Thursday, June 24, 2004

Plagiarism: Neil Young's signal vice

Neil Young plagiarizes his song constructions and those of others in ways that would have sent poor George Harrison or Richard Ashcroft to the poorhouse. A sample:

Song: Differently (Are you passionate?)
Plagiarised from: Love and Only Love (Ragged Glory)

Song: Days that Used to Be (Ragged Glory)
Plagiarised from: My Back Pages (Bob Dylan)

Song: Borrowed Tune (Tonight's The Night)
Plagiarised from: Lady Jane (The Rolling Stones)
[He even admits this one in the lyrics and title!]

Song: Like a Hurricane (American Stars and Bars)
Plagiarised from: Runaway (Del Shannon)

Song: Get Gone (Lucky 13)
Plagiarised from: Chuck Berry... well, that's kind of like public domain, if you think about it.

There's more, loads more. I'll post more I think of them.

Plagiarism, of course, is too harsh. Really, this is the sort of cultural interchange that SHOULD happen in popular music; courts that have allowed the sorts of lawsuit I cite above are idiotic. F'rinstance, Like a Hurricane builds on the theme of Runaway in an revealing, interesting way -- T.S. Eliot would approve, at least in theory.

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