Episodes
Coverville 344: Cover to Cover Interview with Tim English, author of the book “Sounds Like Teen Spirit”
Sounds Like Teen Spirit: Stolen Melodies, Ripped-Off Riffs, and the Secret History of Rock and Roll
Tonight, I get to spend some time talking to a fellow music geek – Tim English, author of the book “Sounds Like Teen Spirit” (buy the book now on Amazon), an analysis of songs that just happen to sound like other songs. Not quite cover songs, but borrowed lyrics and melodies. Here’s what’s on the show tonight:
| Title | Artist | Similar to | Artist |
| Stairway to Heaven | Led Zeppelin | Taurus | Spirit |
| Beautiful Day | U2 | The Sun Always Shines on T.V. | a-ha |
| Imagine | John Lennon | That’s My Life | Freddie Lennon |
| Do Ya Think I’m Sexy? | Rod Stewart | Taj Mahal | Jorge Ben |
| You Give Love A Bad Name | Bon Jovi | If You Were A Woman | Bonnie Tyler |
42 minutes | 
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Even as recent as a few years ago Coldplay’s Talk was heavily borrowed from Kraftwerk’s Computer Love. They did give credit to Kraftwerk in the liner notes of their CD.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut-YbOjB_dY
Yo Brian.
Nice interview buddy. It was pretty cool to hear you two music nerds get into this stuff. Really interesting and engaging.
I can’t believe the Bonnie Tyler/Bon Jovii thing. That is insane.
Tim
FINALLY caught up with this. What a great interview, has to be the best so far. As a music geek too, I found it fascinating and, like Tim, found the Bonnie Tyler thing amazing. She MUST be getting some kind of pay off, surely!
Another similar issue surrounds the Jim Steinman solo album, where most of the tracks suddenly appeared as the Bat Out Of Hell 2 album by Meatloaf. Some are pretty well straight copies, but with the bigger production sound.
Both ways, Jim earns though!
FINALLY caught up with this. What a great interview, has to be the best so far. As a music geek too, I found it fascinating and, like Tim, found the Bonnie Tyler thing amazing. She MUST be getting some kind of pay off, surely!
Another similar issue surrounds the Jim Steinman solo album from about 1981, where most of the tracks suddenly appeared as the Bat Out Of Hell 2 album by Meatloaf. Some are pretty well straight copies, but with the bigger production sound.
Both ways, Jim earns though!
This was an interesting topic.
The issue of plagiarism has many interesting aspects. Of course, there is always the fear of unintentional borrowing. (I have a lot of trouble believing that “My Sweet Lord” was unintentional, though, but then again, how could you borrow so flagrantly and not expect to get sued?)
Sometimes these discussions are tiresome, because they simply expose the lack of musical knowledge of the writer, e.g. the fact that two songs have the same chord sequence. These writers are unaware that many chord sequences are generic and frequently re-used. (The Police’s “Every Step You Take” deliberately had the hokiest chord sequence of all time.)
But some composers have gone so far as to claim that stealing is justified, and even the sign of the true talent. (Note that “stealing” seems to be a priveleged term in this view.)
And what would you say if a composer had flagrantly stolen a song, but produced something incomparably better than the source? (To use a non-musical example, Tarantino is frequently, (and not unreasonabley) accused of stealing, but his films are vastly preferable than his sources.)
FWIW, I remember thinking that Howard Jones’ “New Song” was shockingly derivative of Peter Gabriel’s “Solsbury Hill”.