'Are you SURE you wrote that?'

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Dan Schatz
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 11:38 AM

"Tak a Dram" and the theme from The Flintstones.

It is possible that some similar tunes arise independently, of course.

Dan Schatz

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Jim Lad
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 12:12 PM

God Love Ye Jim McLean!

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: bubblyrat
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 12:35 PM

I Like "Lily Marlene" & I like " The D-day dodgers" & to be honest I can"t be arsed about the authorship of the melody---at least ,two good songs will ensure its immortality. Of course, if you are a hard-up,LIVING,breathing musician who refuses to recognise the human frailty of his fellow men,then there could be a problem ahead !!Otherwise,life"s too short.Also,if writers of "pop" music use bits of say,Prokofiev, in their efforts to liven up their usual dross, at least it exposes many of the young people of today to music they might not otherwise have heard of.!! Which must be a GOOD THING !!

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Alec
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 12:40 PM

A very good thing bubblyrat.

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 03:53 PM

Woody freely admitted using tunes from other songs:
Little Darlin' Pal Of Mine became This Land Is Your Land.
Wildwood Flower became Good Reuban James
Redwing became Union Maid...

I wonder which came first, Tiptoe Through The Tulips or Birth Of The Blues. They're almost the same.
...or Five Foot Two and Please Don't Talk About Me (a bit more of a stretch, but the same progression for sure)

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 03:55 PM

...or They're Red Hot and Alice's Restaurant.

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Joybell
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 03:59 PM

The most used tune must surely be "The Little Old Log Cabin...." (it quickly grew many hybrids regarding the location of the cabin -- before it moved on to unrelated subjects) by William Shakespeare Hayes. I once tried to list the songs using it but gave up at about 50.
Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Jim Lad
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 04:02 PM

I've always thought that there are only so many useful permutations for notes and that every good tune has been written, one way or another.

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Alec
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 04:15 PM

Not sure Jim, rounding up very slightly for sake of convenience let's say their are 100 useful guitar chords.
That means on three chord songs alone there would be 1 million possible permutations.
Clearly the number of all possible permutations will be finite but will still be very large.

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Captain Ginger
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 04:44 PM

Calon Lan became Life's Railroad to Heaven and then the Miner's Lifeguard.

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Jim Lad
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 04:44 PM

Yes: Mathematically you'd be right. What I mean is USEFUL ways to join up the notes and make a tune.

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Jim Lad
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 09:50 PM

Got the song. Thanx LukeKellylives (Chris).

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: GUEST,Scoville
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 09:52 PM

Life's Railway to Heaven is the tune to "Vacant Chair", which is Civil War era. The tune has a composer listed (but who knows where he really got it).

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: LukeKellylives (Chris)
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 09:54 PM

Not a problem, Jim. Lemme know if I can do anythin' else for ya.

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: GUEST,Scoville
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 09:55 PM

Here it is.

And of course there's always "I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes"/"Great Speckled Bird"/"Wild Side of Life"/"It Wasn't God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels", and whatever else uses that approximate tune.

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: GUEST,Dave Hunt
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 10:58 PM

'Star of the County Down/Crooked Jack'
A much older version of course being Dives and Lazarus -
----------------------

'Calon Lan became Life's Railroad to Heaven and then the Miner's Lifeguard'.
another Version of this was Life is like a Mountain Railway
(Always going up and down)!
Dave

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: GUEST,henryclem
Date: 01 Feb 07 - 12:49 PM

Goodbye booze (Hamish Imlach) is Richland Women Blues (Mississippi John Hurt)   ...

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: tarheel
Date: 01 Feb 07 - 04:36 PM

"little ole log cabin" by william shakespear hayes does have lots of other titles connected to the melody!
but i think i've only heard ONE...Shamus o'brien!
i love that melody and the entire song,too!
kim and jim lansford had a terrific version of it on their CD,"out in the cold world!"
Tar...

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: GUEST,coldjam
Date: 01 Feb 07 - 04:59 PM

Someone once told me there hadn't been an original bar of music written in a hundred years until "Shadrack, Meshack and Abendago" was written. It won some kind of big international prize in music...anyone know about this? I wonder if anything has been written new since then..?

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 01 Feb 07 - 07:32 PM

I think that too much is made out of taking a trad tune and reworking it in a new song. There are very few folk tunes rewritten or otherwise that are original. Now if you talk about Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Frank Loesser or George Gershwin et. al., then that might be a different story although even the creative George based "It Ain't Necessarilly So" on a liturgical Jewish piece perhaps unwittingly. Another interesting use is "Nottamun Town" (Jean Ritchie) and Dylan's "Masters of War". I remember the story of i think it was Maurice Jarre who was surprised to find that he wrote a song to a Russian national anthem.
Stravinsky said something to the effect that composers don't plagarize, they steal.

I think that Paul Simon added to Scarborough Fair with the Canticle and made it a slightly different content.

Sometimes a little thing can make a melody have a different dimension either through another lyric or an addition in the arrangement.

Frank Profitt got the royalties and sued the Kingston Trio for "Tom Dooley" but Frank Profitt did not write "Tom Dooley" and the K.T. copped their arrangement from the Folksay Trio on Asch/Stinson with Erik Darling, Bob Carey and Roger Sprung. The K.T. got their famous "hiccup" in the song from the Folksay Trio and I believe it was that "hiccup" that made the song famous.

So the idea as to who did what with what melody is much ado about nothing.....

unless of course you put some new lyrics to "Night and Day" by Cole Porter or tunes by Jerome Kern or Kurt Weill. Then I think you'll hear from their publishers.

Folk songs endure because they are ...familiar... and this means that the melodies have been heard before in other songs whether they are rewritten or not.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 02 Feb 07 - 01:33 PM

Frank Hamilton, Frank Profitt got no royalties until the Kingston Trio's big sales were well over. Frank made a comment at the time, "Well, looks like I'll be getting a good share of nothing!" Also, during the lawsuit (which was practically done FOR him by others- I think Lomax suggest it, and helped with it-, would have to look that up), extensive research was done and the song- recorded by the Folksay Trio and published by Dick and Beth Best, was traced to the version sung by Frank Profitt and his family. He did not claim that he wrote it, just that it was the way his family sang it that way. I write this only because your statement above sounded so authoritative, and I knew that this particular fact in your statement was not true.

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Linda Goodman Zebooker
Date: 02 Feb 07 - 01:47 PM

I've been writing a song for tonight's February Open Sing in Montgomery County Maryland. The tune and some of the verses came to me in the car on the way home from January's Open Sing. (Feb's theme had been announced - Demons and Desires). But after I sang it a few times, my song sounded so familiar to me that I kept getting scared that it was really someone else's that I'd heard before. I felt better about it after I wrote down all the places I could tell it borrowed from:

Rhythm from "Rickey Tickety Tim" (the Tom Lehrer-song which someone had just sung in the Jan. Open Sing), More rythmn from "Teddy Bear's Picnic" and "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now", A word from "Sundown" by Gordon Lightfoot, A run from "Fire and Rain" by James Taylor, Interplay of verses from "The Drinking Song" from The Student Prince (Romberg). And the general theme is similar to one song found in every musical written in the '50's.

So is it mine?

Linda

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Alec
Date: 02 Feb 07 - 02:46 PM

It's an interesting question Linda.I wouldn't have thought one could be accused of plagiarising a rhythm.(There's a hint of Bizet's in "Michelle" & a goodly portion of Bartok's in more than one of Martin Carthy's compositions.or is there?)
A word can hardly count against you nor,I would have thought,would a
general theme. (Can you imagine someone making a proprietorial claim on the general theme of "love"?) As for the rest I suppose it's all in the blending.

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Azizi
Date: 03 Feb 07 - 08:53 AM

While looking for some other information online:

Done Laid Around
In 1961, Pete Seeger reported that he "...first learned 'Done Laid Around' from Larry Ehrlich of Chicago, who learned it from Paul Clayton, who learned it from Arthur Kyle Davis of the University of Virginia, who got it from a small booklet, published by a now deceased French professor. His original sources, African American folk singers of Virginia, were not listed."

Seeger recorded "Done Laid Around" as "Gotta Travel On" in the 1950s with the popular folk-singing quartet, The Weavers. It was a hit record for them and became one of their many signature pieces.

Source: "Sing Out!" Magazine.

-snip-

I suppose this only applies to this thread if Seeger did not acknowledge his sources for this song.

https://www.oldtownschool.org/resources/songnotes/songnotes_D.html

Recordings on file by: Cisco Houston, The Weavers

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Azizi
Date: 03 Feb 07 - 09:04 AM

And there's discussion on this Mudcat thread thread.cfm?threadid=23813#267105 about the problems that the Weavers and Pete Seeger had with the Solomon Lindo song "Mbube" {"The Lion Sleeps Tonight"; "Wimoweh"}

**

Also, there's the song "Rum & Coca-Cola"

See this excerpt from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum_and_Coca-Cola :

"Rum and Coca-Cola is the title of a popular calypso. Originally composed by Lord Invader and Lionel Belasco, it was copyrighted in the United States by entertainer Morey Amsterdam and became a huge hit, selling some four million singles when a version was released in 1945 by the Andrews Sisters.

Although the song was published in the United States with Amsterdam listed as the lyricist and Jeri Sullavan and Paul Baron as musical composers, the melody had been previously published as the work of Trinidadian calypso composer Lionel Belasco on a song titled "L'Année Passée," which was in turn based on a folksong from Martinique. The original lyrics to "Rum and Coca-Cola" were written by Rupert Grant, another calypso musician from Trinidad who went by the stage name of Lord Invader."...

-snip-

I know there's at least one Mudcat thread about this song, but for some reason, I can't find it by using the Mudcat search engine.

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Azizi
Date: 03 Feb 07 - 09:26 AM

For those who may be interested, I found this Mudcat thread.cfm?threadid=66111 because someone posted a link to it in the "Lion Sleeps Tonight" thread.

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Azizi
Date: 03 Feb 07 - 09:35 AM

Here's another note I found that mentions the Weavers and another song that it seems this group didn't attribute correctly:

"Goodnight Irene
Along with Woody Guthrie, Huddie Ledbetter is regarded as one of the great American folk song composers and performers. Born near Shreveport, LA in the late 1800s, Huddie's young life was filled with music, traveling, carousing and violence. He did three different stretches in prison in his lifetime, and at the age of 48 was discovered in Angola State Penitentiary by folk song collector John Lomax. Huddie was called "Lead Belly" and played a big twelve string guitar, which he tuned unusually low to imitate the sounds of a barrel-house piano.

Lead Belly was a song collector and an animated entertainer. He was a story teller and a raconteur and a crack musician. He was an improviser who sang blues and work songs, spirituals and pop numbers. Lead Belly was also a skilled composer. Like Guthrie, he had the ability to take old and familiar songs and rework them into fresh material.

Although Lead Belly never achieved great success as performer or recording artist in his lifetime, his songs and legend are inherently woven into the fabric of American folklore and folk music. His impact on American music is so widely acknowledged and strongly felt that Lead Belly was honored as the first inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989.

"Irene" is Lead Belly's signature piece and he sang it his entire life. He composed it at age twenty-three when his heart was broken by a sophisticated young lady from Shreveport. In 1949 a record of "Irene" was released by a group of folk singers who called themselves The Weavers and the song went to number one. It sold a then unheard of two million copies but sadly, Huddie passed away only six months earlier and never saw the fame or fortune that the success of "Irene" would have brought him.

Source: The Folk Songs of North America, Alan Lomax, Doubleday.
Recordings on file by: Lead Belly, The Weavers.

https://www.oldtownschool.org/resources/songnotes/songnotes_G.html

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Alec
Date: 03 Feb 07 - 10:03 AM

Thanks for those characteristically well researched contributions Azizi.As always you have given us some interesting things to consider.

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Rowan
Date: 04 Feb 07 - 03:50 PM

Amanda Vanstone was, until recently the Minister for Immigration in OZ, and has just released her bid for a republican Australian national anthem. To my mind the opening lines are a direct pinch from Elgar's Pomp & Circumstance march used for Land of Hope & Glory, itself sung best (IMO) with the words "Lloyd George knew my father".

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Alec
Date: 04 Feb 07 - 03:55 PM

Earlier this evening I was listening to Maddy Prior singing "This is the Truth".I thought the melodic line was very similar to "Marco Polo" in places.

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Jim McLean
Date: 04 Feb 07 - 04:30 PM

I was listening to Maddy Prior singing 'Hush, hush, time to be sleeping' (written by Maddy Prior according to sleeve notes)when I realised that I wrote that!

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Jim Lad
Date: 04 Feb 07 - 07:08 PM

Jim, you amaze me. Do you have a web-site?

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Jim McLean
Date: 05 Feb 07 - 09:27 AM

No, Jim Lad, no web site. I enjoy researching old Scottish tunes and I used to write and produce, but not any more. Cheers,

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 05 Feb 07 - 10:53 AM

Azizi - Do you (or anyone else) know if it was the Weavers who changed "I'll get you in my dreams" to "I'll see you in my dreams"?

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Jim Lad
Date: 05 Feb 07 - 11:30 AM

I almost recorded and paid royalties to a "Lady" who claimed she wrote "The Evening Bells". Did a little digging and discovered it was written by Thomas Moore. I cancelled the recording. She and her band haven't spoken to me since.

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Alec
Date: 05 Feb 07 - 12:02 PM

"I'll see you in my dreams" is attributed to Gus Kahn & Isham Jones.

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 05 Feb 07 - 03:23 PM

Sorry Alec, I see my question was ambiguous. Here's a little clarification:
   Lead Belly sings:"Good Night Irene, Good night Irene,
                     I'll get you in my dreams."

   These days most people sing:"I'll see you in my dreams."

   I think I've heard Dr. John and Ry Cooder sing "get you", but most singers say "see you".

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Sharmagne
Date: 24 Feb 07 - 02:08 PM

re: Scarbourough Fair.

I once sent Peter Yarrow the lyrics to this poem I found, called "The Lover's Task", Sugesting that he and the trio (Peter Paul and Mary) should record it. His reply was: "Riddle songs are out." A few years later these two kids who called themselves Tom and Jerry, changed their name to Simon and Garfunkle and recorded the song as Scarborough Fair. And yes PS takes credit for it.

At least P,P,&M would publish as "adapted and arranged by"

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: SharonA
Date: 24 Feb 07 - 02:34 PM

Did I miss something here, or has no one yet mentioned the infamous case of the George Harrison song "My Sweet Lord", with tune lifted wholesale from "He's So Fine"?

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Jim Lad
Date: 24 Feb 07 - 03:02 PM

"I once sent Peter Yarrow the lyrics to this poem I found, called "The Lover's Task"," ..........
You probably meant well but you may have all-be-it, unwittingly assaulted Peter Yarrow by sending them your lyrics, uninvited.
(if that's the way it happened)
By even acknowledging that he has received them, Peter opens himself up to all sorts of criticisms and law suits, down the road.
I would strongly advise any songwriter to exercise extreme caution in the way that they choose to pass their work around, no matter how well intentioned.
Not saying that's how it happened, Sharmagne. Just taking this opportunity to make an important point.

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Sharmagne
Date: 24 Feb 07 - 03:08 PM

>>>>We are an Island...a song about Cape Breton, sounds very much like the Richard Farina tune for Birmingham Sunday. I forget who wrote the CB song or what the actual title is but for   years I kept wondering where I had heard the tune before. Am I right or is it just my imagination ? Both great songs by the way.<<<<

I was wondering if anyone here was familiar with Dickie Fariña!

Raven Girl was one of my favourites.

My grandfather wrote some very well known songs during the depression and he sold them for $25.00 a piece (a lot of money in those days) to people like Bob Nolan, Gene and Roy and Tex Ritter. They had no problem putitng their name on as "author" Even though all they did was cover them and collect the royalties!

To me that is the height of audacity.

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Jim Lad
Date: 24 Feb 07 - 03:12 PM

Oh, I've seen worse. Much, much worse!

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 01:37 PM

Parody is not a defence to copyright infringement in the UK. If it's a substantial reproduction, it's a substantial reproduction.

Now that the USA has joined Berne, I wonder if Sharmagne's grandfather can claim his "droit de paternite". In the UK it is waivable (or, rather, maybe agreed not to be asserted) but I'm not so sure about continental europe.

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 02:04 PM

Ralph McTell's "Streets Of London" is Pachelbel's Canon.

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: GUEST,Janemick
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 02:40 AM

To bring this thread up to date, John Tams used the tune of Dives & Lazarus for the song 'The Year Turns Round Again'
it is credited as: 'J. Tams, arr. A.Sutton & T. van Eyken'

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Genie
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 03:44 AM

FWIW, I don't find the tunes to "Blowin' In The Wind" and "No More Auction Block" very similar except for the first half of the first two lines of each verse, and even there the tunes are not really the same.

"Riders In The Sky" does have a melody pretty much an identical to "Johnny Comes Marching Home" - much to my surprise, because the meter/syncopation is so different - but that's only true of the first two lines of the verse.   The second half of the verse is quite different in the two songs.

Which brings me to the question of how similar two tunes have to be before the later work is considered to be "stolen" or "copied," as opposed to merely being "derivative." Lots of music, as well as works in other art forms, is derivative of earlier works.   It's kind of hard for a melody not to have segments that are similar to or even identical to others.
The first 4 bars of "Joy To The World" (not the Hoyt Axton one) are just a backwards scale; it's only the timing that makes that not obvious. But does that mean any piece that incorporates a straightforward octave sequence is copying Lowell Mason?

And if two songs use the same chord pattern and have similar phrasing, I don't think that necessarily makes the tunes "the same." E.g., it's often said that Woody Guthrie "stole" (or borrowed) Leadbelly's tune to "Goodnight, Irene" for "Roll On, Columbia," but I don't hear the two tunes as the same, even though they can be (but aren't always) played with the same chord patterns) and they share some melodic phrases.   

I say if you hear two songs played instrumentally only, and you can tell which is which, then the tunes aren't the same.   "Great Speckled Bird" really IS the same tune as "I Am Dreaming Tonight Of My Blue Eyes," which is the same tune as "The Wild Side Of Life" and the reply "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels."    "Love Me Tender" really is the same tune as "Aura Lee." But many of the other "examples" I hear are really better described as "derivative" rather than "copied."

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 05:05 AM

"Elgar's Pomp & Circumstance march used for Land of Hope & Glory, itself sung best (IMO) with the words "Lloyd George knew my father".
Cheers, Rowan <<<<

But that goes even better to Onward Xtn Soldiers by Sullivan!
---
The Act III entracte in Bizet's Carmen begins with what sounds like a steal from Moore's The Minstrel Boy To The War Is Gone.
---
Peter Bellamy used to assert that, tho the linking narrative of The Transports was set to traditional tunes, all others were his own composition. I pointed out to him the strong similarity of I Once Lived In Service to Fair Maid On The Shore. he said I wasn't the first to have made the point, but he claimed he didn't know, had never heard, FMOTS, & asked me to sing him a verse; after which he admitted he must have heard it somewhere once and retained it in his subconscious, the derivation being so manifest.
---
I have remarked elsewhere, on a thread devoted to Tomorrow Belongs To Me in Cabaret & its similarity to The Lorelei, that it is even more like The Rout Of The Blues.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 05:46 AM

...& talking of Onward Christian Soldiers: when Sullivan wrote his tune for Baring-Gould's words, surely he must have had See The Conquering Hero Comes, from Handel's Judas Maccabæus, ticking round his head somewhere?

~M~

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Leadfingers
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 06:01 AM

Some years ago a friend of mine did a gig , and had a Local Singer
do THREE of my mates songs as his own ! Turns out my mate had been bootlegged and a copy passed to the pillock who then moved to a new area and claimed to be a Songwriter using my mates songs ! Dim or What ?? If I ever hear any one claim a song as 'His' when I know it isnt , I would NOT be polite in my comments !

Subject: RE: 'Are you SURE you wrote that?'
From: Leadfingers
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 06:04 AM

and 100