I think her offer of 40% royalties to the Heads was fair. “Get Free” has an identical chord structure to “Creep” in the verse, plus a similar melody line. Lana then adds a chorus which gives the song a pretty different feel. Thom & Co want 100%, which I think is bullshit. You guys?
I’m with Lana
by 51 Comments
Negotiating strategies.
A settlement somewhere in between will be reached, probably.
Haven’t heard hers, mind.
You know what happened to Ray of Light? She ought to get Madonna’s lawyer. Sheesh.
What happened Gary? Wiki says Madge took 30% of the royalties, which ties in with my vague recollection of the “facts” around the time of release.
Don’t let the glamorous avatar fool you. I am not Gary, nor was meant to be.
You’ll always be Gary to me sweetie.
I remember an interview with the original song writer, who was down on his luck and, I think, living in a hostel when Madge came knocking. He seemed delighted with the deal he got, and explicitly said he’s glad he didn’t hold out for more and risk the other side walking away (writes an attendant lord).
My lawyers have advised me that the rest is silence.
I’m not. I’ve listened to the two songs and I can’t believe the similarity of both verses or the stupidity / laziness of whoever write Lana del Rey’s song. What were they thinking? However, in this case the waters seem quite muddy, given that part of Creep borrows from The Air That I Breathe. It will be interesting to see how this pans out.
“Stupidity and Laziness” , completely agree. When you listen to both it’s breathtaking that they thought they’d get away with it.
The issue with “The Air that I Breathe” is slightly different in that although it shares the same chord progression and they DID pay up its really isn’t the same song unlike Lana’s which actually is.
From Wiki
According to Hammond, “Radiohead agreed that they had actually taken it … Because they were honest they weren’t sued to the point of saying ‘we want the whole thing’. So we ended up just getting a little piece of it.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creep_(Radiohead_song)
And the songs, judge for yourself
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cUQ0aNuhR-s
If Pharrell couldn’t get away with it Lana definitely won’t.
Bang to rights I’d say. I’m surprised they could actually be arsed to write some new words.
They couldn’t be arsed to make them scan though.
Interestingly, chord progressions don’t count, according to a mate of mine who is a session musician in the States. The “original work” is held to be the melody.
Just as well, or whoever first banged trudgingly through a bar of G, a bar of D and a bar of C would be minted.
Presumably, Radiohead have Allen Klein’s lawyers. They successfully got 100% of Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony as it was based on an orchestral version of The Last Time, a song credited to Jagger/Richards even though it’s a rip off from The Staple Singers. Pops Staples had been foolish enough to credit Maybe The Last Time to traditional, whoever that might be, without even claiming an ‘arrangement’.
In defence of Pop Staples, in the heyday of the Staple Singers, writers/arrangers (especially black ones) routinely got shafted for royalties and often couldn’t care less about them, because it was all disposable pop stuff in those days that was deleted and forgotten about once it was out of the charts. What counted was getting gigs where you got paid. Also an area where artists were routinely shafted.
It wasn’t until George Harrison was successfully sued over “My Sweet Lord” that anyone took much notice of plagiarism.
Having listened to the clip above, it’s an obvious case of plagiarism, which they’d be foolish to deny.
They are, to be fair, different songs. The only similarity I can hear is the “this could be the last time/maybe the last time I don’t know” lyrics.
And to bring it all full circle…(from 0.50)
I may have missed the point here but wasn’t Bitter Sweet Symphony an almost wholesale lift from Andrew Loog Oldham’s orchestral version of The Last Time? This is very different to the straightforward version of the song.
https://youtu.be/MKC5cdGBY04
Oh, I was too late! Yeah – this.
Bittersweet Symphony is an outrageous lift, though. It is IDENTICAL to that orchestral version of The Last Time, throughout.
I’d not heard the original until recently, and had always assumed it was a case of just the initial string sample being lifted, but the song being Ashcroft’s. Is it bollocks. Yer Verve-twit has only changed the words. The TDDWH deserved to give up every penny, and more besides for sheer pisstakery.
Maybe so, but rip off merchants suing others for ripping people off struck me as a bit rich. But, they are rich, so there you go.
The real distinction between this and the Stones is the riff. That was created and played by Brian Jones, not Keith. Who gets the writing credit?
Andrew Loog Oldham produced the orchestral version that Verve nicked but Phil Spector ‘assisted’ with the original Stones single. His ‘Wall of Sound’ is all over it.
Who is making money from it now? Not Brian, not Phil, not Pops Staples.
Yebbut…there’s also the lyrics:
Well I told you once and I told you twice
But ya never listen to my advice
You don’t try very hard to please me
With what you know it should be easy
Well this could be the last time
This could be the last time
Maybe the last time
I don’t know, oh no, oh no
Well, I’m sorry girl but I can’t stay
Feelin’ like I do today
It’s too much pain and too much sorrow
Guess I’ll feel the same tomorrow
So Keef added an aggressively secular story plus a chorus that bears no musical relation to the original. Plus the original was in the public domain anyway – all Pops did was arrange it and add that guitar, so that it sounded like nobody but the Staple Singers. He could have said Trad, arr. Staples, but he chose not to, presumably because he’d been singing it since he was a kid and felt he had no claim over it.
Like this woman:
https://youtu.be/jhs2KdQlyIM
While we’re on the subject of plagiarism, I’m told it can be quite amusing to compare the middle eight of Radiohead’s Karma Police with the HJHs’ Sexy Sadie.
So if Radiohead win, and they had previously admitted to borrowing from the Hollies, does that then leave the door open for Hammond and co to sue Lana?
No, cos the “Air” bit of “Creep” doesn’t appear in “Get Free”. I believe the issue between Hammond and Radiohead was that the melody line of the bridge in “Creep” was virtually identical to the melody line of the verse in “The Air That I Breathe”, not that the chord pattern of the entire song was the same.
I really wanna see you, Hare Lana.
She’s so fined.
Very good!
Lana del Radiohead is the pun everyone invented simultaneously on Twitter.
Never knowingly heard either song till just now. Both songs are very dull. They deserve each other.
Hard to believe, and Creep is a truly great song!
I believe it’s so fucking special.
I can only agree with MiketheP.
I have only hear Ms Lana’s version today.
I have never knowingly heard Mr Radiohead’s version until today.
Should they not both be deemed culpable in inflicting this misarable shit on us?
You have to wonder why someone in the studio didn’t say, “Hmmm…bit familiar, that.”
In fairness, it’s not the most egregious example of royal ripoffness I’ve ever heard; the Sam Smith/Tom Petty thing was even more blatant. The first time I heard Stay With Me, I was singing I Won’t Back Down over it. Can someone with more knowledge of the music industry than me explain how nobody from Smith’s camp (producer, manager, promoters, etc.) noticed? Or maybe they did and just thought coughing up a wee bit of cash in exchange for a big hit was worth it.
Blur’s MOR and David Bowie’s Boys Keep Swinging remains the classic rip-off, though. I can only assume that it was a deliberate band in-joke.
I can’t belive that nobody in Bowie’s camp realised ‘Boys Keep Swinging’ had the same chord progression as ‘Fantasic Voyage’ from the same album.
Disgraceful etc….
Back to the Stones, I believe that Carter USM were stung by lawyers over the use of the line “Goodbye Ruby Tuesday, come home you silly cow” in one of their songs.
The Beautiful South were sued by Jazzy B for the line Back To Bed, Back to Reality. Jazzy got 25% of the royalties and Heaton claimed it was credited to Buzzy Bee on subsequent releases.
There’s that urban myth (can’t find anything on line now, but I’m sure i read it, and it sounds about right) that when the settlement papers had to be signed, PD Heaton signed in good faith but allegedly went and wrote ‘cunt’ wherever Jazzy B’s name appeared earlier…
JB was a twunt and a chancer. Soul II Soul made some brilliant records but he contributed nothing to them apart from some tots-TV type rapping.
Funny interview years ago in Q with Heaton and Dave Rotheray. Apparently Rotheray wanted to be credited as “Mr X” on early Beautiful South stuff so that his family wouldn’t know he’d dropped out of his studies. So Heaton reckons that song should be credited to “Heaton/X/Bee”.
In about 1991 Rotheray gave the future Mrs Moose an E. Or, as Prince would have said, an X.
That’s Blockbusters!
Who’s singing that theme music now? That’ll be me!
Dee-dee-dee-dee-dee
Dee-dee-dee
To: Ms Lana Del Rey; Messrs The Radio Heads; Messrs The Hollies
Subject: Oh dear oh dear oh dear
Sirs,
We write in our capacity as the legal representatives of the Baroness van Pallandt and of the estate of the late Mr Frederick van Pallandt, which persons performed and recorded as the erstwhile popular-music duo Nina and Frederick, who erstwhile were once very popular. We cannot but be struck and, frankly, alarmed by the manifest similarities, which we find to be both striking and alarming, between the chord progression of all three of your alleged own compositions – i.e., I – III – IV – iv – and that of what is perhaps my clients’ best-known own work, namely “Puff the Magic Dragon”, which you will find predates your alleged compositions by some years.
With a view to avoiding the unnecessary inconvenience and undoubted expense of protracted litigation, my clients are prepared to accept receipt within 30 days of a hefty payoff from each of you, in lieu of future publishing royalties.
Personal cheques are acceptable, although PayPal is preferred.
Yours etc.
Sir
We refer you to the response in the exchange of letters in Arkell vs Pressdram (c. 1971)
Toodles.
I’m afraid I have a blindspot when it comes to the appeal of Ms del Rey.
My mate Bob was in the audience when she first appeared on Later… I think he was rather taken with her pins.
“I’ve seen the future of music” said an over-excited Bob.
“In that case, we’re all f***ed” I replied.
I’ve not heard anything to alter my opinion. She’s better looking* than Thomas Yorkie, though.
(*) to me, anyhow – he’s not my type.
There’s more to music than good legs. I have lallies of oak, but that doesn’t make me Gustav Mahler.
I’m told.
Lallies? That’s my sister’s word for boobs. What are you saying?
It’s polari, heart-face!
Have we any quotes from the cheeky Beatle guitarist re: “Start” by The Jam?
He surely must have had a chuckle over that following the “He’s So Fine”/”My Sweet Lord” battle.
Ten years later Ride “borrowed” that bassline again for Seagull. Cheeky scamps.
Is that why they never looked anyone in the eyes?
This story appears to be “Fake News”, after all that.
Warner-Chappell, who are Radiohead’s publishers, have announced that although there has been some discussion of the matter between Lana’s people and Radiohead, no legal action has been initiated and no negotiations on royalties have taken place.
So, ‘Fake Drastic Fees” after all…
Very good. Have an up.