I’ve known for a long time that Paul Weller can be, shall we say, somewhat magpie-like in his attitude to a good tune. In my youth I’d been fully aware that he’d basically ‘sampled’ Taxman for Start! but I felt then (and still do) that the newer song was sufficiently different for the link to be purely inspirational rather than plagiaristic. Start! remains one of my favourite Jam songs – a discordant new wave howl punctuated with sweetness (‘If I never ever see you…’).
This segues seamlessly into the He’s So Fine / My Sweet Lord situation and again I’d make the case that the songs were so different in style that the undeniable melodic similarity between the two is irrelevant. As we know, George was eventually found guilty of ‘unconscious plagiarism’.
Came across this site today though and it does paint our Paul in a rather unflattering light. The chances of him taking a hook and ‘making it his own’ recede with every passing year and can certainly not be passed off as the innocence of youth.
See also The Jam’s In The Crowd and The Kinks Johnny Thunder.
Talent borrows, Genius steals?
Jimmy Page basically re-configured everything he’d heard for his own benefit. And then Tony Iommi subtly altered Page’s middle bit in Dazed and Confused to come up with Paranoid
Yep, and Weller did the same as all young bands do and essentially copied their heroes for the first few years before finding their voice. But it does seem as though PW perhaps took that approach a little too far in later years…
See also Sunflower, was it?, and ELO’s 10538 Overture.
Personally, I’ve always found Weller came across a bit of a knob, which is perhaps why I’ve never been that bothered about his music. Happy to watch him front OCS (harsh!) at a festival, wouldn’t pay to see him play his own gig. I own Jam and Style Council compilations.
Rigid: if I only have to hear one Jam album, which should it be?
Setting Sons.
What Tigger said.
Snap! (The compilation). Otherwise All. Mod Cons
To be fair I don’t find Surrender to the Rhythm, one of the most joyous songs ever, all that close to the Style Council one mentioned apart from the surrendered rhythm.
Plus, of course, to have an article about pilfering from Nick Lowe is perhaps a bit rich, he openly admitting to a little bit of this and a little bit of that, when seeking inspiration.
There’s an expression you don’t hear any more. Thirty years ago it was common enough to be the title of an album by D-Mob – presumably a reference to sampling, which was still in its free-for-all phase.
It is a well-written and entertaining article:
“a haircut half-inched from everyone from Worzel Gummidge to Muriel Gray”
The Butterfly Collector by the Jam always threatens to turn into The Crying Game. My mum noticed that one!
I’m sure that a young Noel G. of Manchester was nodding at the pilfering, thinking ‘that’s a good idea…’
In fairness, and it’s been pointed out a lot, the idea of using one song as the basis for another goes back way before pop music; many folk songs evolved as different versions of the same thing.
Green Day have recent form: 21 Guns is ELO’s Telephone Line; Boulevard of Broken Dreams is Wonderwall (we’ve gone full cycle there).
“many folk songs evolved as different versions of the same thing” – as Mr Robert Zimmerman figured out. Hardly an original idea in his head.
With respect to George, from what I have read, it was pointed out to him on more than one occasion during the recording that there was a similarity between the two songs. He chose to ignore this and went on without making any changes.
I find the idea that the melody, riff or hook of a pop song is likely to be – or has to be – completely original and never done before somewhat quaint. If that rule was rigorously applied and all music which built on what’s gone before was expunged from the record all of our music collections would be a lot smaller, that’s for sure.
The uniqueness comes from the combination of melody, rhythm, lyrics if applicable, production and performance. I don’t really give a stuff if the chords have been done in that order before; it’s what you do with them that matters to me.
Exactamundo
I think the thing is often these “nicked” songs are actually pretty standard chord sequences with the most obvious melodies over them. The ones that fall easily to hand on the guitar and to the voice. So they are going to come out sounding similar. I smell lazy songwriting rather than kleptomania in most cases. Good lyrics and arrangement go a long way to making up for that, and had they made a bit more effort they could have created something no one would have suggested was nicked, assuming they have the ability to do so (which may not be the case).
I remember Danny Baker interviewing Rolf Harris on the radio when he was still a much-loved national figure (Harris, I mean). Baker made a point of playing the Adam and the Ants hit Prince Charming and then Rolf’s own War Canoe. Baker presented this to Rolf as a unique discovery and Rolf very subtly indicated that it hadn’t escaped his attention. Those of us that followed pop music from 1979 onwards knew that there was a court case at the time which was quite widely reported. Silly old Danny.
Danny did a semi-regular (OK, maybe only a couple of times) featurette of this.
I remember he also highlighted “Ghostbusters” and Huey Lewis & The News’ “I Want a New Drug”.
Again, this was subject to a court case – I’ll support Danny here and say he was just trying to bring it to a wider audience
Maybe so. But he presented the likeness as though it was his own new discovery.
A case of someone else nicking from Paul Weller.
The riff for Sex Pistols Hoildays In The Sun is nicked from In The City.
According to Glen Matlock he lifted the riff from Fire Brigade by The Move for the intro to God Save The Queen and the intro for Pretty Vacant was based on S.O.S by Abba.
Some good points here. I feel that genre should surely play a part in these considerations. In the same way as most people would think that a family hardware store, or even a cafe, in Stornoway called McDonald’s could not reasonably be accused of trying to pass itself off as the fast food behemoth; it’s hard to view a folksy spiritual anthem as being significantly related to a girl group classic of a decade before. And what we’re talking about in that case is basically three descending notes, isn’t it? My sweet lord, he’s so fine, dah dah dah. I realise I’m arguing somewhat against my op here but I do feel Weller has crossed the line on this too many times. If he wasn’t such an arrogant, chip-on-both-shoulders individual I’d be more forgiving…