markv@dartvax.UUCP (Mark Vita) (05/24/84)
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I have a friend who is a great classical music fan. Once, while
in his room while he happened to be playing one of his albums, it
suddenly occured to me that parts of it seemed very familiar.
"Hey," I said, "this sounds a lot like 'Star Wars'." At that,
his face darkened, and I was audience to a 10-minute tirade
about how John Williams was a "thief", etc., etc. (The
piece that was playing was Holst's "The Planets".)
Don't get me wrong, I'm personally completely clueless
about classical music. But to an admittedly untrained,
but unbiased ear, the music sounded suspiciously similar.
As to the assertion that "borrowing" melodies was accepted
practice during the classical period -- maybe so then, but I
would hesisate to say that it is completely kosher in today's
world of copyrights and other legalese. I remember that
George Harrison got into legal trouble a few years back
because his song "My Sweet Lord" sounded a bit too much like
"She's So Fine". (Whose author I can't recall. It's not
the "She's So Fine" that appears on Jimi Hendrix's
"Axis: Bold As Love", which was written by bassist Noel Redding.
This one is older--from the 50's, I think.)
On a similar note (no pun intended)--does anyone besides
me think that the guitar riff from the Kink's "Catch Me
Now I'm Falling" sounds a little to much like the riff
from the Stones' "Jumpin Jack Flash"?
--
Mark Vita
Dartmouth College
{decvax,cornell,linus}!dartvax!markvrs55611@ihuxk.UUCP (Robert E. Schleicher) (05/30/84)
On the subject of riff stealing, Steve Miller has done this occasionally (and fairly subtly, I guess). Examples: 1. The riff from Keep On Rockin' Me (Fly Like An Eagle LP) is taken from the song by Free (I don't know the title) that starts out "There she stood, in the street, ....". 2. The riff in Jet Airliner is a slightly slower version of the blues riff in Crossroads (by Robert Johnson, performed by Cream, Ten Years After, and others). Bob Schleicher ihuxk!rs55611
gds@mit-eddie.UUCP (Greg Skinner) (06/05/84)
The song which goes "There she stood, in the street", is All Right Now,
by Free.
--
Let fly the bits!
Greg Skinner (White Gold Wielder)
{decvax!genrad, eagle!mit-vax, whuxle, ihnp4}!mit-eddie!gds
And he who wields white wild magic gold is a paradox ...