We know you’ve been anxious for part two of Clinton Heylin’s article on the art of song-snatching, so here it is! If you missed part one, you can find it here! 

6. James Bond Theme

In 2001 fabled film composer John Barry was finally forced to defend a libel suit brought by Monty Norman after for some years hinting that it was he who had really written the James Bond Theme, not Norman, as it said on every 007 film-credit. When openly asked by the Sunday Times in 1998 whether Norman really wrote the theme he was unequivocal, ‘Absolutely not’. Unfortunately for the Times, Barry was required under oath to explain exactly how he came to compose a theme Norman wrote  a full five years earlier, under the name ‘Bad Sign, Good Sign’.

Barry changed tack, begrudgingly admitting he did use the riff from ‘Bad Sign, Good Sign’ but still insisted the rest of the tune was his. Unfortunately for Barry, the prosecution’s expert witness was Dr Sadie, Professor of Music at Trinity College. Sadie showed that the fundamental idea in the ‘James Bond Theme’, including the riff itself (the one playing in your head right now) was wholly derived from ‘Bad Sign, Good Sign’. The only part which wasn’t so derived was a standard vamp inserted by Barry.

Barry insisted it was all a misunderstanding, and he had never intended to claim royalties on the song. The prosecution promptly produced two letters sent by Barry’s solicitors, threatening to go after Norman for all the royalties unless Norman withdrew his libel action. Barry’s goose was cooked. He lost the case, the Times faced a substantial bill for costs, and Norman was awarded £30,000. More importantly, Barry reminded the world what it had in fact forgotten, that he did not write that trademark riff. Monty did.

7. Mbube/Wimoweh/The Lion Sleeps Tonight

Once upon a time of apartheid, a Zulu singer, Solomon Linda, recorded a traditional Zulu hunting chant, ‘Mbube’, for a local South African label run by an Italian immigrant, Eric Gallo, who had originally solf imported hillbilly records to working-class South Africans. The 1939 78 was a minor local hit, the small sum it made going to Gallo, who had purchased the copyright outright from Linda, as was the norm then.

One of these locally-sold 78s found its way to Pete Seeger after Alan Lomax brought it back from an African folk-collecting trip. Intrigued by the song, he transcribed it (badly), rearranging it as ‘Wimoweh’ and generously assigning the copyright to a nom de plume he and his fellow Weavers often used to claim 100% of the publishing on traditional songs (when only 50% was permitted).

If there was any problem Seeger could always turn to his music publisher, Howie Richmond, who only lied when his lips were moving. He hd already defended The Weavers from another suit over a ‘traditional’ African song they appropriated. ‘Tzena Tzena’ sold over a million copies in the US. The suit was finally settled in favour of the Israeli soldier who authored it in 1941.

Eric Gallo, to his credit, was aware enough to realize ‘Wimoweh’ was ‘Mbube’. In exchange for not contesting the ‘Paul Campbell’ credit, he struck a deal with Richmond which gave Richmond the US publishing for ‘Wimoweh’ in exchange for Gallo administering the song in the English-speaking parts of Africa.

‘Wimoweh’ was covered a few times over the next decade, once by Jimmy Dorsey, but only entered the financial stratosphere in 1961, when George Weiss rearranged it completely, giving it a new set of words and gave it to doo-wop group The Tokens, calling it ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’. Six months earlier, Weiss had done the same for Elvis, turning ‘Plaisir D’Amour’ into ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’, giving him his first number one of the decade.

Only now did Solomon’s snatch of Zulu become a genuine worldwide pop phenomenon. ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ was a number one smash for The Tokens, doing the same for Karl Denver in the UK, and, twenty years on for Tight Fit. Meanwhile, Token Jay Siegel called at New York’s South African consulate, where he was told ‘Wimoweh’ ‘was derived from a traditional folk song that was used as a hunting song’. Linda had no copyright claim anyway, though he did live long enough to see the song cross the folk-pop divide, dying in 1962.

In fac,t the family of the Zulu singer did nothing about (re-)securing rights to the song until South African journalist Rian Malan appeared on his metaphorical milk-white steed nearly forty years after Linda’s death, unleashing the dogs of copyright law. But before they could go after the American copyright-holders, they needed to get back the rights Linda signed away in 1939.

Fortunately for them, the deal Eric Gallo had struck back in 1952 had been so badly constructed he had made very little money from a song that had earned millions. Once the Gallo family agreed to return all rights to the Linda family, they could contest the 10 per cent cut they were receiving from ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’, asserting that Weiss’s song was little more than a reworking of ‘Mbube’, which it self-evidently was not.

If Weiss had been a more mean-spirited man, he could have returned the entire copyright to the Linda family. Instead, an agreement was struck which allowed the Lindas to share equally in the steady stream of revenue from The Lion King. Any seventy-year term on this new copyright would only start when Weiss himself died, which he duly did in 2010; meaning that a traditional Zulu song that may or may not have been adapted by Linda in 1939 will still be in copyright in 2080!

 8. My Sweet Lord

If McCartney was always careful to diguise his musical debts, barely had erstwhile Beatle George Harrison left the band when he had his biggest solo hit and rock’s most infamous lawsuit, all over the song, ‘My Sweet Lord’. Though he always claimed any debt to The Chiffons’ ‘He’s So Fine’ was accidental, others have insisted otherwise.

Delaney Bramlett claims Harrison was backstage at a Delaney & Bonnie show in 1969 when ‘I grabbed my guitar and started playing the Chiffons’ melody from “He’s So Fine,” and then sang, “My Sweet Lord, oh my Lord, oh my Lord.”’ Two years later, when he heard the song on the radio, Bramlett called Harrison up to say he hadn’t meant for him to use the exact melody and to complain about the lack of recit, ‘But I never saw any money from it.’ Nor did George.

John Lennon displayed little sympathy for his old friend George, suggesting, ‘He walked right into it. He knew what he was doing.’ And if he didn’t, the producer of ‘My Sweet Lord’ surely did, because the first time Harrison played the song to Phil Spector, he must have pointed out its similarity to The Chiffons song, one he knew well.

However, Harrison paid fully for his conscious songsnatch, thanks to the double-dealing of Harrison’s own accountant-manager, Allen Klein, whose right hand, as Eric Idle lampooned in The Rutles, ‘never knew who his left hand was doing’.

Back in 1971, when the song’s publisher Bright Music first filed suit, Allen Klein met with the president, on Harrison’s behalf, offering to purchase the entire catalogue as they were all but bankrupt. They refused. Harrison then offered the company $148,000, supposedly representing 40% of US royalties on ‘My Sweet Lord’. Bright Music unexpectedly demanded 75% of worldwide receipts and surrender of the song’s copyright. Harrison, having recently terminated his contract with Klein, should have smelt the whiff of mendacity. Klein had bought Bright Tunes himself, knowing the future value of this copyright. It was a clear breach of the fiduciary duty he owed to his former client, and even the judge in the case saw it. He awarded Klein $587,000 in damages, the exact sum that he had paid for Bright Music, rather than the two million he had confidently expected.

9. Blue Monday.

For three years New Order had been living in the shadow of Joy Division when they released ‘Blue Monday’ in 1983. It promptly charted twice in the UK, selling over a million copies domestically while topping Billboard’s Hot Dance Club Play charts. What no one in the band could agree on, though, ws where it came from. According to Peter Hook, ‘We stole it off a Donna Summer B-side’ (meaning ‘Our Love’, actually an A-side).

Bernard Sumner admitted to further lifts, taking part of the arrangement from ‘Dirty Talk’, by Klein + M.B.O, the signature bassline from Sylvester’s disco classic, ‘You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)’, and sampling the long intro from a Kraftwerk song, ‘Uranium’. Keyboardist Gillian Gilbert didn’t think its debts ended there, ‘Peter Hook’s bassline was nicked from an Ennio Morricone film soundtrack.’

Seemingly, the only recent song from which Sumner and co. didn’t take elements was indie single ‘Gerry And The Holograms’ by Gerry & The Holograms. But if ‘Blue Monday’ had a starting point, it was this obscure Mancunian slice of electronica, released on Absurd Records in 1979. Except ‘Gerry And The Holograms’ was a send-up of the New Electronica by arch satirist C.P. Lee, of Albertos Y Los Trios Paranoias fame, and his friend, John Scott. New Order all knew the ‘Manc’ from Albertos – and his sense of humour, but decided the joke was on him. They were never sued.

10. Blurred Lines.

The March 2015 judgement of an LA court that ‘Blurred Lines’, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams’ modern megahit, was plagiarized from ‘Got To Give It Up’, a 1974 Marvin Gaye dance track, sent shockwaves through the industry. As it should. Never before had someone – or in this case, their hysterical daughter – claimed copyright on a ‘groove’. Because, as Rhodri Marsden wrote in the New Statesman, a week after the judgement:

“The view that ‘Blurred Lines’ plagiarises from Marvin Gaye is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what songwriting is. Let’s be clear: these two songs are fundamentally different. They have different structures, different melodies, different chords. Were it not for the similarity of the sparse arrangement (an offbeat electric piano figure and a cowbell clanking away at 120bpm) the court case wouldn’t even have taken place.”

One suspects there will be another court case and the judgement will end up overturned. This is America, after all. In which case, Gaye’s daughter may rue the day she did not follow the example of Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne, whose 1989 hit, ‘Don’t Back Down’, provided the melodic undertow to Sam Smith’s ‘Stay With Me’, the Grammy Song of The Year, but settled for a revised namecheck and a 25% cut of the proceeds from the mulit-million seller. After all, as Petty himself said, ‘These things happen.’

Perhaps best known for his extensive writing on Bob Dylan, Clinton Heylin has been called “a formidable rock historian” (The Australian), “Arguable the world’s greatest rock biographer” (The Irish Independent), and “One of music writing’s foremost practitioners” (Irish Examiner). His work also includes biographies on Van Morrison and Sandy Denny in addition to numerous other books and articles, greatly enhancing the genre of music history. Today, Heylin is sharing with youbloom part one of his recent piece on song-snatching. Stay tuned for part two which will be appearing here on Tuesday!

‘Twas Paul McCartney, one of the most original songwriters, who told Guitar World, ‘What do they say? A good artist borrows, a great artist steals … That makes the Beatles great artists, because we stole a lot of stuff.’ The trick is disguising the debt, or stealing from the public domain, as Macca did with ‘Golden Slumbers’, a Thomas Dekker poem. Because as John Perry, Only Ones guitarist and (uncredited) author of the ‘Another Girl Another Planet’ riff, once wrote: ‘“Ripping off” is a matter of context. Everyone steals; it’s not what you nick, but the way that you nick it.’

Even the Eurovision Song Contest – that black hole of originality – has been tainted by accusations of plagiarism. The year that ‘Congratulations’ – the most famous English non-winner – lost out to Spanish song ‘La La La’, the triumphant Spaniards were immediately sued for patently nicking the melody of The Kinks’ ‘Death of A Clown’.

Since the beginning of 4/4 time, songwriters have been borrowing, snatching or plain stealing from songs of yesteryear. So here is my personal list of favourite beg, steal and borrowings, beginning a hundred years ago with W.C. Handy, a man with two statues erected to him, and a park named after him, the self-styled ‘Father of The Blues’.

1. St Louis Blues.
Handy’s most famous, and lucrative, song was once the second most valuable copyright in popular song, but even he admitted that ‘the twelve-bar, three-line form … with its three-chord basic harmonic structure . . . was already used by Negro roustabouts, honky-tonk piano players, wanderers and others of their underprivileged but undaunted class.’

In fact, the lyrics were little more than a clever composite of stray couplets heard in clubs of Memphis and the streets of St Louis (hence the song’s title). As for the music, jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton fired the first salvo at Handy’s lilywhite reputation in a 1938 Downbeat article, suggesting, ‘Mr. Handy cannot prove anything is music that he has created. [Rather,] he has taken advantage of some unprotected material . . . [because of] a greed for false reputation.’

Handy’s printed retort was that at least he ‘had vision enough to copyright and publish all the music I wrote, so I don’t have to go around saying I made up this piece and that piece in such and such a year … Nobody has swiped anything from me.’ But as bluesman T-Bone Walker once said of Handy’s famous composite composition, ‘It’s a pretty tune, and it has kind of a bluesy tone, but it’s not the blues. You can’t dress up the blues.’

2. Hound Dog
‘Hound Dog’ provided sophomore songsmiths Mike Stoller and Jerry Leiber with a crash-course in r&b publishing. No sooner had they written the r&b standard, in 1952, it was copyrighted to Don Robey, who owned Peacock Records and Big Mama Thornton who recorded it. The culprit was Johnny Otis, to whom Leiber-Stoller had contracted their songs hoping to break into the industry. Giving him a third of the publishing on any songs he got recorded, they did not allow him to assign their songs to others.

As Stoller later told their biographer, ‘’The reality of the cold-blooded music business was something else. Later, we learned that Johnny Otis [had] put his name on the song as a composer and indicated to Don Robey, the label owner, that he, Johnny, had power of attorney to sign for us as well . . . We got an attorney and a new contract from Robey … The song hit the R&B charts, but [Robey’s] check bounced.’

Otis insisted to his dying day he rewrote the words, which originally ‘had lyrics about knives and scars, all negative stereotypes . . . It was a legal swindle and I got beat out of it.’ He even took the pair to court when Elvis covered it, having previously signed a release renouncing all claims to the song in exchange for $750. His claim was roundly dismissed, the New York federal judge branding him ‘unworthy of belief’ – courtspeak for a hound dog.

3. Blowin’ In The Wind
Like Shakespeare before him, the first time Dylan achieved public notoriety was as a ‘thief of thoughts’ in an October 1963 Newsweek feature that suggested there was a ‘rumor circulating that Dylan did not write “Blowing In The Wind,” that it was written by a Millburn (N.J.) high school student named Lorre Wyatt, who sold it to the singer . . . Wyatt denies authorship, but several Millburn students claim they heard the song from Wyatt before Dylan ever sang it.’

Dylan’s naive decision to publish the song in a mimeographed folkzine, Broadside, a full year before he released it gave Wyatt the opportunity to claim it for his own. A New Jersey high-school student and a member of The Millburnaires, a cheesy folk trio in the Kingston rio tradition, Wyatt played it to his band in October 1962, nine whole months before Peter Paul & Mary made it a million-seller.

When asked where he got it from, Wyatt claimed to have written it. The other band members insisted they perform it at a high school performance where it was an immediate sensation, and all too soon Wyatt found himself telling tall-tales for a living. By September 1963, a female researcher from Newsweek was calling Wyatt persistently. Andrea Svedburg was researching a premeditated hatchet-job on the protest singer, ‘revealing’ his real name and middle-class Mid-west upbringing.

Surprisingly, Dylan did not sue the highly influential weekly. But it would take Wyatt until 1974 to come clean, and another forty years before he made a joint album with Pete Seeger, who had spotted Dylan’s true source the very night he first performed it: ‘No More Auction Block’, a traditional anti-slavery song. Dylan might still have been sued for the song had he not wisely dropped the song’s fourth verse, a straight lift from Jack Rhodes’s ‘Satisfied Mind’, a song owned by the notoriously litigious Porter Wagoner.

4. House of The Rising Sun
If Dylan claimed his recasting of ‘No More Auction Block’ for his own he failed to copyright his arrangement (actually Dave Van Ronk’s) of 19th century folksong ‘House of the Rising Sun’, recorded it for his first album. This left The Animals free and clear to claim the electric arrangement they based on his as their own.

In fact, only the Animals organist Alan Price put his name to ‘their’ arrangement, prompting singer Eric Burdon to write, ‘With the stroke of a pen, the rest of The Animals were screwed. Ripped off from the get-go – from inside.’ The song went to number one both sides of the Atlantic, and Price was suddenly a very wealthy you man; and Dylan saw the light electric.

If Dylan was unfazed, another American folk doyen was incensed to find he was entitled to nothing. Alan Lomax was the son of John Lomax, whose first collection of Cowboy Songs was largely plagiarized from another collector. Both subsequently used Congress funds to collect folksongs they duly copyrighted to themselves – including Leadbelly’s entire repertoire.

In 1960’s Folk Songs of North America, Alan claimed he found ‘Rising Sun’ first, taking it ‘down in 1937 from . . . a pretty, yellow-headed miner’s daughter in Middlesborough, Kentucky, subsequently adapting it to the form … popularized by Josh White.’ He did nothing of the sort. White learnt the song from ‘a white hillbilly singer in North Carolina’.

White’s minor-key variant was the one Van Ronk, Dylan and The Animals appropriated. But his variant was hardly the first recorded. Versions released by Clarence Ashley and Roy Acuff both predate White’s, and Lomax’s. As does a version by The Callahan Brothers recorded in April 1935 as ‘Rounder’s Luck’.

Try as he might, there was no way Lomax Junior could cut himself a slice of a song to which he did not contribute a single note or word, just because he had the ‘foresight’ to record three versions of it after it had already been collected by three other folklorists and after it was released commercially no less than three times.

5. Dazed & Confused.
The idea for Led Zeppelin was one Jimmy Page had been carrying around for years. In fact, he almost formed such a band with John Entwistle and Keith Moon, back in 1966. The problem was not musicianship, but original material. He was not a natural songwriter. Yet when the first Led Zeppelin album appeared there were all these songs credited to Page in part or all, including compositions by folkie Anne Borden and bluesmen Howlin’ Wolf and Willie Dixon, all still alive, all recopyrighted to Page et al.

His most brazen acquisition, though, was called ‘Dazed & Confused’, a song he had learnt two years earlier from a Jake Holmes album and centrepiece of early Zep performances. The one time he was asked on the record about the song he wiggled like a catfish on a fishing-line, ‘I’d rather not get into it because I don’t know all the circumstances. What’s he got, the riff or whatever? Because Robert wrote some of the lyrics for that on the album . . . We extended it from one that we were playing with The Yardbirds. I haven’t heard Jake Holmes.’

Actually, Plant hadn’t written a single word of the song, and if he had, he wasn’t credited. Only Page was. As for never hearing Jake Holmes, Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty not only recalled Jake Holmes supporting The Yardbirds at a New York show in August 1967 but vividly remembers them going to a record shop the next day to buy Holmes’s album, The Above Ground Sound, having collectively ‘decided to do a version … We worked it out together with Jimmy contributing the guitar riffs in the middle.’

Holmes, for reasons unknown, took until 2010 to make it a legal matter but when he did, Page didn’t have a leg to stand on. But Page could not bring himself to admit ‘Dazed And Confused’ was not really his. And so as a solution to the suit, when the version from Zeppelin’s one-off 2007 reunion at the O2 Arena was released in 2012 it was credited to ‘Page, inspired by Jake Holmes’ – a form of credit not recognized by any copyright law, but which at least admitted Page had heard Jake Holmes’ psychedelic original.