completely impeccable. That track came out in 1974
Love this! I used to get caught up in artists “stealing” riffs but I’ve honestly broadened my view. If an artist can take something and make it their own then by all means. There is definitely still such a thing as “stealing” a song but most of these weren’t. Great vid
I once wrote a song and when I played it to my guitarist he said: "Yeah, man I don't know, that sounds a lot like Sultans of Swing". And there I was, Sultans of Swing being one of my favorite all time tune . I had been so immersed into the creation and so proud of the result that I was completely oblivious to the blatant influence it had on this tune I wrote
I once wrote a song and when I showed it to my friend he told me the verse was something he used to play when we roomed together, although in a different key. I had no idea I copped something I had already heard
Had the same exact thing with More than a Feeling :) But I actually never consciously heard the song, and when my buddies said "man, you're playing Boston" and I had no clue what were they talking about ;)
Something almost similar but not really happened with me as well. Couple of years ago i was having fun with my guitar, trying to come up with something new, played a couple of chords and what not, a rhythm was being created, a few minutes later a was writing down some lyrics as well. Recorded the whole thing, sent it to a friend of mine so ue can give me his feedback, he calls me and tells me "hmm, this reminds me of a song i listened to a long time ago, the intro sounds a lot like it" told him that i wasn't inspired or copied another song. Long story short, few days later he sends me a link to Rewind by Paolo Nutini, and the intro and main riff are THE EXACT SAME, it's like i did a copy-paste of it but i didn't. I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that without even knowing the artist nor having listened to the song, i ended up writing the exact same riff and intro.
No5 was the peak of the video I couldn't stop laughing 😅
I mean If your going to do that, what a song to accidentally emulate!
Blackmore is kind of notorious for messing with interviewers. My favourite bit was when he explained to a journalist how his mother was a gypsy and had taught him all manner of superstitions and magical rituals and that his dad had worked at the airport.
Very interesting, excellent analysis with creative demo. I do wonder whether all the guitarists mentioned were fully aware (as we know at least one of them was) of the original riff you identify. If not, it's evidence of how musical riffs can turn up in creative people at different times even if one is not aware of the predecessor. That is, independent discovery, which happens in visual art as well.
Hi Paul, love the bit. Just recently discovered your site. I agree, music is music, let it go. I know there are some cases where musicians specifically copied songs or rifs and were settled in court. Check out the opening bass line to “Hey man nice shot” (Filter) and main guitar rif in “Keep away from me” (Godsmack)
Adding the 'Come As You Are' vocals over 'Eighties' and 'Life Goes On' sounded brilliant.
That’s what I was thinking. Hope there’s someone more talented than me who can make the full song as some kind of mash-up 😊
Man, I loved that one. Killing Joke and The Damned were amongst my favorites in HS and college. Especially The Damned. New Rose is jam (that's not mentioned, btw). I wish Captain Sensible, Damned bassist was mentioned, he should be more iconic than he is.
I remember catching part of Rosie O' Donnel's " talk show" I think approximately twenty years ago , where she sang a superimposition of the lyrics to " Amazing Grace " over the melody of the " Theme for Gilligan's Island " and IT WORKED !!!
and then add “22 faces “ by Garden of delight
Yeah sounded better thatn any thing Nirvana ever did!
Coming up with something that hasn’t been done can be difficult but it also gives some insight to why we guitar players gravitate to innovators who do something fresh and new that we can’t categorize.
Well said!
Rock and its fans sensibilities have all the attributes of trad folk music but there is a bizarre pretension for originality. All Bluegrass is ripping off Doc Watson but no one cares. Countless blues songs are fundamentally the same song but if a rock band imitates it they owe the blues man money somehow. A musical style is unoriginal by nature of what it is but because it's always been a commodity, rock in most people's minds must always be evolving. I think the real IP is the performance. There are only so many frets and people like repetition and sameness because we're cultural by nature.
That’s what made bands like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen and Rush (and many others) so amazing when they broke onto the scene.
Coming up with something that hasn't been done before? Good luck with that in 2023.
Just because you haven't heard of something or the composer hasn't heard of something does not mean the musical idea - or at least something remarkably similar - has not been recorded by someone already. There are easily 100+ million songs. Most of them are in 4/4 and make use of pentatonic scale or major scale or some of its modes. There are only limited number of possible combinations and even fewer combinations that sound good with a given harmony. Of course there are some truly obscure and weird songs out there, but I wouldn't say people gravitate towards them.
I think most musicians deserve the benefit of a doubt what comes to plagiarism. Once you have written a riff that is 1:1 identical to someone's else riff you'll understand. In my case I came up the riff first but never published it. I thought it was tremendously boring, so I was quite shocked when I heard the exact same riff on my father's Spotify playlist. 😄
Made me question my life choices a little bit though...
This was a great video man, you should make this a series, as I’m sure there are countless other examples.
You can start very early in musical history. Let's turn to the melody.
The “Palästinalied” (Palestine Song), a crusade song written by Walther von der Vogelweide (13th century), has a melody based on a 12th century song by the troubadour Jaufre Rudel.
Johann Sebastian Bach used for his “O Haupt Voll Blut Und Wunden” the melody of an old profane song by Hans Leo Hassler.
And so on and so on.
But be careful. The group “(The) Soft Machine” took their name from the title of a novel by William S. Burroughs (1961).
Already in 1957 published the Dutch poet Leo Vroman a poem starting with the line “De mens is een zachte machine” (Man is a soft machine).
That Vroman inspired Burroughs is very unlikely. As far as I know, Burroughs couldn’t read Dutch.
So did Vroman know “a soft machine” as a standard expression ? In American English ? - I don’t know of such an expression in Dutch. Perhaps an American can enlighten me.
Be careful with A influenced B. It’s always tricky, when such influence is not confirmed - as “Soft Machine”-members always did concerning their band name.
(Listen also to “Truckin’” by “The Grateful Dead” in which the expression “soft machine” is also taken from Burroughs' text.)
The second half of the guitar solo in Johnny B Goode (the part with the breaks) is also 100% lifted from a T Bone Walker guitar solo from 1949 or 1950.
Almost all the guitarists that followed him were more or less influenced by T Bone Walker, one of the first to make electric guitar popular. He is the grandfather of them all.
Well, you know what they say;
“Talent borrows, but genius steals”!
@@samansun He probably lifted it from someone else, and it probably goes back 100 times before anything was recorded.
Could be true as there's no way to know now. One thing we know is that you need an electric guitar to play those licks, the first explorers of which were Charlie Christian and T-Bone Walker, that narrows the possibility from100 to almost none.@@chalkandcheese1868
And the opening riff of Johnnie B. Goode is lifted from Robert Johnson's I Believe I'll Dust My Broom (1936) and Elmore James' Dust My Broom (1951).
Mentioning Budgie makes Paul even more of a legend than he already was
Ah Budgie, I remember them supporting Gillan who had just hired a young ex White Spirit guitarist Mr J. Gers.
I saw Budgie at the Texas theater a long time ago...I still have some vinyl somewhere in the closet... :p
The riff from Breadfan is one of my all time favourites.
@@neilhutchison3338rhcp Around The World is a LOT like Breadfan
Zoom Club!! 🤟
I always knew about Killing Joke/Nirvana but didn't know about The Damned doing it first! You truly can learn something new every day.
Killing Joke was very underrated
The Damned have some seriously good stuff
Love Song, classic punk.
The damned are an incredible band, I strongly urge you to check them out if you haven't. They were hands down the best of the first wave of British punk, and they were sincere unlike the sex pistols. I've been of the mind that the sex pistols are basically just a well timed corporate plant, and I hate that they get all the attention from that scene. The clash are a good band too but I never fully got into them, I don't know why I just don't like their stuff too much. I have a lot of respect for Joe Strummer though, I just had a hard time getting into their music overall - but the damned are incredible. The black album and Machine Gun Etiquette are such fantastic albums (MGE is my personal fav but their first two albums are great too, their self titled first release is iconic AF so I am not trying to throw shade). The damned were the first actual British punk band to release music so they totally deserve all the credit everyone just hands to the pistols. (And let's be real, Johnny rotten is a horrible POS that has totally proven time and time again that he is just out here to be a contrarian that just pisses people off for attention. I like the first few records he made with Public Image Ltd but I really dislike him as a person overall)
@@oggabobyeah they do. They're incredible. I find myself going back to them, Joy Division, The Cure, and Bauhaus the most out of all the British punk bands. Bauhaus is my personal favorite musically but I have quite an affinity for the damned, they just kick ass man.
Very pleased to hear The Damned mentioned. So often Killing Joke are the only comparison given. It feels like a petty that The Damned didn't make more of that baseline than throw it away on a filler track on the Strawberries album, particularly as they are my favourite band of all time and made me aware that there was a totally different scene outside 'the hit parade' back in the early '80s. Well worth the 15 miles walk home after my first time seeing them live.
Also pleased that the Damned got a mention relating to the Nirvana/Killing Joke comparison. I've always called this out on the side of The Damned. As far as I'm concerned, it's their riff. Never viewed it as filler though. I love Strawberries as an album. It's always sat in my top five favourite long players. Can't wait to see them playing Black Album and Strawberries in December with Rat back behind the drums. I'm so stoked for this gig!
@stegra5960 I was looking at a similar walk home after I missed the last train home after the gig first time I saw them in '86. But I thought "bollocks to that!" And kipped in a bus shelter outside the train station, then got the first train home in the morning!
Captain Sensible doesn’t get the credit he deserves as a sh*t hot guitarist! He absolutely kills it on “Machine Gun Etiquette”, “The Black Album” and “🍓 🍓 🍓”!
I'm also a big Damned fan, though onto other songs of theirs.... The Damned's In Dulce Decorum sounds extremely similar to the earlier Stranglers song Duchess.
Congratulations
loved this video.. gonna spend some of my free time watching more of your videos for sure! thank You so much. warm regards from Portugal
I can't believe Chuck Berry ripped off Marty McFly 😡
The kids weren't ready for Marty so somebody had to do it later.
Marty literally gave Berry permission to use it
All because of his cousin Marvin.. Marvin Berry!
It's Marvin's fault. He's the one who called Chuck.
Paul, your demeanour is always so warm and lovely. Don't ever change. Thanks for all you do. 🤘🎸
Paul is the Bob Ross of guitar. (The beard is like his Afro)
@@Prossdogomg you're right!
Well said Mark.
Paul would be an absolute joy too get lessons with, I mean pretty great here on RUclips but in person would be something else.
Again, love this guy. Wish I could spend more time on this channel.
Last one was a real stretch to me.
Great video! Very fair and educated analysis of each riff. So many variations of the riff for 2 minutes to midnight (a few I never heard before) but Adrian Smith still plays it with the best groove and tone. 🤘
Iron maiden are horrible!!!!
@@Patrick-fj4vz 100 million record sales doesn't back up your claim😊😊
It is no surprise that 2 minutes to midnight is similar to White Spirits song as Janick Gers was White Spirits guitarist and the band was awesome. I like it more than Iron Maiden.
@@kkarx 2 minutes was written by Smith about 5 or 6 years before Janick joined Maiden so that isn't the reason at all
I love that Paul says "Curse of the Pharaohs" as "Curse of the Ferry-o's" because a metal album based on cursed breakfast cereal sounds amazing.
Let's do it! Cursed Breakfast Cereal themed metal album. A million quatloos to the first to achieve this.
John Lennon quote, "Amateurs borrow, professionals steal." Classic - especially since it was (in this case paraphrased) from T.S. Eliot. Way to meta go, John!
I've heard that attributed to a lot of people, sometimes as "good artists borrow, great artists steal." Regardless, it's the truth: stealers make it their own.
I thought it was Picasso who said that.
That's a false statement.
It was Picasso. And the quote is " only amateurs wait for inspiration "
@@sabbathjackal So, you're sure John Lennon never said it?
I like the Dylan lyric based on that idea, steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king.
You should know that I recently picked up learning to play again, after an unsuccessful attempt 3 years ago, and that's largely in part to a few videos of yours that popped up. I have a piano background anyway and missed playing music but your channel is brilliant and just the sort of thing I needed to reignite that spark, and more importantly keep my interest high while I'm waiting on my fingers toughening up again! Keep it up man, and thanks
I really enjoy these type of Videos from Paul, he's got such a Calm manner and delivery
We have to remember that this obsession with having to create something completely original is a fairly modern development, and I suspect really took-off after the "My Sweet Lord" lawsuit. Back in the 60s, 50s and earlier, it wasn't so frowned-upon to use riffs, chord progressions, rhythms, motifs from other songs. At some point since the 1970s (possibly due to Punk) being seen as even slightly unoriginal became a cardinal sin.
True. Even Chuck Berry himself used this riff on multiple of his songs
George Harrison had a lot of money............
@@cidDraGonFly He defended himself in court but admitted it's possible he'd internalized the Shirelles melody and unknowingly wrote My Sweet Lord using it.
Actually he claimed it was the song “Oh Happy Day” that was his inspiration for “My Sweet Lord”.
What you say is just what always happened in classical music, thus the "variations" genre.
Once I listened to an album my bro gave to me, and one of the songs had the exact riff - the EXACT riff - that the band I played in at the time used for the chorus to one of our songs. Our singer, who wrote the riff, had never heard that song before.
There’s just not too much variation you can really get from 12 notes, especially when you’re playing blues-influenced music that relies on five notes.
Great point.
I heard that’s what happened with the Art of Noise cover of the Peter Gunn theme. One of the members was like “hey check out this bass riff I came up with” and the other members were like “yeah that’s the Peter Gunn theme,” and he had no clue.
There are unlimited variations for those 12 notes
@@macaretos5783 Like The Library of Babel does for words, only here it's for music.
@@alexgrunde6682That didn’t happen.
That replay with pitch and tempo change is hilarious……especially when layered together. That’s a great tool…😎👍
This is my favorite video of yours. It’s humble and not judgmental despite the slightly click bait title. Thanks.
I always took the "Revolution" riff as a homage to the old blues/rock -- I don't think they were pretending to be plowing new ground.
Yep as an ode to the generation of music they loved as they saw music having a “revolution” that’s just how I took it but maybe it was just random shit mashed together between the band to make greatness like in the get back documentary 😂
Yea everyone was doing that type of riff back in those days. There’s tons of artists using that minor/ major pentatonic chuck Barry intro.
I don't think Beatles opening riffs should be considered part of the song. As a band used to playing live they just needed an instantly memorable opening so that muscle memory would kick in and they'd all come in on the beat and the song proper would begin. And btw I always thought Lennon was quoting/channeling Chuck Berry with that opening. If the song proper seemed to be copying someone else then I'd be interested - acknowledged covers aside of course.
@@MrSwanley "I don't think Beatles opening riffs should be considered part of the song." This is one of the more laughable things I've read on RUclips. Congrats.
John Lennon paid so much "homage" to Chuck Berry's music (among others) that he had to record several covers (Rock 'n' Roll) from the catalogue of the publisher who owned the music in order to settle a lawsuit against him for plagiarism. So there's that.
As a kid, my dad introduced me to Led Zep by pointing out the similarities between one of my faves - Franz Ferdinand's Take Me Out and Led Zep's Trampled Under Foot
*cough* Jimmy Page repeatedly ripped off Bert Jansch particularly with 'Black Mountain Side', which bears an uncanny resemblance to 'Blackwaterside' *cough*
There's a bit of Atomic by Blondie in there too.
@@pedeyw And Good Old Fashioned Loverboy by Queen too
Funny thing is Zep ripped Trampled Underfoot from the Doobies. Listen to Long Train Runnin’ then Trampled Underfoot lol
Not even close
Great video Paul, I like looking into this sort of topic. 😀👍
This was presented very well! You caught me off guard with the first track!
I have so much unreleased unprofessionally recorded and ultimately unfinished riffs and song ideas I could be ripping myself off and nobody would know, not even me!!
Great content as always, thank you Paul!
So pleased that you mentioned The Damned - a lot of people know about the Killing Joke link, but fewer know about The Damned before them. Great video, I didn't know about some of these. The Smoke on the Water mash-up sounds cool!
I had heard that Come As You Are was very similar to Eighties (the latter being fairly well-known and being the theme song of Fox's short-lived sitcom That Eighties Show) but I didn't know that it was similar to a song by The Damed. The Damned, of course, directly copied The Stooges song "1970" for their track "I Feel Alright," which is really just a cover with a few changed lyrics.
@@elliottcovert3796ok but they at least credited the stooges for that song on the album it's from though
@@elliottcovert3796"I feel alright", was a cover of the original Stooges song with an altered title, not a rip off
Great video, Paul. I will check out your course and thanks for reminding me what a great track I Feel Fine is!
I don’t usually enjoy RUclipsrs but this was not only interesting, but fun and really kept my attention! I’d love to see more of these!,,Cheers!
Thank you for this video. With all of the lawsuits going on lately over who owns what sound, this video really puts into perspective that musicians inspire musicians and playing can be similar, yet not meant to cause others injury, especially if the person getting inspiration is a genuine admirer.
As the saying goes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
The Come A You Are riff can be found on 22 Faces by Garden of Delights, too, also from 1984 and released a few months before Killing Joke’s version.
The first guitar used in this video was ripped off my dreams. 🥰
Very good demonstration.
Getting a like for including the Damned. Had me thinking you weren’t going to make that connection at first but you came through 👍
That Gretsch is very pretty
Yeah it is
So many people believe Rock and Roll started with Chuck Berry, Elvis etc when Louis Jordan was effectively playing pretty much what we'd call Rock and Roll back in the 40s. These were amongst the first recoding to make guitar prominent as a solo instrument as well as a Rhythm instrument - they have a modern feel and quality considering when they were done. Jordan was very much a pioneer, popular in the day and still appreciated today. The fact that Joe Bonamassa has covered the Jordan tune "Let the Good Times Roll" is a testimony to the timelessness of his work. Definitely to be recommended!
Jordan was rock and roll man. Straight ahead 4/4 no swing just stomp.
Big, BIG Louie Jordan fan. Big influence on me and my playing. Guy was just smooth.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
Ive found "Rock and Roll" as a musical term in an Ella Fitzgerald song from 1937 _Rock it for Me_
I still listen to Louis Jordan all the time. IMO best music of the 20th century- or at least the most enjoyable.
Great Video. I really love your perspective on this. Inspiration happens.
The Moody Blues' intro to the song Story In Your Eyes was released in 1971, and might have been the original inspiration for Two Minutes To Midnight. Both great tunes.
yes exactly the same.
Rory Gallagher Moonchild is totally the same lol
Reo riding the storm out
@@piggyroo100my sister always sings riding the storm out over my playing of story in your eyes 🤣
@@ethanellis9875 I like to sing Piano man over Edmund Fitzgerald
Blackmore's riff in 'Burn' is also identical to the main melody in Gershwin's "Fascinating Rhythm"
Which is also similar to the riff in I Stole Your Love by Kiss.
Yes Ritchie has stated that he took Gershwin's melody and made it into a rock riff. He's pretty much admitted to anything he stole or borrowed. Have a listen to Rock Star by Warpig, let me know which Deep Purple song it reminds you of.
Exactly!
Mind blow! Thank you. Liked and subscribed!
nice job Paul..I always thought that Octopus's Garden and Don't Let Me Down had the same intro..LOL
Another fun video! Thanks!
I try hard to not plagiarize, but I often write songs by playing a favorite from someone else, and then trying to go a different direction while keeping the same feeling/vibe.
That was very enlightening. Well researched. Well presented. Loved every second of it.
Marty McFly played Johnny B. Goode live even before Chuck Berry wrote it! 😆😂🤣
Haha, touche :-D Not to mention was the sole creator of metal!
👏😆Exactly!
If Marty copied Johnny B. Goode from Chuck, and Chuck copied it from Marty (over the phone, thanks to his cousin Marvin), who wrote it originally?
On a guitar that had not yet been produced at that.
Great content Paul, i always enjoy watching , i get a kick out of what youll come up with next . Its like i tell everyone who asks , theres always someone who did it before you , its all been done . Keep up the great work.
Not that you needed another comparison, but also Welcome to Hell by Venom is another one of those double stop riffs that always stuck out to me. Great video!
Great video, really well put together and delivered. Fascinating, and i love to see where people drew their inspiration. Arctic monkeys Arabella and war pigs by sabbath is a great one as well. Thanks!
The riff from 2 Minutes To Midnight has been used in a zilljon other rock songs in a variety of keys with mostly the basic rhythm but with different chords.
Yeah, it's basically an muted open string chug and a double stop rhythm variation.
Tbh i didnt see it anywhere in that exact form
Check out the opening riff from 'the story in your eyes' by the Moody Blues'. Predates all Paul's examples as it came out in 1971. Justin Rocks
I mean Iron Maiden self-plagiarised a lot too. They pretty much created a career out of Em-C-D. Its quite inspirational how much mileage they got out of it. I was learning Hallowed be Thy Name the other day and I was stunned that this 7 minute song has a dozen riffs in it that all pretty much use Em-C-D. There's a lesson in there for all of us!
@@fathuman in roman numerals that would be i bVI bVII as they used that chord progression in every minor key known to man.
Another prime example is Aces High and, indeed, numerous other Steve Harris-written Maiden songs.
The Argentinian band "Riff" (with the legendary guitarist Pappo) also uses that "2 minutes to midnight" riff on their song "La espada Sagrada", amazing video as always Paul!
you really caught me off guard with the first one! Always thought that was a new riff with nothing similar to it.
Thank you, THANK YOU, for remembering The Damned when it comes to Come as You Are... Criminally overlooked band.
One thing I like about this video is how open you leave the interpretation of what occurred. Too often people just conclude something was intentionally taken when it seems to me that so much music is part of an ongoing vocabulary of music (every time someone gets accused of ripping off this or that melody, inevitably people find earlier examples, and then continue to find further examples). I think this is largely natural to how music is made. Like you say, you hear the music in your head and it isn't always clear if it is emerging because you made it or if it sounds good because it is familiar. When I was younger I was a musician, but I have moved on to other things. My main focus in music had been song writing. I would not want to be a songwriter today with all the lawsuits going on. It seems like it would have a real chilling effect and make you paralyzed anytime you come up with something (because there is the off chance it coincidentally resembles an earlier song, or that you subconsciously are taking inspiration from something that came before)
I guess there is one advantage today, and that's the technology like RUclips which can readily identify if you're playing something that's TOO similar, like how they identify covers.
In the past, you'd have to release your music and then hope you hadn't produced a blatant rip-off that you forgot you'd listened to, a few years earlier. I realise that can still happen today, but RUclips (or similar technology) can help identify if you've been a little TOO influenced.
Of course, all art is derivative and it's very natural, but there are degrees of "inspiration" thus the video with a couple examples that are not "open to interpretation," but almost exactly the same.
@@castleanthrax1833 Personally I see this as a step backward, not forward for music. There should be unconscious borrowing in music. It is part of why music resonates and grows (people build on very similar ideas). I will be honest a lot of music today that comes out of the youtube environment feels very sterile, very much like it is emulating an aesthetic (something youtube is good for) but doesn't seem as genuine to me (I feel like everyone is hyper aware of the audience now, playing entirely to the algorithm and paralyzed by fear of accidentally borrowing something)
Exactly, well said 👍🏻
Yeah, the ridiculous idea that someone can own some series of notes because they played it "first" is preposterous. The concept of "intellectual property" as applied to music is a fairly recent invention, not that long ago everyone just sort of acknowledged that almost all music is derivative, and if you "stole" an existing riff and put a different spin on it to make a new song, it wasn't equated to a crime.
Another brilliant video Paul. You're taking your music analysis and video ideas to the next level man. Great stuff!
Very well articulated. Thank you!
To be frank most glam rock/heavy metal opening riffs from the eighties sounded almost identical.
I would really love to see a compilation about those (2-3 notes then palm mute then 2-3 additional notes etc.)
Hello, thank you for this really interesting selection! In turn, I wanted to share some of my discoveries on the same theme :
Black Sabbath - Dirty Women (at 2: 52) / Judas Priest - Breaking The Law
Deep Purple - This Time Around/Owed To 'G' (at 3: 18) / Opeth - Windowpane
Black Sabbath - Megalomania (here again) (the bass line only that you can here distinctly on songsterr) / Gojira - Flying Whales
Laudate Dominum but i don't find the variant that people sing in the church (it is the same but, after the repetition, it goes up to D and E and it finishes on A after a descent) / Metallica - Chasing Lights (at 0: 32, the lead guitar) (i am sure of that but i don't find it, and it is sad)
Thank you so much for risking de-monetization. Who in their right mind would consider an educational, entertaining video like this to be copyright infringement? What's going on on RUclips just mirrors the situation in music generally: Too many greedy people, too many lawyers, and too few people who know that the ebb and flow of creativity needs "creative stealing" and cross-inspiration. If your creation is strong, it will remain yours, and you will continue to be identified with it, no matter what others may do with it. We're using the word "release" for a reason!
Unfortunately they will...
'Men in suits who think they know it all' - Bryan McFadden song: Real To Me. Not just know it all - own it all. @@juliocaliman
It all seems "fair use" to me. Google's "don't be evil" seems to have morphed into "let's screw the contents creators.".
Of course there's also One Way Out by the Allman Bros that is very similar to I Feel Fine and its spiritual siblings. Then again, with only a few notes of a pentatonic scale similarity is almost unavoidable. Very interesting and entertaining video.
I'm curious about electric elevation, from your vids its obvious you are extremely knowledgeable and have an awesome grasp of music history and application. Thanks for the Video
Been following you for years, and as a filmmaker, the progress of your cinematography and video setup is really amazing! Oh, and top notch content as always :)
Great pull on some of the more obscure riffs. Swords and Tequila, by Riot. One of my favorites in HS. But nobody knew who they were by me and my friends. Great video. 👍
I would love to hear you analyze 'Eight Miles High" by the Byrds. Roger McQuinn was moving in a direction completely different from the blues rock coming from Engliand; one won't hear those kinds of phrases--there are so many of them---until the age of thrash.
Bizarre how little discussion there are about The Byrds, and specially Roger McGuinn guitar playing, considering how it is unanimously agreed that Eight Miles High was the birth of Psychedelic Rock.
*England;...
50% of Motley Crue songs have that same Black Sabbath riff (riff #5)
That’s a band I can’t stand.
I love stuff like this. Great to hear where these musicians got their inspiration from!
Great video, Paul. I’ve been saying this for years! There are only 12 tones on a keyboard, repeated as octaves. These can be arranged in only a limited number of keys, scales, and modes. It’s no wonder that songs sound similar from time to time. Plagiarism or copyright lawsuits are so often based on imaginary similarities, or coincidence at best.
I respectfully disagree. what this shows is that berry was listening to craydon, blackmore to lyra, cobain (admittedly) to killing joke, etc.
the examples given here are for the most part blatant, deliberate copies - no more, no less...or, in short, obvious plagiarism.
Get a sitar. You're welcome.
@JamesWilliams-en3os - I love Paul's way of explaining music, I always do and I too think that the plagiarism card is played all too quickly, and that these lawsuits are ridiculous, but I must disagree with the "limitation" argument. Just using 12 tones (not even the octaves, or chords), after playing 4 tones you have 20736 possible combinations. Tone 5 makes it 248'832... Multiply that by the possible chords for each tone (I counted 27 in my chord book, likely there are more) gives you 34’012’224 three-chord and 3’570’467’226’624 five-chord progressions. Then multiply by the variations of different finger patterns on a guitar... and throw in the other octaves... and did I mention all possible note durations/rhythm patterns...? Keys, scales and modes - might limit somewhat, but the possibilities remain endless... Thank God for the neverending pleasure of music! 🎸
@@peterklett7716 I bow to your superior use of mathematics. Brilliant!
Lawsuits are based on the legal budget of the party bringing the suit and/or the pile of money they're interested in acquiring from someone else.
makes me feel much better about accidentally ripping ideas off.. great vid!
A while ago I composed a small piano piece, but at some point I felt it felt too familiar. It took me a while to realize, it was very similar to Shostakovich's Waltz No 2 (which is very famous). It was even in the same key.
Great mash-up with the Nirvana/ Killing Joke/ The Damned- riff. Funny thing for me: when I first heard 'Come as you are' back in 92, the bell rang rightaway and in all honesty for a moment I tought that song was going to be a slowed down cover! Was a fan of Killing Joke from one of their first albums (kept them all!) and as a kid of the eighties, I also collected other early punk albums in which The Damned's "Strawberries" but never up until now did I see the similarity between "Eighties" and "Life goes on". Must admit: that perticular "Damned" album isn't my favourite so maybe that's why I missed the similarity. What Blackmore is concerned: he was never too ignorant to admit where he got most of his riffs from or what inspired him so I do believe his Beethoven story. There were others who are less eager to admit plagiarism which lead them to court on several occasions and you know what band I'm talking about. :-)
Near all Nirvana songs are rip-offs, actually, just 55 of these...
blackmore`s "beethoven" quip was clearly taking the piss out of whomever asked him about it: there`s absolutely no similarity in any way whatsoever.
@@donkeyshot8472 That's just exactly what Blackmore loved to do: taking a piss at everyone in his own sense of humour and make them wonder. For example: he had this one strap lock put right on the end of the head stock of his Fender and he just put that there for no other reason other than to make people wonder why... Absurdism is what makes Blackmore this wonderful player that he's always been and that's why I love him so much just as i like absudism in any other forms of art.
@@phillarsson8253 blackmore`s "sense of humour" would be fine if not for the fact that he clearly stole the "smoke on the water" riff from carlos lyra.
taking the piss is one thing, but purposefully hiding the truth in doing so is quite another; which perhaps also tells us a thing or two about the guy`s
character: gillan and glover could maybe tell us a story or two...
@@donkeyshot8472 Don't know what a persons type of sense of humour has to do with the fact if wether or not riff's where stolen but anyway: Blackers was never to proud to admit the riffs he found by influence from others, such as 'Black Night" which derived from Ricky Nelson's "Summertime" to name just one and you'll know the others ;-) and there's video's where Blackmore openly talks about some of those riffs. You might be a hater of the guy and true: he can be a terrible caracter but doesn't need to be told because he's the first one to admit -indeed covering it in his own sense of humour (again). The guys from LZ might seem more friendly caracters but never have I heard one of them openly admit the riffs -and sometimes even about complete songs they stole from others in which many lawsuits were involved. I'ld be happy to learn about one lawsuit against Deep Purple for 'stealing' so if you could fill me in on that?
Blackmore has always been candid about borrowing riffs. Black Night and Burn come to mind. He also listened to a lot of short wave radio from eastern Europe. At least he is honest about it.
Child in Time: Bombay - It's a Beautiful Day.
Into the Fire: 21st Century Schizo Man - King Crimson
Smoke on the water riff is basically a standard blues figure
I found it funny one day when I saw two interviews of Paul McCartney. In one he was saying how one of his riffs was a direct copy of another song but "you can't be sued just for a bass line" In the next interview he was justifying himself for suing another band for ripping off one of his baselines. They hypocracy was just so palpable.
@@KenFullman of courde, for the two I mentioned it was a more than that
weirdly when I heard 2 minutes to midnight in this video I immediately thought of Deep Purple "Burn" intro and I was surprised it was not on the infinite list of supposedly rip-off!
12:05 In 1981 Persian Risk released the track "Chase the dragon" as a B side, it has the same exact riff after the solo, at about minute 1 and 49 seconds.
Please post full blended tracks. So good🤪
One of my favorites is the similarity between The Kinks' "Picture Book", Green Day's "Warning", and Steriogram's "Walkie Talkie Man", simply because a guy named Colin Merry of a band called Other Garden sued Green Day over the similarities between his band's song "Never Got the Chance", despite the fact that he noticed the similarities between his song and "Picture Book"
Wait'll you hear Green Day's Foxboro Hot Tubs side project. Every tune is basically a famous '60s song just slightly altered and with new lyrics. It's actually impressive.
Peter wailed that lick in 54 😂. Guitars are inclined to physical patterns that fingers intuitively dance too that will create alot of identical sounding licks even if the talent never heard his predecessors. I think Mozart and his peers just entered the chat. Very good share by the way. Lots of influences.
I kept hearing One Way Out, by The Allman Brothers, when you were covering the inspiration for I Feel Fine, by The Beatles.
And for the last segment, you can throw in the moody blue's "story in your eyes" as well🙂
I have to agree that these were mostly inspiration, possibly even unconscious. I've often made minor changes in playing a song from the way I learned just to put my own twist on it or to make it sound better to me when later I hear a recording that I'd heard years earlier and found that it was what I was doing when I thought I'd come up with it on my own.
Very interesting.
You never disappoint sir.
Great stuff. The A section of hotel california is chord for chord a lift from a classical tune. Picasso endures...
Joy Division's Dead Souls, while quite different, has a lot of similar elements to Come as You Are, Eighties, etc., and came out in 1980. Dead Souls is Gm to F rather than Em to D, but if you transpose them and play them over each other, they go very nicely. Similar sparse guitar sound, alternating between similar notes of the chords, similar syncopation pattern.
Joy Division was innovative because they were non-musicians who had no idea what they were doing. Only the drummer had formal training. Peter Hook was appointed to bass, and was confused when he went to a music store and saw it had only four strings.
Kinda have a soft spot for 80s goth culture. Formative sexual experience came from the gf of a local goth band leader's GF. Ended up stalked by goth minions over it. I was just 17, stil in HS. I was terrified. But it made big nerdy me cool all the sudden. Wildest part ever is that 20 years later I was involved with someone who was the subsequent GF of that guy.
In the beginning of the 90's, someone made me listen to a disc from 1968 with the same riff than Smoke On The Water ( i don't remember the band). Also, you can hear a quite similar riff in some Jon Lord improvisations during the first years of Deep Purple.
First time first video of yours - definitely not the last. Best video I watched in weeks. 👍
Probably the most depressing, yet most gratifying video in the study of music riffs. Thank you very much, I have certainly shared this with my cohorts!
Here's one you may have forgotten --> the intro of Eruption by Van Halen (1978) definitely took inspiration from the short intro of Let Me Swim by Cactus (1970).
The Van Halens were big fans of Cactus. They also took inspiration for the intro of Hot for Teacher from the Cactus song Parchman Farm
Oh man! Thank you! A band I've never got around to listening to. Just listened to that track and the Cactus album. Awesome stuff. Cheers. 👍🏻👍🏻
Oh my .. well spotted
...whereby parchman farm itself was written by blues guitarist bukka white in 1940. it achieved fame in a piano-based version by the jazz pianist mose allison in 1957
and notoriety by the likes of blue cheer (in 1968) and then cactus...who based their own version very much on original hard rock/metal pioneers blue cheer.
I also thought the Frehley solo on Shock Me from Alive II had similar structure to Eruption
Cactus was great, I loved zoning out to them and just grooving to their music. Thanks for the memories.
Great a video as always, Very informative! I'd just like to add that "One Way Out" by the Allman Brothers could also be well inspired by Bobby Parker's "Watch Your Step". The same goes for all the songs cited in the 2 minutes to midnight section, as they remind me of the introduction to "Story in your eyes" by the Moody Blues.
I kept waiting for him to mention Moody Blues in that section.
Also Rat Bat Blue by Deep Purple off of the Who do we think we are album
Watch Your Step also influenced “I Feel Fine and Day Tripper” by The Beatles.
The ABB's One Way Out was a cover of an Elmore James song (Elmore may have done the borrowing from Parker, of course). And Sonny Boy Williamson's cover of that song long before the ABB had the exact ABB tempo. So the ABB version was several steps away from any direct borrowing (simply following earlier borrowing).
You’re back!
I haven’t seen one of your videos for about 3 years
Great video. Really interesting to hear.
You impressed me with the Mercyful Fate reference. Props
Hence proved, Black Sabbath's Toni Iommi was one of the legends giving birth to one hell of a riff which inspired 'you know how many' bands!! 🤘🏻
That riff/rhythmic pattern is much older than Iommi probably
@@scifiordieprobably
The opening lick from Elected by Alice Cooper is Dolly Dagger by Jimi Hendrix. It just goes to show that everyone is influenced by someone before them.
They were friends so it might have been a nod to him.
@@sg-yq8pm that may very well be, it is played note for note.
Also there's a connection between Elected and Anarchy in the UK to my ears
What I'm waiting for is for someone else to point out the similarities between the outro to Alice's Second Coming (off the Love it to Death album) and the main riff to the Eagles Hotel California.
Play em back to back, see if you don't agree.
@@johnkirby8939 the piano at the end, I can hear what you’re talking about.
Great video, that 2 minutes to midnight was just awesome ! That's a lot of people influenced by the same riff. Listening to this list, one thing is for sure, the music you like & listen to, will influence the music you write. The only place I had a problem with this video is
A) Led Zeppelin ripped off Stairway to heaven, COMPLETELY
B) I don't think Richie Blackmore, a big blues guy like most from that time, was Listening to a lot of Brazilian bosanova music, in Switzerland. Possible yes, about as much as the Beethoven claim.
But those are just my thoughts.
I'll be checking out your channel more.
Great video & keep up the good work.