That must be “Words Get in the Way.” Don’t bother to thank me; I accept cash or checks.
Petula Clark’s I Know a Place and the theme from Sesame Street.
Many of these are only vaguely similar, mostly from the beat structure. Especially ones based on traditional songs.
I’m not hearing it. Links added to aid comparison.
Some similarity but not the same.
The Pretender’s first verse of I’ll Stand by You is identical to Shakira’s first verse of Estoy Aqui.
ETA: Thanks to Mrs. Map for noticing this one!
The first few measures of Dvorak’s New World Symphony: 4th Movement and the theme from Jaws.
Not to mention the Kinks’ own You Really Got Me. For years I thought they *were *the same song…
And French cult singer Serge Gainsbourg used one of the themes of the 1st movement in Initiales BB (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuZklVrHspM). He also borrowed from Brahms and Chopin for other songs.
The melody itself is much older than that. 16th or 17th century, I think.
And the guitar riff from obscure late eighties crossover thrash-punk band Excel.
Talking of GaGa, Alejandro sounds awfully close to one of Ace of Base’s singles from the early nineties but I can’t pinpoint which one(All that she wants perhaps?).
Don’t Turn Around is the one I think it sounds like.
Could be, I can’t check right now.
All of Ace of Base’s songs sounded a bit similar anyway.
Any Dream Will Do from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and “Ripple” by the Grateful Dead.
“A Little Priest” from Sweeney Todd and “Valse” from Masquerade by Aram Khachuturian.
The melodic intervals of the first two notes make an inversion (upside-down melody), it’s true. But then both have a descending triplet, followed by another descending figure of two notes like the beginning notes. However, the rhythms don’t quite match.
Whereas the theme from Lawrence of Arabia is rhythmically an exact match for Born Free, and while the opening two notes are a descending fourth in each, the triplet and following two notes form an exact melodic inversion, each descending interval in Lawrence of Arabia matching up with an ascending interval in Born Free, and vice versa. I discovered this years ago, I wrote out the two melodies together on parallel staves and played them on the piano, and sure enough they form mirror images (except for the first two notes, which are a mirror image in Star Wars to both of the other two). Maurice Jarre gets the props for first writing this melodic figure in 1962, while John Barry in 1966 and John Williams in 1977 cribbed off of him.
BOBBY COMSTOCK LETS STOMP And Sweets Ballroom Blitz.
Listen to the drum intro. Listen to the background guitar riffs.
I’m surprised there wasn’t a lawsuit!
There is a riff in Garbage’s I Think I’m Paranoid that is very similar to The American Breeds Bend Me Shape Me.
The famous riff from Lloyd-Webber’s “Phantom of the Opera” sounds suspiciously like a 1971 Pink Floyd song called “Echoes”. The DAAAAAA-da-da-da-da-DA-DAA-DAA part is distinctive.
That ten-note theme from Les Mis is pretty similar to “Danny Boy” (or London Derriere), if not sueably so.
David Hasselhoff had a song in the late 1980s called “Crazy for You”. If you listen to it, I probably don’t even need to tell you what it sounds like, but just in case…
“YMCA” by the Village People
If I could like this post, I would. There just aren’t enough Benny Hill references in general conversation…
Has anyone ever noticed the similarity between Under the Bridge and Stairway to Heaven?
I can see that. Similar structure – starts with arpegiatted guitar chords, folksy verses, introduce drums but keep it folksy, then finish up with a minute of rousing rock (with chord patterns based on i-flat VII-flat VI), then back to the folksy thing for the brief outro.
A very different one I just noticed: James Gang’s Funk #49 (1970) – the main riff – and Kenny Loggins’ Footloose(1984) – the chorus.
When I was in my twenties and embraced Punk as a relief from over-polished Stadium & Yacht Rock: Rock was not about skill.
Before I knew it, I was 44, U2 released Vertigo, and I mentioned that it was the Supremes’ You Keep Me Hanging On. The twenty-somethings gave me dirty looks and reminded me that Rock is not about originality, either.