It’s not "first note similarity’ like many of the songs, but after a few seconds the Metropolis Zone theme in Sonic the Hedgehog 2:
starts to sound uncannily like The Hive’s Walk Idiot Walk:
Or maybe vice versa, given the fact the latter one was made later.
(Somebody on this very board pointed this out to me a while ago).
Boston-More Than a Feeling and Nirvana-Smells Like Teen Spirit. Same riff, but I only like one of them 
That would be “All Summer Long” which is an absolute piece of shit even by Kid Rock standards, which are nonexistent. I absolutely despise Kid Rock. Warren Zevon is one of my favorite musical artists. Kid Rock sampling “Werewolves of London” is nothing short of blasphemy.
I always felt the beginning of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer theme sounded like the beginning of the theme for, ironically, Scooby-Doo – the incarnation with all the guest stars, that is.
The opening riff to the Beach Boys’ “Fun, Fun, Fun” sounds heavily influenced by Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.” It’s not surprising, since Brian Wilson lifted the melody to “Surfin’ U.S.A.” directly from Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen” and also borrowed heavily from Disney’s “When You Wish Upon A Star” for the song “Surfer Girl.”
It was a mashup, made for the purpose of creating a sense of nostalgia for the earlier bands. I’m not a big Kid Rock fan but it was pretty ingenious. Summer songs are all about fun ,free living, and nostalgia.
Back when Money For Nothing was a hit, the opening few notes always fooled me into thinking I was about to hear Jumpin’ Jack Flash.
I’d give Kid Rock a pass since Skynryd’s Billy Powell played piano on “All Summer Long.” The members of Skynyrd are huge Kid Rock fans. He’s recorded and performed with them and even filled in for Johnny Van Zant on tour when the latter contracted nodules on his vocal cords.
t.A.T.u. All the things she said
Not the begining but, basically, the entire song.
Sometimes you get an opening that’s ALMOST certainly a tribute to an earlier record.
The opening of the Cars’ Just What I Needed" is almost exactly the same as the opening of “Yummy Yummy Yummy (I’ve Got Love in My Tummy)” by the bubblegum group Ohio Express.
And Hall & Oates were probably saluting the Supremes when they copied the opening bass line of “You Can’t Hurry Love” in “Maneater.”
The beginning of “Something to Believe In” by Poison sounds just like the beginning of Levon by Elton John, with the piano part. . . I hate Poison and really like Elton John, and that used to piss me off. I haven’t made the switch either.
Oasis was constantly stealing from/paying tribute to (depending whether yo uas ka fan or a hater) the Beatles.
To use one example, their “Don’t Look Back in anger” is clearly copied from the opening to John Lennon’s “Imagine.”
Steve Miller’s “Fly Like an Eagle” ripped off his own opening riff from “My Dark Hour”. It annoys me every time because, of course, the former is the only one that ever gets played, and I love the latter (partially because of the person who provides bass, drums, and backup vocals).
(Oh yeah – Miller’s “Space Cowboy” rips off the riff from the Beatles’ “Lady Madonna”, which was adapted from the riff in middle of their own “Good Morning Good Morning”, which originally came from “In the Midnight Hour”…)
Also… I’ve mentioned this before, but Santana’s “Everybody’s Everything” is a rewritten version of “Karate” by The Emperor’s (sic). (The opening riffs aren’t the same, but the songs themselves are.)
Yeah, I admit that’s true, but I also don’t think a “rocking” chord progression going I-IV is something that should be copyrightable. It’s a pretty obvious progression, and I’m certain I’ve played it as an accompaniment before without trying to channel Lennon. For me, it’s that major 7th at the end of the I and the little chromatic lick at the end of the IV that makes it Lennon’s.
Whenever I hear the beginning of Bon Jovi’s “Dead or Alive,” there a point where I feel like I should be hearing the lyrics “Listen to the wind blow” from Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain.”
I always thought the opening of John Fogerty’s “Rock and Roll Girls” aped the beginning of The Cars’ “My Best Friend’s Girl”. It really works if you do the Cars’ handclaps over the Fogerty intro.
Interesting. A little research shows that Santana gave the original writers credit, which is a relief.
That is clearly not the same melody. Nowhere in there is the famous “Fame” melody, and I thought this thread was about melodies, not lyrics or “cover” songs. And Lennon is in the chorus of the song Fame. They wrote/sang/created it together in studio. Even if all Lennon did was sing in the background, that’s enough for me.
Speaking of “Under Pressure”/“Ice Ice Baby”, I got a big chuckle when Canadian singer, “LIGHTS”, quoted the main riff in her song “Ice”:
I didn’t catch it at first because she doesn’t do it with the bass. She used it for a melodic synthesizer solo, though the “clue” is that the synth solo comes immediately after the song’s bridge, the last line of which is “… let a little love melt the ice, ice baby”.
This one is kind of embarrassing, but the Smiths, “How soon is now” sounds similar to (the nearly unknown) “Hippy Chick”. For some reason I always think it’s Hippy Chick for a half second.
In a case of double-borrowing, Sugarhill Gang’s Rapper’s Delight used a lightly modified version of the bass line from Another One Bits the Dust.
But, in general, many, many rap songs sample hooks and bass lines from earlier songs, so it’s not terribly surprising.