“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” Translation: it’s all the same thing, man. Ok, so we know new music is made on the same instruments, with the same number of possible notes, and is built on the songs of those who came before us, but sometimes, dang, couldn’t they have changed the bass line just a little? Occasionally a song pops up that is so reminiscent of another famous tune, it makes you wonder: is this intentional sampling? An accident? Or straight up thievery? Today I want to hear about pairs of songs that are twins, separated at birth. Let’s examine if they’re identical or not.
This first example I only put together last week, and I would be embarrassed if I wasn’t so delighted at learning the connection. A couple years ago I was surprised by how much I loved the song by the Raconteurs, “Steady As She Goes.”
So while cruising around in a borrowed car this past week, listening to 97.1 The Drive, aka easy listening classic rock, I heard this Joe Jackson song.
Hey, I know that bass line! The question is, did they steal it? I think no, not intentionally, I bet they ‘invented’ it on their own while playing, perhaps with the memory of this song from Look Sharp lingering in the deep recesses. When no one brought it up until AFTER the song is released as a single, I bet they felt ashamed for not realizing. Really someone else could have helped them out with this along the way; was there really NO ONE else in the entire record company that was a Joe Jackson fan? Damn, that guy really can’t find the love he deserves.
Earlier this year I was on a road trip, when Belle & Sebastian’s The Boy with the Arab Strap came on, and I FREAKED OUT….
….not because I’m a rabid fan of B&S, but because of how similarly the opening riff sounded like Boz Scaggs:
….and I might be a rabid fan of that song, but who can say really? I searched the liner notes and there was no mention of an interpolation in the production credits. B&S probably aren’t raking in the royalties on this record, though they probably owe Boz a drink every time he’s in town.
Our final example is a little bit more abstract, but try it and see if you might agree with me. These two songs overlap in an unusual way, so you can sing the chorus of one over the verse of the other. The first song dropped in May of 2000:
I see you, Darkchild. The next song followed in December of the same year and was produced by….someone not Rodney Jerkins, I don’t remember.
This seems like a pretty clear case of biting styles, combined a bit with the musical zeitgeist of the year 2000. I miss those days! Then again, perhaps they were just doing DJs a favor across the land, it’s real easy to mix those songs together.
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Give me other examples of song-twins! If you know the history, spill that too.
