Is There A RIGHT Way To Rip Off A Song?
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- Опубліковано 25 січ 2024
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Let's explore musical elements used in compositions by The Police, John Lennon, The Grateful Dead, Eric Clapton, Billy Joel and more to try to figure out how much is TOO much to take from another artist.
Much thanks to Chris for editing this video!
Video recorded using
Earthworks PM40 piano mic
Earthworks SV33 vocal condenser mic
Hallet and Davis Baby grand piano
I want to apologize that I put the wrong clip of Truckin in the video by The Dead. It’s the verses. Should’ve been a clip of one of the verses. “Truckin' - Got My Chips Cashed In
Keep Truckin' - Like The Doodah Man”
Still a great video. Thank you !!!
Two very similar Melodies!
“The Ballad of John and Yoko” verse…
“Standing in the dock at Southampton”
“Truckin” verse…
“Arrows Of Neon And Flashing Marquees Out On Main Street”
The Ballad of John and Yoko has eighth notes. Truckin has more syllables - more notes - so it has eighth note triplets. Otherwise, the same melody!
That's ok. All Grateful Dead songs sound like the same pile of shit anyway
@@tinkdnuos Dumbest comment ever on YT. Though I'm no fan of Truckin' - or Grateful Dead's Bob Weir whether as singer or guitarist. Their good stuff is not for everyone to appreciate ;)
I am 70 I have been a musician since I was 10. I do not believe that I have ever heard a song that did not remind me of another. We only have so many notes and we have to share. Cheers from Canada. ~ulrich
AMEN! I'm about your age and only played professionally for about 5 years (and that was 50 years ago). And I only ever played in cover bands. About 25 years ago I started writing a few songs just for fun. I tried to stay out of the way of anything familiar and it was damn near impossible. The George Harrison case has always bugged me because as the video said it really came from the 1700s!
I'm 75 and I agree. We keep tons of music in our heads. I was in Canada visiting a friend in Guelph. I went to a jam session in his garage ( I play guitar Dobro and pedal steel.) and was playing along to a song when I realized I was playing with the guy who had recorded the song. I had the record lol. He said boy you picked that up fast. On dobro. I said I have been playing it for years lol . I explained and we both got a good laugh. He said he wished I was on the original recording, pretty cool. You just never know.
ok.. how about message in a bottle? walking on the moon? redemption song.. don't give up.. superstition.. under the bridge.. high and low (a ha song) I wish.. sultans of swing shine on your crazy, the wall, money, bohemian rhapsody.. spmebody to love.. who wants to live forever.. we are the champions.. imagine no woman no cry, jamming, is this love, .. dude i could go on for hours.. let's be serious
I still find it funny that “Candy “ by Robbie Williams is basically Ring Around the Rosie
2:35 with those two chords, I heard IS THIS THE REAL LIFE? IS THIS JUST FANTASY?
I still remember "The Flipper Case" to this day. Sends shivers down my spine. Turns out the tune was dolphin free in the end.
I lived in Miami at the time, where they filmed Flipper, it’s all we talked about.
There was something fishy about how all that went down .. could never put my finger on it
Still it was a whale of a song. And a tacautionary tail thats now passed into songwriting legend
“I did a spit take through my blowhole when I heard it!” - Flipper
Love your humour as good as mine😅
I only eat my dolphins "tuna-free."
Back when I was in college I wrote a solo flute piece for a composition class. I got an "A" and the piece was then performed in a student recital. Years later I heard the opening theme of my piece performed on a local radio station! I suddenly realized that what I was hearing was by Claude Debussy. Musicians store thousands of tunes in the back of their minds, and it's easy to unconsciously replicate the work of others....
By the way, I like your singing!
True. Another thing I have noticed with myself is that I hear a piece of music and then connect the next part with a totally different song. It can be fun, because then I try to remember which song the second song is. The same with guitar solos because I play the guitar. 😅
Well, you got away with one! I'm absolutely certain that wouldn't have been the case here, ie that the borrowing was unconscious.
If a song makes you think irresistibly of some other song, it's too similar. It doesn't even need to be the whole song: eg for his song Angels Robbie Williams ripped off the three note downward progression into the middle 8 from Hey Jude. Just a short phrase, but so well known, so distinctive, and used in the exact same way - after that there's no way you can take the rest of the song seriously.
George Harrison claimed that he was completely unconscious of the similarity of My Sweet Lord to He's So Fine. But I'm not buying it. I mean, it's true there are only so many different permutations, but some things are just too similar to be coincidence.
after 6000 years of recorded history its really hard to come up with a truly original idea. everyone is influenced by someone. and often many people are influenced by the same people.
example: i'm a philosopher and political scientist but many of my positions reflect the ideas of the 17th century english philosopher john locke. but i came up with my ideas without ever reading john locke. but i did read thomas jefferson who was influenced by john locke. and probably millions of people had the same ideas as locke before locke who's names and existance have been lost to history.
which is one reason i so admire many song writers. after millions of songs being published over the last several centuries to create a totally original song is an almost impossible task. always loved that guitar riff of muddy waters' "manish boy." heard it many times in other songs but his version remains my favorite.
There's a sense in which good ideas are out there in the universe waiting to be discovered. For example, calculus was discovered (or invented) independently by Newton and Leibniz.@@cjmacq-vg8um
She really does sing well! (my first time stumbling upon her channel).
Ringo had his fellow Beatles in stitches, as he several times played them something he thought he had composed, only for them to tell him he had re-created an existing song.
Great way to circle back 'round to Thomas the Tank Engine!
Lennon McCartney were the biggest plagiarists in the biz until Bowie.
@@rexfreeman4981No band has plagiarized more than Led Zeppelin.
@@rexfreeman4981 i really don’t mean to be rude, but that is an idiotic comment and somebody needs to say so
@@jsbrules
I agree, it is idiotic.
So here I am, saying so. 😊
Conversely, when McCartney wrote Yesterday and Let It Be, he was convinced he had heard them before and that they were not originally his. He said he asked around if the sounded familiar but everybody said they were his so he put them out.
I was just going to mention this, but you took care of it😊
When did he say this about “Let it Be”?
@@johnp515 Might have been in the latest GET BACK movie, Maybe?
According to "Yesterday" that is correct: It took Paul a few weeks in which he asked many people if they knew the song, which came to him entirely in a dream. Only after everyone said "No" to his question he finally did trust his composition and then he was convinced that it was his invention.
Oh, he stole them ...... Just kidding
"Creep (Radiohead)" and "The Air that I Breathe (the Hollies)" was a no-brainer. Regardless, I love them both!
The first time I heard the chorus of "Creep" I knew I had heard it before and it took me about a day to realize it was taken from "Air That I Breathe." Both are great.
i love your voice so much, it doesn't matter if you're singing or just talking. You should make a sort of story telling kind of thing or sing, sing, sing!
Knowing that both Fagen and Becker were huge jazz fans, and no doubt had heard Horace Silver's 1965 "Song for My Father" album years before they wrote "Ricky" (in '74), I prefer to think it's a tribute to Silver.
They said it was a nod in tribute.
@@aaronknight9759 The theme of the central "hook" on this songis a I -V interval which is one of the most basic components of western music. One cannot "copy write" basic theory components. We all stand on the shoulders of giants. Even Ludwig Van borrowed "peasant song themes" to write his great works.
They were upfront about taking it
Yes, they did it deliberately as a tribute, at least according to what I've read
not having heard the whole piece and knowing Fagen and Becker I would say it was homage to the first writer's work.
"My Sweet Lord" also had the "I really want to show you" melody which was also in the other song.
Can’t believe George would do it deliberately: he was such an honest and spiritual person. ❤
I agree@@trinkabuszczuk6138
@@trinkabuszczuk6138 Being honest and spiritual doesn’t preclude you from making a mistake or a blatant one.
@trinkabuszczuk6138 honest? Hardly. Look at his personal life.
@@trinkabuszczuk6138he stole the song without a doubt. John confirmed that too.
Once I wrote a song that I absolutely loved. I love the chord progression. I love the melody. I was thrilled with the lyrics, so I recorded it quickly and then headed out to meet friends.
Later, in my car, a song by Tonic was playing. That song was mountain, and that song was exactly the song that I had written, just listen to that.
I scrapped everything but the lyrics but I totally see how accidental Sons theft happens
You have a beautiful voice. Your pitch is amazing.
Thanks so much! I also have albums out in case you are interested. :-)
Things I liked about this video was listening to all these great songs, and hearing Aimee sing.👌🏼
Great video! and check out Hotel California up against Jethro Tull’s “We used to know”. The Eagles used to open for JT, so it certainly is curious.
Wow!! That's creepy.
It’s a nice story. One that Ian Anderson has repeated. But, it doesn’t hold up.
Yes, the eagles did tour w Tull, opening act in 71 or 72. And according to Ian they performed WUTK back then.
However, Hotel California’s music was written by Don Felder. And Felder didn’t join the Eagles till 74.
Could Felder have listened to Tull? Of course. But, this story about touring and inspiration/subconscious is just doesn’t pass muster.
@@jamespohl-md2eq Yeah, but it's still an obvious copy, however they first heard it.
@@CheshireTomcat68Yeah, but. lol
Been saying that for decades, had both albums sure Stand up bought years before. Used to hear both lots of time but never noticed how they sound a lot the same. Got my first car and start mixing K 7 Tapes, after three days finished what i called the best of. Was to get my car and with my best friend travel from Rio all the way to North of Brazil by the coast . Two surfers bums with 3 free months. Will make it short, by chance i taped one after the other. Thought is the same tune and almost all the notes,man that was 32 years ago 1982. Not saying Don did a cover, now they sound much alike. We used to know is always on my playlist Anyway both great tunes in my book
Your channel came up in my algorithms today and I clicked it. I play rhythm and lead guitar, bass and drums and I love free styling to songs and I love the knowledge that you have which I am influenced by. I just subscribed to your channel and you and David Bennett Piano are my favorite subs!
Awesome! Thank you!
" The Ballad of John and Yoko" is also similar to " Stuck in the middle with you "
I didn't notice that similarity, but I did think when I was a kid that Stuck in the Middle was a George Harrison song as it was totally his style. Then I learned it was "Steel Wheels", so I'm like, so George Harrison with a band? Still think it was George Harrison. Somehow. Someway. I never saw Steel Wheels and George Harrison in the same place, just saying.
Should do a full-blown studio-quality cover of "We've Got Tonight". The informal snippet that she did was very nice with its quiet, reflective delivery.
Came to the comments to say the same! First time listener to the channel but that little sniper stuck w me.
So at a bluegrass jam noodling around on songs in the key of D.
I flipped the chord progression backwards, started cross picking the chord triads, and “came up with” The Speed of the Sound of Loneliness. Too bad John Prine already had it covered. But I was feeling pretty good there for a couple of hours.
You could easily interpret Jacob's song as a deliberate inversion of Seger's song; Seger mentions ity being late, Jacob says its early; Seger's line is descending, Jacob's is ascending. Actually seems like a reference to me.
The Seger change comes from a very handy I - IV on the guitar by hammering on the second and third fingers to a barre A shape
What a beautyfull voice you have, everybody needs to hear you singing, you are amazing. God bless your talent
In 1998 I was in a band. One day when I woke up, I had this idea for a guitar piece and it got me started on writing what could've been a new song. However, it wasn't very long after this (a number of weeks) when I heard the intro to "Smooth" by Santana & Rob Thomas, which sounded very, very similar to what I woke up with in my head earlier. As you'd expect, I found it hard to listen to that song for a while because I felt almost ripped off, even though I hadn't actually recorded, or even finished writing my song yet. I'm over it now, but back then it was frustrating.
I had a band break up because I wanted to abandon a song we were working on when I realized we were just playing "All That She Wants," and the others were infuriated because it was our best track.
Of course it was our best track, it wasn't ours, and it was already a hit.
What is so funny to me is that I was familiar with "He's So Fine" and listened to "My Sweet Lord" numerous times and never made a connection how similar they were. Maybe I was just too awestruck with that fascinating slide guitar part.
they were hiding-in-plain-sight
The Dead played “Rain” “blackbird” “day tripper” “dear prudence” “LSDiamonds” “revolution” “that would be something” “tomorrow never knows” in the live shows. Not very many times but they were fans. They were fans of Dylan, The Band, Van Morrison, J Cash, George Jones, Merle Haggard and a ton of other great artists.
the Scarlett riff is an homage to day tripper, even lyrically. Folk music used to be a conversation artists would have, and influence only became problematic when the lawyers showed up.
A lot of early Grateful Dead with pigpen is mostly just a Howling Wolf cover band.
@@ezekielbrockmann114I second that emotion
“If it wasn’t for the Beatles, none of us would be working”- Jerry Garcia
@@stagesixx everyone would have had to wait for The Monkeys to air on NBC 😂
Well done. iN the endless channels of every stripe, You have managed to distinguish yourself by being Good at what you do! i Love your Voice! Thank you for your efforts.
Rod Stewart’s “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy” is based on a recording named “Taj Mahal” by Brazilian artist Jorge Ben. It was Ben’s biggest hit. Stewart says it was “unconscious plagiarism.”
I heard a different version of this story in a Stewart Interview. He said he was at the Rio carnival and this guy with a kazoo was blasting out the main melody of the song over and over again. Rod said it stuck in his head so he wrote a song around it which subsequently became a global smash hit. I had known this story for years and it irked me that the poor Brazilian Kazoo player who invented the tune got nothing, while Rod made millions from it. It was only recently that I learned Rod had been sued by the artist you mentioned and the Kazoo player had got the tune from him anyway. So Rod is not such a bad guy!
The kazoo street artist was very problavly playing his rendition of Taj Mahal
First time I've seen one of your videos, Aimee, very informative, good playing and singing.👍👏❤️
I love these expositions. Very enlightening and drawn from such an encyclopaedic knowledge of songs. As a songwriter, I'm always terrified of making something too similar to something else, while trying to consciously capture the feel, mood and groove of songs that I like. It's a hire-wire act and your insights provide some really useful guidelines. Thank you.
You have a lovely voice, Aimee, in speaking as well as singing. Interesting content as well, thanks.
I appreciate that so much. If you are interested, I also have albums out.
Liked and subscribed! Great comparisons, fun presentation. And you play and sing beautifully.
Well researched. Thank you for educating us. 🎉
Awesome vid Aimee! Too many thoughts... but one point I appreciate is that it IS possible that 2 ppl compose very similar things w/o knowledge of the other, especiallt when talking about simple melodies with common song structure. I have done it!
We all have.
You gotta think, potentially 100's of millions of songs have been written at this point in time. I think pretty much any arrangement of notes in standard key's has already been done. To actually make something completely original in terms of the basic melody is nearly impossible. You can certainly have your own sound though. In fact, I think that's what matters. Who cares if the melody is the same? If the song is otherwise completely different, that's good enough for me.
Just watched that "Office" episode.....loved the use of that and enjoyed your presentation!
Thanks Aimee, very interesting. My wife and I try to guess instrumental songs and we ofter try to make the case of similarities to other songs. Nice singing and playing the comparisons!
Wow-you have a really beautiful voice! 🎶 ❤
Aimee you explained this issue well. In a very kindly voice. Thank you!! I will check out your course!
Much thanks! After you get Nebula, click the “classes app” and you’ll find it there!
Saw you in Bismarck Saturday. Good job!
The riff from the Beatles Dear prudence is so similar to the Grateful Dead, mind left body jam that it is sometimes mistaken as the outro jam to Garcia’s version of Dear prudence
But that's a very basic riff, and the picking pattern is a common one, too. It's just a descending bass over a major chord. Hundreds of songs have a similar progression.
It's easy to find similarities between one song and an earlier song...but the key question for plagiarism and copyright questions ought to be: did the earlier song originate the thing that's similar? 99% of the time, the answer will be no.
(Musical copyright and plagiarism cases are among those which really depend upon technical knowledge and shouldn't be decided by juries...unless it's a jury of music theorists.)
Nothing good's created in a vacuum. Great video, Aimee!
I was so psyched when you also noticed the Collier/Segar thing.
I ususlly watch youtube at a higher speed except for music themed videos for obvious reason. This time I left it on 1.5 speed.
Loved this video. The subject matter with very good examples excellently wrapped up the meaning and nuances of copyright infringement. AND Aimee, your facial expressions are so expessive and priceless.
Well, I'd be surprised if Paul objected to Thomas the Tank Engine theme as Ringo was the original narator for the first British TV series 😅
And here's an obscure piece of rock trivia for you: the person who made many of the models for that TV series - he made the faces for the train characters, and many of the human models - was called Tim Staffell. In the late 60s he was the singer in a band called Smile, until he left the band in 1970. He was replaced by a new singer and the band changed its name to... Queen. He was the singer Freddie Mercury replaced! He actually has a co-writing credit on one of the songs on Queen's first album. And then he went on to make models for Thomas the Tank Engine, which was narrated by an ex-Beatle. It's a strange world!
Also the last note of McCartney's lick is the third degree of an implied IV (major) chord, whereas in the TTE lick it's a minor (iv) chord.
Given that the entire remainder of the lick (in both cases) is an ascending portion of a straight major scale, (ie, not a unique lick by any stretch) a judge would have to be music and or a logic illiterate, to entertain a plagiarism suit for more than five seconds.
McCartney showed John Lennon HOW Come together needed to be changed or it would have been almost exactly like a Chuck Berry tune, think is was YOU Cant catch me. The HERE come FLAT TOP, line. But the way LENNON originally presented it PAUL picked up on it.
Thank you for your video. Love and best wishes from Perth, Australia!
Very interesting video! I have also heard several songs that sound quite similar, and I wonder how many of the artists intentionally stole these songs without permission or just happened to stumble across the same basic melodies and/or structures. You explained this whole issue very well, by the way! Good job!
Ricky Don't Lose That Number is a completely different idea than Song for My Father. I often use chord changes from published songs but with a completely different idea and feel. No one owns chord changes. If they did, we'd have a legal mess on our hands and we'd be deprived of a lot of cool songs.
I Want a New Drug by Huey Lewis & the News and Ghostbusters by Ray Parker Jr. I like both.
I think your video is really informative. I never thought about this before. Great video. thanks for sharing.
@aimeenoltemusic wonderful deep dive! Thank you. I’m a session bassist and producer in Nashville and us musicians in sessions often talk of this.
Very interesting and you are an AMAZING singer.
First time here. I just found your channel. You have a beautiful singing voice as well as what one might say is radio voice. Thanks for pointing out all of these "ripoffs."
Love it Aimee. You have much value to teach. I'd like to hear your history.
I have a playlist called Storytime that is fun on my UA-cam home page
A brilliant borrow was the melodic leaps in Lennon’s “ Just Like Starting Over” and Brian Wilson’s “Don’t Worry Baby”. Both are brilliant melodies.
Speaking of the musical ether, a couple years ago I heard a new release from a new artist on the radio that had the same topic, similar lyrics, and similar melodic phrases of a song I wrote long long ago but never played for anyone. It was eerie to listen to.
All I can say is that all the music we make is influenced by the music we listen to. It's just more obvious in some songs than others.
Yeah, that's eerie to hear your ideas on the radio sung by another artist! Many years ago, I wrote a song that I had only played once for one friend. A few years later, I heard Julian Lennon on the radio singing "Too Late for Goodbyes." The first lines of the melody/chords were the exact melody/chords I'd written, and he included a similar lyric idea. Wild!
Your singing on that bit of Girl From Ipanema (6:23) is outstanding, btw!
Yes, I wanted her to keep singing it. That song, well sung, is like therapy
I was thinking the same thing and found your comment later. Awesome voice and very talented! First time listener but you provided nice content here! {subscribe}
For the record, I think that the Steely Dan lift of that Horace Silver intro was a conscious lift/musical reference. As a Jazz/rock fusion act, recording only a decade or so after Silver's very well-known single, they expected that their audience would recognize their 'quote' of that riff, or will at least recognize it retro-actively upon hearing the Horace Silver track. It's a tricky concept/differentiation, but worth noting. I do think that Harrison was consciously playing off of "Oh Happy Day", especially since "My Sweet Lord" is essentially a hymn and was written when "Oh Happy Day" was a BIG hit; but I also think that the Chiffons song played into things, too, if only because its structure is also based on the same musical tropes in "Oh Happy Day". MANY times a Jazz musician will be in the middle of a solo and realize that they're veering close to similar song, and then 'quote' that other song for a bar or two.
I share that perspective. I believe John Lennon was sitting in on the Zombies' "Time of the Season" sessions in the Abbey Road studio. Word is the opening percussive riffs of that song gave him the idea for the opening of "Come Together".
With the constraint of just 88 keys on a piano and adhering to a rigid set of musical conventions, it's highly probable that any new composition may inadvertently echo previous works. This likelihood is compounded by the universal experience of musical influence; it's nearly impossible to craft a completely original song, riff, sequence, or any other component of a piece without being shaped by the music we've encountered throughout our lives. Moreover, when creating within a specific genre or style, the possibility of replicating someone else's melodies or harmonies increases significantly. This phenomenon underscores the challenge of achieving true originality in music, given the finite elements available and our deep-seated exposure to a vast array of musical expressions.
New sub. I love your voice and you are clearly well versed in all matters musical.
Here's one of my worst offenders when it comes to plagiarising the Beatles - Offspring's "Why don't you get a job?" I'll let you all work out the source song. How they never got sued is beyond me. Macca must have been busy.
I'd not heard that song before - oh my word! It utterly rips off Ob-La-Di while simultaneously betraying and destroying its joyous and fun mood. What a horrible song!
After the "My Sweet Lord" musical copy of "He's So Fine," I think the most striking was Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen" getting copied by The Beach Boys' "Surfin' U.S.A."
Was that an acknowledged copy? Even sanctioned by Berry?
Because I recall DJ's pointing out the similarity when they played Surfin' USA in the 60's, yet I don't recall any lawsuits or challenges lodged at the time. (Were there?)
And, hey, thanks for covering this; I too have noted, if only mentally, when one song sounds too similar to another to be mere coincidence.
Fred
Berry is listed as a cowriter and collected plenty of $
Speaking of P. Collins, another good example is the chorus of "I wish it would rain down".
It's MORE than similar to " Wish you were here", by Waters-Gilmour (Pink Floyd).
I love your voice and singing. It was interesting to hear how you sang when you were young. I think that there is an important lesson here about the relationship between learning and whether people are just "born with the gift."
8:44 -- When Billy Joel first wrote "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)" he had to change the beginning melody because it sounded exactly like "Laughter in the Rain" by Neil Sedaka. Luckily, he first ran it by his drummer, Liberty DeVitto, who pointed out the resemblance.
Sedaka borrowed the chorus of "Laughter in the Rain" from Elton John's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road"
Sedaka laughter in the rain was stolen from the Kinks "Waterloo Sunset"@@hbofbyu1
@@hbofbyu1No. the opening chord.
And, the song was released on Elton’s label in the states.
That was a real good video I enjoyed it thoroughly I do recall a verse in the Bible that says there is nothing new Under the Sun😊
Thank you for your kind reply on your video I love music🤗
I enjoyed this video. I, too, often think about songs that sound like other songs and the fine line between stealing and borrowing.
My interest stems from my penchant for parody. Your video reminded me of the Rutles project, in which Eric Idle and Neil Innes created a couple of albums worth of "Beatles songs" that weren't Beatles songs, for the sake of parody,. Songs like "Ouch!" and "Hold My Hand" had just enough difference from the targeted songs to make them unique. And the real Beatles, who all had a good sense of humor, appreciated them.
Another thing I thought of, on the legal front, was the case of The Hollies' "Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress", over which John Fogerty successfully sued despite the lack of melodic similarity to any specific CCR song, but merely because it had a CCR "sound."
Best video ever. Often times, the problem stems from people honestly forgetting that they remembered someone else's song.
Worked for Led Zeppelin on multiple occasions.
@Darrylizer1
The Beatles and Zeppelin both took from others, and they both came up with songs far superior than the source material.
@@lyndoncmp5751 And in the case of Bert Jansch, copied what he did without giving him credit on ‘Bron-Y-Aur Stomp’ and ‘Black Mountain Side’. Zeppelin mostly stole lyrics, How Many More Times?, Dazed And Confused, In My Time Of Dying and Stairway To Heaven being other exceptions where they stole the actual music. I don't care really, Zeppelin's versions were always better.
@@Darrylizer1
This video concerns The Beatles. Stick to the Beatles stealing, thanks.
@@lyndoncmp5751 No, I'll talk about what ever I want to. You can deal or not. I don't care.
I've routinely told my composition students to rip an exact progression from another song and write their own song from it. It's definitely a great exercise in arranging if you can 'steal' someone's progression and make a song that sounds entirely different. One of my sayings is that 'you can't copyright a chord progression.' Of course, when it comes down to writing the same chords AND melody, that's where the questions begin to happen. But the whole case of Led Zepplin being sued for Stairway to Heaven's chord progression is a good example of my point. If the band Spirit can sue Zepplin for that progression, then McCartney could have sued Spirit for stealing the same progression in 'Michelle' who in turn could have been sued by the Rogers & Hart estate for 'My Funny Valentine.' And on and on and on. But in George's case, not just the chord movement but the melody was the same. That said, it's really obvious this was from unconscious influence. Hell, the entire history of composition is based on one composer stealing from another one. PS: I don't know how many people got it but the end of your video was hilarious!
My favorite way is to try to play something by ear that I've never played before, and hit the record button. The resulting trainwreck will breed some song pieces that could never be classified as ripping off the original song, by virtue of I suck at playing.😄
Ah, you're a wise teacher. Musicians could take a lesson from Ben Franklin, who refused to patent the lightning rod and other revolutionary inventions. Of course, he was rich by that time....
i still reckon Led Z ripped off Spirit. Sounds soooo similar & Spirit opened for LZ so they would have heard it (before they wrote it)
Fascinating episode! I thought you were going to use here comes sunshine by the dead in relation to good day sunshine by the beatles. also so much cross pollination happened in the sixties between the brits and the laurel canyon scene. I love the story of how the beach boys and the beatles were in awe of each other and how pet sounds dropped before sgt pepper, but was heavily inspired by brian wilsons arrangements, yet probably more people know about pepper than pet sounds. I digress, but your platform opens a ton of dialogue about rock provenance, so thank you and you have a great voice and musicianship in general, so keep that up.
Great topic, Aimee!
I write stuff all the time that I feel like I have heard before....but I figured if I get sued that probably means I have attained some moderate amount of success..
Well said Aimee. Some people get too hung up with this copyright stuff. Many songs have similars chords, melodies, etc. 🎹 👍
Great post. As a Bassist composer I hear this stuff all the time.
It’s funny you mention the Dead and Seager.
What has jumped out recently
Is Seegers -Down On Main Street
And
The Dead’s- Looks Like Rain.
Check it out, you can have fun with these 2 classics.
Van Halen: Top of the world
Toto: Afraid of Love
CCR: Hey Tonight
Damn, your voice is so incredibly beautiful. Subscribing
My personal favorite example of subconscious 'theft' of a musical idea is the song Afterglow by Genesis - Tony Banks described the horror he felt listening to it again after the album came out and realizing he had accidentally rewritten the melody for 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas' for the verse 😂 I liked also the point about artists plagiarizing themselves, a songwriter I love who does that a TON is Ray Davies, there's loads of examples of it in the Kinks catalog but my favorite has to be Lavender Lane which sounds nearly identical to Waterloo Sunset. With a musical idea that good I don't blame him!
Plagiarizing themselves... let's not forget the time John Fogerty was sued by CCR's label for sounding too much like himself in his solo work.
OMG, I love Wind And Wuthering and have listened to it at least a hundred times, and never heard Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas in Afterglow, until you mentioned it!!! And I'm usually very sensitive to similar songs! Good one!
It's amazing all the cool stuff I've found just by checking anything out that has the Grateful Dead in it.
More Than I Can Say was written before the Police's song Every Breath You take by Sonny Curtis and Jerry Allison of the the post Buddy Holly Crickets Band in the early 1960's, and they had their own version before Bobby Vee.
I think the problem is that the simpler the music is, the more powerful it is. So all this concern with originality is just leading to complicating our music and leaving us all with a bunch of weak-ass new songs so everybody will just continue listening to the old songs because those are the only good ones that are allowed.
There’s no way every single “theft” is actually theft. An artist can’t possibly know every single song ever. I’ve tried writing something before only to hear something very similar sometime later. It happens
beyond that, I can't copy how you sing, how you play, or your lyrics, so why care?! How is this girl going to write anything meaningful if she thinks everything can be compared to something else that already exists. There lots of original music that generates $0. I don't see every blues, jazz, or rock artist suing each other. This rabbit hole is ludicrous, and she's promoting that idea of people wanting to own their own chords, chord progressions, scales, scale fragments, and melody bits, etc.. you get the idea..
How about Journey - I'm Gonna Leave You and Kansas - Carry On Wayward Son. Also Steve Miller Band - The Stake and Joe Walsh - Rocky Mountain Way. And that progression in the Steely Dan Song is also in The Soft Parade by The Doors.
On the subject of Steve Miller, how about Rock'n Me, All Right Now by Free, and Firehouse by Kiss. Most people never mention Firehouse.
I remember when I dreamed of a beautiful romantic piano piece, woke up, and immediately sat down at the piano to work out what I'd been hearing. Guess what: I'd subconsciously transposed bits of two actual Chopin preludes to the same key (different from both), and stitched it together. (I have absolute pitch, so they really DID sound different.) Wonder to how many other people similar things happened...
George later discovered that he owned the catalogue containing He's so fine and he'd been suing himself for all those years!
No, Allen Klein bought the rights to “He’s So Fine”
Honey, you might not know it, but you have a great talent, your facial expressions could rival the great Bette Davis. Those slight nuances show great emotions. Not to late to become a famous actress. You got plenty chops musical and others. Thanks for being you.
That was great!👏🏻
This has to be the most insightful overview of this one subject I have ever seen... and heard. i have always thought this way about all the particulars you mentioned but you put it into words and notes perfectly.
BTW, also love the way you wrinkle your nose sometimes. Not exactly on subject I know but I just had to mention that.
That’s just what I set out to do (not the nose part but the rest of it!) thanks!!
People don't always subconsciously lift music they've heard, but have just stumbled onto the same musical device because, as they say, great minds think alike. Paul Stookey, when he'd written "There is love" or the Wedding song, gave any royalties to one of his charities because he believed it was not made by him, but " discovered by him. I have the same problem. Many years ago in the early eighties, I developed two separate chord sequences that I used to jam on and forgot until recently. Then when rediscovering them, I found that together they formed almost the same idea as Cheryl Crowe's " all I want to do", and part of an instrumental I developed and played in bar bands in the seventies had a turn around section at the end of a section that was the same as McCartney and Elvis Costello's " My brave face. I'm nit saying I'm anywhere on their level, but I can't have heard these tunes because they were not realeased til 10 years after I'd " written " them! My problem is that someone like you might notice the similarities and think I'd either deliberately or accidentally copied them, but my ideas were never released to the public anyway, so no-one will believe they're original if I ever do release them, like the other bit I still have ( no lyrics yet) which sounds suspiciously like the chorus in McCartney's "Peace in the neighbourhood". I'm just a nobody, but was obviously digging around the same bits of rock in the ground( primary source) or as you said, in the ether, but more organised and proffessional types will always be better miners, and mire efficient, quickly getting their sounds out to the public. When you are searching your internal musical neighbourhoods ( no pun) of course there will be times when many people will find themselves walking the familiar streets of certain musical patterns or motifs... it's not surprising people of basic musical intelligence will end up with the same architecture, as you point out, much of the time it is the only Taxi route you can take through that locality because of the limit of units of phrase in any genre, so even in George Harrisons case, I think it's a bit rich to claim that the idea was yours when he probably arrived at the same conclusions while doing essentially a gospel/soul type progression There are so many popular progressions that are commonly used, it's like suing someone for plagarism because they expressed the same opinion in print without using a single original word which they made up... they just spoke English, whether or not it could be woke enough to call it cultural appropriation for Elton John to sing with a south western vowel sound in a country ballad because he's british?!!! There is nothing new under the sun Tom Petty's " here comes my girl" or Ban Mirrison with them singing " Here comes the night" Who cares except for ignorant, frivolously litigious Canadians, US citizens, and English-speaking Mexican and cenntral americans?
Excellent episode!
I get this all the time. Glad you were able to put it into words.
I really enjoyed this!
Your Bob Seger example made me think of a French musette style waltz I wrote many years ago. I played it for friends and acquaintances and even in public. Several people said, "Hey, that sounds familiar!" And I would say, "How could it? I just wrote it!"
Well! A few years later I put on a CD I hadn’t listened to for a long time, and I heard a fairly well-known song (in that genre). The whole opening theme was almost exactly the same as what I had "composed"! Other sections were different, but the beginning was a copy.
For some time, I was at a complete loss for what to do. Then one day I hit on the idea of completely reversing the melody. And it worked!
Certain elements in Beatles songs come out in later songs. For example, the intro to Michelle is similar in structure to that of Strawberry Fields and the resolution in Strawberry Fields foreshadows that of the one in Let it Be.
Nobody seems to have pointed this one out - as the melody is almost note for note identical. Abba's "Dance While The Music Still Goes On" & Elvis Costello's "Olivers Army". Listen to the chorusses of both - particularly in the "Olivers Army" line - "And I Would Rather Be Anywhere Else But Here Today".
Nieve and Costello have themselves acknowledged the influence of ABBA on the Armed Forces album.
I've been noticing this a lot in the last 20 years at least. Songs that remind me of other songs. The latest song: Billie Eilish's What Was I Made For? I love the song for a lot of reasons but the beginning chord progression reminds me so much of a slow version of Dolly Parton's Here You Come Again.
La Bamba and Twist and Shout; Queen Of Hearts and It's Alright... that's just two. Many of Buddy Holly's songs can be 'mapped' onto another with the potential for (maybe with a bit of transposing) playing a Supermix...
I blew my music coaches mind when I smashed "I Wish How I Knew How It Feels To Be Free" and "Amazing Grace" together before their very eyes...
Nice video.
I've always believed there's nothing we haven't heard before. Except for your amazing research, presentation and production... 🎶💯👏
You have a lovely voice and are a smart gjrl. My dad was a jazz guitarist and would have found your channel interesting. I do.
Back in the 70's when I started composing I went through a period where I was cranking out a song or two a week. Among those songs were "Whole Lotta Love", " Holiday" (Bee Gees) & "Whipping Post". I don't remember hearing any of them before I wrote them though obviously I must have. (Although admittedly the riff in Whole Lotta Love is so basic that hundreds of people have probably written it. Zep was just the 1st to record it)
The opening riff in "Whole Lotta Love" is similar to that of the Guess Who's "American Woman" (following the little blues intro). Also a similar guitar sound in general ran between Bachman and Page. But then those guys knew each other. It's possible they shared ideas.
Beautiful singing and piano. Excellent video. If I may say so, the sheet music - before I pressed play - was correct. I recognized “Trucking,” along side “The Ballad of John and Yoko.” In each song, the similar melody was in the verse. In the video, @ 11:55, she plays the “Truckin” refrain, which is not the same melody. Am I right? I was listening very carefully, because it was such an interesting video. Thank you.
You’re completely right about that. The wrong clip got put into the video by mistake. It’s the verses.
Aimee, first I've seen of your videos, and I'll definitely check out more.
This video is almost the comprehensive one. I think all you're missing is commentary on the John Fogerty case and a hat tip to Keith Richard's son for pointing out that "Has Anybody Seen My Baby" bears a remarkable similarity to "Constant Craving." So the Stones put K.D. Lang on as co-writer without her even getting a heads up!
Should also mention that when a DJ did a "version" of "Tom's Diner" Suzanne Vega was asked by her legal team "What do you want to do about it?" And she said, "Let's release it as a single." Also brilliant and kind.
This is a great video, Aimee … the conscious homage to Rachmaninoff by Eric Carmen, in “all by myself”, is a great story … I love a well placed “nod” or “homage”…. Sometimes they haunt you until you can place them… At the end of George Harrison’s “Far East Man” there is a sax lick that I loved, and researched, until I finally found it was the main hook of “What Does It Take? (To win your love) By Junior Walker and the All Stars… I don’t know if George was aware of it, or if his sax player just threw it in… That’s all George needed, another plagiarism lawsuit LOL.
You had me at "Flipper!" The hook of that song has been embedded in my brain since I was a child. Interesting that there has to be some kind of similarity in song structure even for us to recognize genres, yet within some fuzzy but real constraints we' still strive to be "original". Thanks Aimee.
She stole that music on porpoise
@@jeffthevideoguy23😄
Fascinating and I agree with you Totally! Always run an idea passed someone else. But don’t let it stop you writing.nice work Aimee 😅