Hi, Bill - I combined the two threads. Hope I did it right. I've always thought John Lennon's "Starting Over" (1980) was intended to be a mishmash of riffs from rock'n'roll songs of the 1950s.

Here's a YouTube video of "(Just Like) Starting Over":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HLVXrAErlU

Here's Jesse Belvin's "Guess Who" (1959):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYRlOjJrjG0

I think that any resemblance is purely intentional. I don't know that Lennon intended to copy Belvin hiimself. I think his intention was to use common 1950s riffs. The riffs in "Starting Over" sound like the riffs in dozens of 1950s rock'n'roll songs.

-Joe Offer, Mudcat Music Editor-