Similarities between songs (just coincidence?)

Steve Hacket's guitar part in Robbery, Assault and Battery around a minute and 25 seconds in sounds EXACTLY like the Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers theme, seriously.

 

Tapfret wrote: There is a huge difference between just outright stealing and adapting a symphonic movement and listing credit. ELP made their sources very clear in the album lit.  LZ just played and sang old blues tunes word for word with little acknowledgment, or none if they didn't have to.(Willie dixon gets credit for a couple)

 

With Zep most of the plagiarism involved lyrics, sometimes vocals and the only instance of a stolen riff I can think of is the fast part from The Lemon Song that's lifted from Howlin Wolf's Killing Floor, and on Dazed and Confused he reuses some licks he played on The Yardbirds' Think About It and a there's a part from How Many More Times that's pretty similar to Becks Bolero, which Page wrote for the most part. If anything he plagiarizes from himself more than he does anyone else.

 

You could also make a case of Moby Dick lifting the riff from Bobby Parker's Watch Your Step but The Beatles' I Feel Fine, Deep Purple's Rat Bat Blue and Allman Brothers' One Way Out also have strikingly similar riffs, even more so than Moby Dick.

 

And I also find it incredibly ironic that this band gets so much heat for stealing from Dixon, who was notorious for stealing stuff ALL THE TIME, while Zeppelin would snatch certain things and put it into a new context, Dixon would record songs he learned from other musicians without giving them credit, ok, Zeppelin did that to on their first two albums, but their versions were very different from the originals and in my opinion... superior.

 

Simply lifting stuff isn't even shunned upon in the blues world, because everyone does it, that genre is about as basic and unapologetically derivative as you can get. Bands like Zep took the blues and made variations with it, yet somehow they're hacks and every bluesman that sounds alike is a genius. I really don't get it.

 

And when people are that devoted to a ridiculous bias against a band like Zep, they will use the classic "but they were poor and black and Zep are not" excuse that always makes me facepalm so hard it leaves an impression that lasts for days.

 

Also I've seen this video before. The guy who made it is pants on head retarded who will defend any other band that does the same thing Zep does because he has a ridiculous agenda against that one band.

 

Babe I'm Gonna Leave You: Yes an uncredited cover, I've acknowledged that they have done these. But like many others, this one is radically different from the original. The heavy section is entirely Zep's creation. As is the main guitar melody. And Plant's vocals are quite different too. But regardless song is not credited as a Zeppelin composition and it never has been, it has been credited as traditional, granted it was actually written by Anne Bredon, but she was not credited in the Baez song either, which was also credited as traditional. It's most likely that Page and Plant heard the Baez song and didn't realise who penned the tune. And that's Baez's fault. Either way, on later releases Bredon was given proper credit.

 

Black Mountain Side: Ok, Page shouldn't have taken credit for this one. Not like it's one of Zep's classic songs though.

 

Dazed and Confused: No Page should not have taken credit for something that's obviously a cover. That just makes him a jerk though, it doesn't make Zeppelin a bunch of talentless hacks, their version is radically different, and better, better than The Yardbirds version also, and no it's not a crime for Page to reuse riffs and ideas that HE WROTE with another band.

 

How Many More Times: Like I said, a lot of the plagiarism is lyrics. Listen to that song and the 2 songs the lyrics are taken from, do they sound alike musically in anyway? No. And should I care that Zeppelin stole lyrics? Is that why they are famous? The lyrics?

 

As for Beck's Bolero. Beck claimed to have invented it, Page claimed to have. There's no way to tell who's right and to just assume the former is right just because is not "proof" in any way whatsoever. Either way, it's very obviously lifted from that song I can't deny.

 

Communication Breakdown: HAHAHAHA. Are you kidding me? How desperate can you get? These songs have NOTHING in common, at all, just the name in the title. Wow, he totally should have got credit for that right? The fact that this guy actually heard the original and goes on about the "obvious similarity" leaves me to believe he's deaf.

 

Whole Lotta Love: The similarity to Mariott is undeniable, Plant's style is very inspired by him. Mariott really had no problem with it, as mentioned, he also took lyrics without giving them credit. And yes, again it's all about lyrics. Willie Dixon's lyrics, Willie Dixon stole peoples songs all the time. Again, it's not really unheard of in the blues community at all. Ideas are considered public domain and so it's ok to take things and reuse them in the same way hip hop acts use samples.

 

Lemon Song: The whole song is NOT an uncredited cover as claimed, yes that portion of the song is obvious, and he did sue them and he's not credited on the album. This is not some secret being hidden from the masses for crying out loud.

 

As for stealing lyrics from Johnson, well you remember what I said about Dixon taking stuff all the time? Johnson did it too.

 

Moby Dick: Again I have already addressed this.

 

 

 

 

Bringing it All Home: Yes he deserved credit, and again it's a small portion of the song. Can this guy not find one example of Zep actually taking a whole song and not changing it in any way? Something Willie Dixon actually DID do?

 

Since I've Been Loving You: Again, lyrics. Aside from a similar structure, it doesn't sound like that Moby Grape song at all. Completely different melodically.

 

Hats Off to Ray Harper:  This is not an uncredited cover, it's a medley that borrows from a lot of songs. And no Zep don't take credit for it, it's credited as traditional.

 

Stairway to Heaven:  This is where these plagiarism controversies really start getting ridiculous. Two completely different songs with one slightly similar chord making up a smell partion of each. It's a similar chord, but way too different to be a copyright issue, bands make similar chords all the time, these are not the same chords, and if bands are prohibited from makimg similar chords to other bands then 4/4 pentatonic blues scale rock music might as well be banned. Page asked for permission anyway.

 

What about Gentle Giant's Nothing at All? That sounds kinda similar also.

 

Custard Pie: Yep, just the lyrics.

 

In My Time of Dying: With the title and lyrics you could call it an uncredited cover, though musically it sounds completely different.

 

Nobody's Fault but Mine: Hmm. What did they take here? Title and Lyrics? Is that it? Yep.

 

In general, Zep stole a lot of lyrics (never their strongpoint anyway) and yes it's a douche move not to give credit, but beyond that they didn't lift any more musical ideas than the usual hard rock band, their riffs and arangements were theirs, even their uncredited covers were changed so much from the originals that they pretty much made these songs their own.

 

Again Zep are being demonized for something that's perfectly acceptable in the blues and folk community.

 

Noted blues author and producer Robert Palmer states "It is the custom, in blues music, for a singer to borrow verses from contemporary sources, both oral and recorded, add his own tune and/or arrangement, and call the song his own". Folklorist Carl Lindahl, refers to these recycling of lyrics in songs as "floating lyrics". He defines it within the folk-music tradition as "lines that have circulated so long in folk communities that tradition-steeped singers call them instantly to mind and rearrange them constantly, and often unconsciously, to suit their personal and community aesthetics".

 

At least some people take time to actually hear the originals, I'd say that Zeppelin getting people interested in these older artists is a good thing. But one thing I can't tolerate is when some snotty emo kids accuse Zep of outright stealing songs without bothering to do the proper research, which is as easy as looking up some youtube videos for crying out loud. You can't just read what some random douche says and take it as fact.