Rod Shearman had the same sort of trouble with one of his songs, 'Sail away'.

He wrote this song, music and lyrics, then performed it as a booked artist at various festivals. A few years later, someone called Enya had a hit with 'Orinoco Flow (Sail away)', with a chorus that sounded suspiciously familiar to Rod. He did a bit of investigating and found that the someone called Enya was attending a festival at which he'd sung the song, and was in the venue where he'd sung it, at that time. Lots of people backed up his claim but Enya denied everything, says she never heard Rod sing and that she wrote it all herself.

The upshot of all this is, Rod got not a penny or a credit. It seems the "little man" will always lose out to the bigger name. Hundreds of thousands of people had heard of Enya, but Rod, although famous on the folk scene, was the unknown little man.

He got his own back though... he copied his song 'Sail away' thousands of times and gave copes out everywhere he went! More people are singing his song today than remember the Enya song now!

LTS