So Paul lifted the bass riff for I Saw Her Standing There” from Chuck Berry’s “I’m Talking About You". John’s “I Feel Fine” borrowed heavily from Bobby Parker’s “Watch Your Step”. Same with George and The Chiffon’s He’s So Fine”. Are there any more Beatle songs that “borrowed” a thing or two from other tunes?
I know the guitar rifs in “I’ll Be Back” were stolen from some country western song, but I forget which.
Sometimes Paul liked to do a Little Richard singing voice (I’m Down), while John pretended he was Dylan now and then (You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away).
And the Beach Boys sound shows up in a few bars of Back in the U.S.S.R..
Some of the lyrics to “Come Together” were stolen from a Chuck Berry song. Berry sued, and the suit was settled out of court when John promised to play at a few concerts with Berry.
“Run for Your Life” takes its opening lyric from Elvis Presley’s “Baby Let’s Play House.”
John famously borrowed from Chuck Berry’s “You Can’t Catch Me” for “Come Together.”
Paul swiped the lyrics for “Golden Slumbers” from a Thomas Dekker poem.
The lyrics of “The Inner Light” are from the Tao Te Ching.
Not exactly a swipe, but “Baby’s in Black” sounds suspiciously similar to “Johnny’s So Long at the Fair” (“Oh, dear, what can the matter be?”).
All You Need Is Love quotes the French national anthem.
And “Greensleeves,” and “In the Mood” (which they got in a little trouble for), and the Beatles’ own “She Loves You.”
Oddly enough, Paul McCartney regular ADMITS that he and John Lennon used to steal stuff directly from the likes of Chuck Berry and Little Richard.
He and John went to art school, after all, and liked to quote Henri Matisse (mediocrities borrow; great artists steal").
George Harrison took the guitar figure of “If I Needed Someone” from the Byrds’ “Bells of Rhymney.”
“Sun King” was an unapologetic ripoff of Fleetwood Mac’s “Albatross.”
And, in an interesting bit of self-plagiarism, John took the verse chord progression of Paul’s “Here There and Everywhere” to make the bridge of his own “Sexy Sadie.”
John never played concerts with Chuck Berry. He did end up recording several tunes published by the company that owned Berry’s songs, thus making the Rock n’ Roll album.
Not concerts per se, but they did play together on the Mike Douglas Show in 1972.
Wasn’t “Because” basically the chords from Beethoven’s “Moolight Sonata” rearranged?
Snopes says sorta.
Setting a poem to music is ‘swiping’?
When you don’t credit the author of the original poem, certainly it is. I’ve written songs to poems by William Blake, but I didn’t credit myself as the sole writer.
It’s not the whole tune, but the first four notes/syllables of “Frere Jacques” are used as background vocals to “Paperback Writer.”
Well, the Beatles used the same twelve notes as Vivaldi!
:dubious:
Paul only took the chorus, and not even all of that. He didn’t so much set Dekker’s poem to music as use it as a starting point for a new original work, the same way Dylan builds new songs around scraps of old folk and blues lyrics.
Since this seems to be an open slather it’s probably worth pointing out that the lyrics for Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite were taken almost verbatim from an 1800s circus advertisement that John “liberated” from an antique store.
This was more open parody. The joke of that song was it was a British band singing about the joys of being in the Soviet Union in the style of the Beach Boys.
That still leaves Paulie’s lyrical contribution to the song at one original* line (“Once there was a way to get back homeward”), plus changing the word “wantons” to “darling.”
*And that’s giving him the benefit of the doubt. Since Paul took the lyrics from another musical setting of the poem he found in a songbook—not being able to read the music, he made up his own tune—I am assuming that “Once there was a way…” was Paul’s own idea and not part of that adaptation.