THE TOP 10 AWESOMELY PLAGIARIZED SONGS

I had completely forgotten how much I love RetroCrush:

The Verve—“Bittersweet Symphony” (1997)
Out of everyone on this list, I think Richard Ashcroft and his band The Verve got screwed the most. Unlike any of our other defendants, Ashcroft actually got permission from the Stones’ music publisher to use a sample from an old, out-of-print orchestral rendition of the Stones’ “The Last Time”. Ashcroft and company built a whole song out of the sampled snippet, and the result ended up an international hit. Enter Jagger and Richards, who now claimed that The Verve had overstepped the bounds of the original agreement by looping the sample and using it as their entire backing track. Ashcroft countered that the Glimmer Twins were only reneging on the deal now that “Bittersweet Symphony” was such a massive—and lucrative—hit. Unfortunately, the courts sided with Goliath on this one, awarding Jagger and Richards composer credit and 100% of the song’s royalties. I’m surprised the duo wasn’t waiting in the wings at Live 8 to shake down Ashcroft as he came offstage from performing the song with Coldplay. The beleagured Ashcroft did, however, score points with one of the better verbal bitch-slaps of recent years when he described “Bittersweet Symphony” as “the best song Jagger and Richards have written in 20 years." Keith Richards may have the last word on this one, though, as it’s hard to argue with his rather pragmatic statement, "If The Verve can write a better song, they can keep the money.” Ah, Keef—Have another fix, mate.





Led Zeppelin—“Whole Lotta Love”, etc. (1970)
This one, on the other hand, hurts. As high as the mighty Zep soars, even it’s not above accusations of cultural appropriation. Like many of their late ‘60s British brethren, Jimmy Page and company were avowed blues freaks—unlike contemporaries such as Cream and the Jeff Beck Group, however, Led Zep did not always properly acknowledge the bluesmen whose lyrics and song structures they used as jumping-off points for their jams. Led Zeppelin II contained no less than three such disputed items: Mega-hit “Whole Lotta Love” bore a striking resemblance to Willie Dixon’s “You Need Love”; “The Lemon Song” was based on Howlin’ Wolf’s “Killing Floor”; and on the album’s closer, “Bring It on Home”, the acoustic intro is basically an uncredited cover of the Sonny Boy Williamson song of the same name. Dixon, er, “Wolf” (a.k.a. Chester Burnett”), and Williamson’s music publisher all brought action against Zep, resulting in out-of-court settlements and co-author credits for the blues icons…a fact you’d think would please an aficionado like Page. But he still insists no wrongdoing, maintaining in an interview with Guitar World: “Most of the comparisons rest on the lyrics. Robert was supposed to change the lyrics, and he didn't always do that—which is what brought on most of the grief. They couldn't get us on the guitar parts of the music, but they nailed us on the lyrics.” Sorry, Jimmy, but these particular blues you’re singing just don’t sound too convincing.





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Okay, full disclosure, in my own songwriting I've ripped people off on several occasions of which I am aware, both inadvertently and on purpose. When I was nineteen, I accidentally stole the chord progression and part of the melody from the Beach Boys' "Sloop John B," which was itself stolen from a West Indies folk tune. A couple years later, I ripped off some melody from a tune on Yes' Tales from Topographic Oceans; this one I did on purpose, reasoning that the Yes song sucks, my use of the melody was much better than theirs, and nobody will ever know or care, anyway.

Anyway, the point is that, as a theater history teacher I had years ago once explained, there are only seven original ideas in Western Civilization, all originated by the Greeks, who stole five of them from the Egyptians. It's all theft. There are no new ideas under the sun. The real question is what an artist is going to do to reconceptualize the old stuff.

When the Verve used a barely recognizable and obscure orchestral reworking of a famous Kieth Richards riff, they hit an artistic mother lode. That is, they found an entirely new song, waaay better than the little bit which inspired it. Page and Plant, however, were just ripping off old black guys. Yes, the Led Zeppelin versions of those old blues tunes are incredible renditions, but that's all they are, renditions--they had no business erasing the original composers' names and penciling in their own. That is, they didn't create entirely new songs, and then lied about it. Fuckers. And while I'm at it, the Stones are fuckers, too, for fucking over the Verve the way they did.

No good deed goes unpunished, I suppose.

Anyway, go check the list out. It's fun shit.

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