For those of you that are new – I call stealing something in the name of art liberal borrowing.
For those of you that knew – what didn’t you tell the new people?
My latest discovery comes in the form of Hey Rosetta’s Red Heart. Though it’s not as cut-and-dry cut-and-paste as some of my cases, I think you’d be remit to not admit a blatant similarity to Better Than Ezra’s In the Blood. Take a listen to the opening melody structures and meet me down below:
Okay it’s more like a liberal liberal borrowing. Or maybe one just reminds me of the other. Kind of like how the opening of Churchill’s Change reminds me of Dean Martin’s Sway:
It’s been a while again, folks, and I’d like to present to you a few more occurrences of homagesliberal borrowings. If you are unfamiliar with my concept of liberal borrowing, click liberal borrowing (not this one, the previous one).
The first few I’m going to breeze through because they’re already older songs, and other people have thought the same or the artists acknowledge the similarity.
SOME NIGHTS BY fun. (do I really have to write it that way?) = CECELIA BY SIMON & GARFUNKEL
My friend swore up and down about this one, and being the defender of originality that I claim to be, I just didn’t really hear it… until this video:
He also thinks fun.’s We Are Young shares common ground with The Beatles’ Hey Jude. I told him to find me a sample; he’s still looking.
I WON’T GIVE UP BY JASON MRAZ = DELICATE BY DAMIEN RICE
When I first heard I Won’t Give Up, I wondered why I felt like I knew its melody but not the words (by the way, does Jason Mraz realize he looks like that now?):
WASHINGTON NATIONAL’S LOGO = WALGREEN’S LOGO
I’m late to this, but I only noticed because my Detroit Tigers made it as far as they did. Otherwise, I don’t watch National League games at all. But answer me this – notice anything? ‘Cuz Walgreen’s did.
For anyone who hasn’t seen The Dark KnightRises yet, I won’t give any spoilers. But let it be known… I thought it was meh. The ending is the only thing that saved it… and the funny thing is it ripped off another movie.
So this film was made up of…
…a cool vertical airplane destruction scene…
…an extreme tragedy on a football field…
…explosives chasing our hero and being disposed of by our hero…
…and the ending of this Academy Award-winning film.
It’s been a few months since I’ve championed originality in music, or as I call it whilst demonizing (rock and roll!) it – liberal borrowing.
Of the latest two occurrences, one I should have caught a while back. The last time I mentioned Ryan Star on this blog was to pick on his name (go on – click it… it’s one of my better posts).
Needless to say, I embedded the video for his song Breathe, and I never noticed that it’s opening guitar solo sounded oddly familiar…
Ryan Star’s Breathe
Ringo any bells?
John Lennon’s Woman
I would consider it an homage if it was about the same thing. But it’s not. So it’s…
LIBERAL BORROWING!
As for my latest find, I overheard this song playing overhead in a sports bar:
Lee Brice’s Hard to Love
Any other song’s intro come racing to mind?
Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car
What’s the verdict here – liberal borrowing or homage?
