Muse’s Clues from Mar.09

I remember a few years ago finishing up a new song and feeling
quite proud of myself for writing something very different than
my usual fare, only a day or two later to discover that I had
completely ripped off a melody and chord progression of a song I
had been listening to previously. It was disheartening and
frustrating, but of course I had to ditch the song! Plagiarism
seems to be a great fear in most of us…not just copying someone
else’s song, but having our own song plagiarized.

I wonder how many times this honestly happens, not just to those
of us who are relatively anonymous, but also to big name
songwriters? And when it happens and they realize it, do they do
the same thing and just ditch the song? You would hope so! Then
again, what if they don’t realize that a song they’ve written has
“been done” before but the song has already had a major release?

This is what happened when The Rolling Stones were about to
release the CD Bridges to Babylon in 1997 with a song called
“Anybody Seen My Baby” that had a very similar hook to KD Lang’s
song “Constant Craving”, released in 1992. Instead of waiting
for a lawsuit, however, clever Mick simply offered Lang writing
credits and shared profits from the song.

I am guessing that this is also what happened to Coldplay’s lead
singer and songwriter Chris Martin when he wrote Viva La Vida.
As it turns out, the melody and chord progression in parts of the
song are strikingly similar to another song released in 2005 by
Joe Satriani called “If I Could Fly”. But Satriani believes that
Martin knowingly stole his melody and progression and so he is
suing Coldplay as a result. There have been a lot of arguments
between fans of both artists as to who stole what, but on a
YouTube video you can watch a two-part video from an objective
viewpoint, examining each song from a theoretical perspective.
Now the theory might be over your head, but it also might teach
you a lot about what might be viewed as plagiarism:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJWLfpOecyE

If you are interested in other examples of similar-sounding
songs, on the Prolific Magazine blog, Joshua Kraus compares what
he calls “The 8 Most Blatantly Plagiarized Songs”:
http://theprolific.com/2008/09/the-8-most-blatantly-plagiarized-s
ongs/
.

Not all of these songs involved lawsuits, but there are some
interesting comparisons, and all are worth digging around in your
CD collection to have a listen to.

Interestingly enough, another obscure band called Creaky Boards
has also claimed that Coldplay’s Viva La Vida is a rip-off of
their song “The Songs I Didn’t Write” (isn’t that title a strange
coincidence!). Jared Morris of WGMD does a comparison of these
two songs on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOpZPdaw8Sw

Of course, the accusations are flying back and forth, but the
reality is that plagiarism is hard to prove, and I do think it’s
quite possible for two songwriters to inadvertently come up with
very similar melodies. Most songwriters have melodies floating
around in our heads all of the time and how are we to know if
they are original or not? There are only so many notes and so
many common chords.

But as to who stole what from whom, I’ll leave that up to the
courts, and you!

The Viva La Vida Plagiarism Controversy

If you haven’t heard, Joe Satriani is suing Coldplay for plagiarism.  Their latest single “Viva La Vida” does sound a lot like Joe’s song “If I Could Fly”.  But plagiarism is hard to prove, there is a lot more to it than just comparing notes, so to speak.  In the above video a fellow from a guitar website tries to analyze each song from a theoretical perspective.  Part of it is (yawn) a bit too theoritically dull for me!

Many of you newer songwriters worry a LOT about people stealing your songs or lyrics.  The fact is, of course that it is possible to do so once you expose your music by posting it on the internet, on YouTube or in forums, for instance.  But much of what newer writers come up with is rather sophomoric and cheesy at first, until they hone their craft and find their own voice.

Much of what a plagiarism lawsuit is about is proving that the song could have been heard in some form or another by the plagiarist.  Giving that Satriani’s album was released to the public, it doesn’t take a huge leap of faith to imagine that it could have possibly been heard by Chris Martin, the main songwriter in Coldplay.  Even if he had been exposed to it, it’s also possible that his memory of it was very subliminal and repeating it in his own writing could have been quite unintentional.

In 1997 when the Rolling Stones were about to release the single “Anybody Seen My Baby”, they realized that the melody of the hook in that song was almost identical to kd Lang’s “Constant Craving”.  Mick Jagger, being the smart guy he is (who wants to spend a lot of money on lawyers?), called Lang up and offered her a portion of the royalties and songwriting credit.  This certainly wasn’t a case of intentional plagiarism, and they just decided it was smarter to share credit, etc., than go through the whole mess of a potential lawsuit.

Personally, I think Coldplay should do the same.  They all have lots of money, so it’s probably more about ego than anything else.  Put the ego aside, share the credit and move on!

What do you think?

IJ

Update May 7/09 – Apparently Cat Stevens, who is now known as Yusuf Islam, is also contemplating a suit against Coldplay for plagiarising his song. “My son brought it to my attention and said: ‘Doesn’t that sound like ‘Foreigner Suite?” the musician told Reuters.com. “The song definitely sounds like it. It has such logical chords and the melody has to be what it is…“.  What is it about that song??  – IJ

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