Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: PoppaGator
Date: 27 Apr 10 - 03:32 PM

The interviewer/reporter struck me as even crabbier than Joni, who was herself, quite obviously, not in a very good mood. Seems to me that a sour and depressed psychlogical state must be part of a syndrome caused by her weird illness.

I was particularly struck at the writer's intimation that Joni had no business dumping on Bob for making up a name for himself because her name was/is, according to him, just as "fake." No so: her middle name is "Joan," and lots of people go by their middle name. As for her last name, she was married to a guy named Mitchell who was her duet partner back when she was first breaking into the music biz. The marriage didn't last very long, but her name was Mitchell, publicly and legally, when she got started as a perfomer, and she maintained that (minimally) established identity when she went solo, both onstage and off.

On the other hand, I'm not giving Joni a pass on all of her bullshit. She has no business criticizing Grace and Janis for sleeping with fellow musicians, since she herself enjoyed a series of widely publicized affairs with high-profile performers. Not bandmates in her case ~ fellow headliner-types: but what difference could that possibly make? A lot of people, not just famous ones, practiced that kind of "serial monogamy" back in a golden era when there were no "social diseases" that couldn't be cured with a shot of penicillin.

As for as The Bob is concerned ~ don't get me started! (See upmteen-million earlier discussions elsewhere on this site.)

To my perception, both Joni and Bob were and are geniuses, artists able to create unique music that could only have come from the mind and spirit of one individual, her/himself. Not everyone perceives their work as positively as I do(obviously); however, the fact that in both cases not everyone "gets it" means nothing. The success achieved by both of these artists is proof positive that LOTS of people DO appreciate their work.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Apr 10 - 12:54 PM

personally, I would rather listen to Joni Mitchell than Robert Zimmerman.
however I respect Dylan as a song writer,even if on a couple of occasions he was guilty of plagiarism.
   catspaw 49 reminds me of Gargoyle.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Apr 10 - 12:37 PM

They hate getting old, Jeri. They're frustrated. I think you'll find that the general membership of this forum gets crabbier and nastier with each passing year...can you imagine how bad it'll be 10 years from now? ;-D With any luck we'll both die off before it reaches its absolute worst, and then we won't have to witness it!

Joni's songs aren't generally hard to play in the sense of matching the general chord sequence....but they are hard, I think, in the sense of matching exactly how she does it on whatever instrument she's playing. Mind you, I never did try to match exactly what she was doing on any instrument, I just found the chords (which are usually pretty straightforward) and then played them my own style.

What is hard for most people is to match the wideness of her vocal range, no matter what key they decide to do the song in. Her phrasing can be a little tricky too, but it's just a matter of getting used to it. The same is true of Dylan on certain songs.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 27 Apr 10 - 12:02 PM

It's a safe outlet?? Can't hit back...?

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: Jeri
Date: 27 Apr 10 - 11:37 AM

Did I already mention what I thought of "rabid fans playing that 'my fave is better than your fave' game?" I suspect some people are projecting.

I think she's great. I got a dulcimer and figured out "A Case of You" right after trying to learn Bob Coltman's "Valley Forge". I don't think her songs are particularly hard to play, but may seem so to a non-musician or one unfamiliar with the tunings she uses. The real genius is in combining words that matter with a tune that catches the ear, and she can do that. So can Dylan, although he hasn't done much I like in the last few years. So can quite a few artists. The thing with Joni & Bob is that they both did something new, and the doors they opened forever changed music, especially songwriting.

I truly wonder what it is about music these days that makes people hate so much...

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: catspaw49
Date: 27 Apr 10 - 07:49 AM

The old penis envy thing huh? I suppose it could be. I heard that a lot of birds who live at airports have fuselage envy.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 27 Apr 10 - 03:30 AM

The same can be said for a lot of guys.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 27 Apr 10 - 01:23 AM

Joni, over rated as she is/was, is just frustrated because she couldn't grow a dick.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: catspaw49
Date: 27 Apr 10 - 12:49 AM

100.....say is that lint over there?

Spaw

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: Jeri
Date: 26 Apr 10 - 10:01 PM

I'm not saying I know anything about Morgellon's, but people once thought Lyme disease didn't exist.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 26 Apr 10 - 09:37 PM

"My mother was a subject at one point, during a time in which our family suffered some profound business reverses and she was under a lot of stress. Severe ulcers were the result in her case."

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2005 - ulcers caused by a new genus of bacterium - stress may run the the immune system, allowing them to run riot.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 26 Apr 10 - 09:00 PM

Mayo Clinic website:

"Morgellons disease is a mysterious skin disorder characterized by disfiguring sores and crawling sensations on and under the skin. Although Morgellons disease isn't widely recognized as a medical diagnosis, experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are investigating reports of the condition, which they refer to as unexplained dermopathy.
"Signs and Symptoms
Skin rashes or sores that can cause intense itching
Crawling sensations on and under the skin, often compared to insects moving, stinging or biting
Fibers, threads or black stringy material in and on the skin
Severe fatigue
Inability to concentrate and short term memory loss
Behavioral changes
Joint pain
Vision changes.

"Morgellons disease shares characteristics with various recognized conditions, including Lyme disease, liver or kidney disease, schizophrenia, drug or alcohol abuse, and.... delusional parasitosis.

Reports from all states and 15 countries. Most reported cases are clustered in CA, TX, FL.
.................
Coping
Establish a caring health care team. Find a doctor who acknowledges your concerns and does a thorough examination. Since Morgellons disease often requires frequent follow-up visits, a local health care team may be most convenient.
...............
To learn more about Morgellons disease or to report suspected cases.... call the CDC Morgellons information and voice mail line at 404-718-1179.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/morgellons-disease/SN00043

Note: The Mayo Clinic, based in Rochester, is non-profit.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: GUEST,The Shambles
Date: 26 Apr 10 - 03:10 PM

It's stupid, and I doubt real musicians play that game.

Unless Joni Mitchell does not count as a real musician, (whatever a real musician may be) the point seems to have been missed that it was a real musician who was saying these things and who was perfectly entitled to do so. This real musician also quite obviously felt that there is some form of competition involved.

But it is the music produced by these 'real musicans' and the 'not-so-real' musicians that matter far more than whoever may have been responsible for making it. We should perhaps simply enjoy this....

And no matter how talented they may be, in order to reach the vast level of fame we have given to the two real musicians involved here - we should make no mistake about the equally gigantic size of the two egos required. Whether this may be sad or not - it remains a fact of life.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 26 Apr 10 - 12:26 PM

I don't know any songwriter or performer worth his or her salt who hasn't identified a great phrase, or line and made something of it. There's nothing new under the sun, someone famously said. I began in the 1950's coffeehouse era and almost immediately learned of the phenomenon known as "the folk process." There is a great difference, I believe, between adaptation and making something your own and outright plagiarism. The latter is stealing; claiming authorship or ownership of someone else's work.

I've truly enjoyed some of the songs of both Dylan and Mitchell. Some of the work of both has been inspiring and thought-provoking and some of it insipid. At their best, both were at the top of their generation. The last time I saw Dylan, he was unintelligible - NOT enigmatic, but unintelligible.

I guess what I will never understand is the dedicated and passionate fan who refuses to admit to the shortcomings of a hero who had a time in the sun, but is fading. It's unseemly when your hero worship verges on the risk of incontinence.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: olddude
Date: 26 Apr 10 - 11:11 AM

boy I think Jeri is so right on that. It is what it is, if we like a song great, if not ... then we pass. It is impossible to compare since taste is like snowflakes, all different.   It also lays in the ears of the listeners. I had a friend here in town tell me one of my songs reminded him of Landside by Stevie Nicks ..

completely different melody day and night, but yes, Landside does have an AM chord also in it LOL

but the thing is, he hears it where no one else does or would possibly hear it since it is so different.   All in all, every country song, with the C, and the G and the D and the minors yada yada, been done only organized different. Doesn't take away from the music I think what is truly unique in any song most likely is the lyrics only.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: Jeri
Date: 26 Apr 10 - 10:40 AM

I don't care much for rabid fans playing the "my fave is better than your fave" game. It's stupid, and I doubt real musicians play that game. Music is not a competition. It all builds on what came before, and that includes ALL types of music. I like Dylan, I like Joni (although she seems to have been having a bad day or something), I like Jackson Browne. Leave it to the truly stupid to debate what's 'best'.

There isn't anything truly new under the sun. Western scales, chords, chord changes, fragments of melody based on western scales and chords, words, and structure--all there ever is is all there ever was. These things HAVE to already exist if they're to have meaning to anybody else.

The only thing that changes, the ONLY creative thing, the thing that changes based on the ones doing the writing, is how they combine all that stuff to get their idea across. Then WE get to decide if we like it or not, if it means anything to us.

But I'm never going to understand the sad ego that needs music to be a competition. Maybe they've been watching American Idol.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Apr 10 - 10:20 AM

I agree enthusiastically with those comments about Jackson Browne, Tunesmith. However, I think equally highly of both Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan when it comes to songwriting. In Dylan's case, an album of "personal" songs that approaches the very highest of songwriting craft, in my opinion, is "Blood On The Tracks" (1974).

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 26 Apr 10 - 08:49 AM

I disagree with catspaw49's negative "navel gazer songwriter" comment. For me, Joni - and then Jackson Browne - realy moved personal - "confessional" if you prefer - songwriting on to depths that previous songwriters just couldn't/hadn't approach.
   I admired alot of Dylan's stuff but Joni ... her music has a reality that Dylan's music just doesn't contain. Indeed, compared with Joni, alot of Dylan's stuff has that "journalistic" quality that Dylan once said made up most of Phil Ochs' music.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: catspaw49
Date: 26 Apr 10 - 06:29 AM

As you should know Hawk, ALL clothing is optional at the NYCFTTS including the new wings as well. Only Joni herself can wear clothing and in her case we have made it mandatory.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: Will Fly
Date: 26 Apr 10 - 04:33 AM

Will you have to wear a beret and understand jazz to get a room there?

That gets me in.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Apr 10 - 01:59 AM

Will you have to wear a beret and understand jazz to get a room there?

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: catspaw49
Date: 26 Apr 10 - 01:29 AM

Not to mention her "first of the type" influence she had as a navel gazer songwriter making her songs difficult because they can rarely be anyone elses.

Sorry.....Not all that great to me. On the other hand, we have recently been given a grant to open an addition to the NYCFTTS (for noobs, that's the Neil Young Center for the Terminally Screwed). It will be known as the Mitchell Virtual Unit for the Study of Wacko Crappola. Until the parking garage is finished the Unit will share the lot with the James Taylor Catatonic Blandness Rehab Clinic.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 09:39 PM

You're dead right that Joni's material is very hard for most people to play or sing. I speak from experience on that! ;-) Most people don't have anything near her vocal range nor can they figure out what she's doing on guitar.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: GUEST,musician
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 08:56 PM

Wow, what a discussion!
A few comments-

Joni is suffering here. Show some love, or at least some decency. It's an unexplainable condition she shares with others.
I consider Joni a musician's musician. The unique and original complexity of her tunes is easily overlooked by an untrained ear. Yes, there is a reason that her songs are rarely covered by other artists (unlike Dylan). Her music is hard to play. Or sing. Joni developed her own system of guitar tunings (more than 35) to better compliment her amazing vocal range and thoughtful lyrics. She was considered genius by her musical peers.
Dylan is just a man who will stop at nothing short of success. But he's no Joni Mitchell.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 08:17 PM

"The reason why people object is given in the definition of plagiarism above was not because he was successful at it as you claim but because he did not always acknowledge his borrowings."

Uh-huh. ;-) That's what they say. And there's some truth in that. But I think if it wasn't for the fact that he IS Bob Dylan....they just wouldn't care. See what I mean?

If you or I had done it, for example...they wouldn't care. We're not successful enough that it would matter to them. This is why you have to be extra careful when you attain any great success...or you have to develop a thick skin...because the world will expect a great deal more of you than they do of most people, and your critics will have a field day. Will it be enough consolation that your most diehard fans and sycophants will praise even your poorest work?

Probably not.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: GUEST,whenwesing
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 07:13 PM

"But now old friends are acting strange"

"It's life's illusions I recall"

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: Tootler
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 06:38 PM

I always understood plagiarism to mean the taking of someone else's work and passing it off as your own. That is the definition that we always worked on when I was working in a University.

Applying this to Bob Dylan, you have to ask did he take the work of others and pass it off as his own?

I don't think there is a clear cut answer to this as he usually adapted and modified the material he based his songs on but I do think he sailed pretty close to the wind on occasions.

To respond to Little Hawk's question
What I was mainly talking about in my previous post, though, was why people object so much to Bob Dylan doing what thousands of others have done every since folk music began...borrowing from and building upon the past tradition.

The reason why people object is given in the definition of plagiarism above was not because he was successful at it as you claim but because he did not always acknowledge his borrowings.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: voyager
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 04:20 PM

Superstar Rock Artists/Painters grousing at each other sounds like another a hipster's version of The National Enquirer. I think the plagiarism thing is summed up well by Waylon Jennings 'Don't Cuss the
Fiddle' -

   If we ever get to heaven
   It ain't because we ain't done nothing wrong
   We're in this gig together
   So let's settle down and steal each others songs
   I know it sounds silly
   But I think I just stole somebody's song.

Hope Joni keeps on doing her beautiful painting/creative jazzy/rock.
See also 'Roots of Bob Dylan' website -
    http://bobdylanroots.com/lyric.html
   
voyager

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 04:17 PM

I have nothing against Dominic Behan at all, Jim. My knowledge of him is quite limited. He came from an earlier era and from different cultural origins than the folk musicians my main interest was in, who all came in the following era, so to speak, from about 1959 on...and who were almost all from North America (Canada and the USA).

The Irish Troubles are an interesting subject, no doubt, but not a subject I had any personal stake in or any reason to take sides in. I understand it was important to Behan...and rightly so...but it wasn't to me. What Dylan wrote about in his adaptation of that tune struck me as quite important, on the other hand, because I did have a personal stake in that. I lived through the Vietnam years and I was very much affected by issues commented on in the Dylan song. If you have lived in the USA, as I have, you would know how deeply the notion that "God is on our side" is knit into the American psyche, and how much it has been used to justify a whole series of quasi-colonial wars (wars fought for profit and national gain) in the last couple of centuries. Such dangerously tacit assumptions as the one that "God is on our side" should be vigorously questioned at all times, and Bob Dylan did question them most effectively in his song.

What I was mainly talking about in my previous post, though, was why people object so much to Bob Dylan doing what thousands of others have done every since folk music began...borrowing from and building upon the past tradition. They object because he succeeded so well at it.

I'm not getting upset in the least by any of this talk here. I'm not fighting with you, I'm just discussing something. And I'm enjoying it. It's an interesting subject, don't you think?

Yeah, the young Bob Dylan did have a big chip on his shoulder. Absolutely. ;-) Did I ever say he did not? I've seldom seen anyone with a bigger chip on their shoulder than Bob was carrying in around 1965-66 when he did the 3 "electrical albums". The song "Positively Fourth Street" is the ultimate example of that.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: GUEST,GUEST
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 02:42 PM

That would be Lobachevsky, via Tom Lehrer.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: Jim McLean
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 02:08 PM

Dear Little Hawk, Dylan, "that little scrawny shnook" as you described him, was but a pin prick to Dominic Behan's thick hide. Behan's writings were about the wrongs inflicted on men and women by society but especially concerning Ireland, his country. He wrote many songs other than the Patriot Game .. Come out Ye Black and Tans .. for instance and Connolly was There .. the originality of the melodies was not important but the lyrics were. I knew both Dylan and Behan and can only say that Dylan's chip was much bigger than Behan's. Dominic was established and Bob had to make his way when I knew him so just be happy than Bob got his fame and glory which Dominic already had. The message regarding plagiarism is that one can use traditional tunes, which many of us song writers do, but write your own songs.
I don't really want to continue this discussion which won't have a satisfactory end for most people as it parallels threads about MacColl .. there are those for and those against and never the twain shall meet. Just take a deep breath and enjoy the music.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 01:38 PM

Oh, I can well understand that he was annoyed by it... ;-)

But I think that the REAL reason so many people have been annoyed by Bob Dylan's adaptations and borrowings of a variety of trad tunes and nontrad tunes and lyrical phrases, etc, is simply this: he was very successful in marketing those adapatations.

If he had not been (like so many others who have borrowed in the same way)...no one would care. If you achieve much in a professional way and become famous, then everyone cares all of a sudden.

My point being: Dylan did what thousands of others have done and will continue to do, but he succeeded at it. That's what people really resented. They were secretely thinking, whether they would fess up to it or not, "Why him? Why that little scrawny schnook? Why not me, glorious me!???"

Thus, in my opinion, they do protest overmuch and they are driven primarily by envy, not by more noble impulses.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: Jim McLean
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 10:49 AM

MtheGM, don't be fooled by Dominic's "Is that right?" response. I knew him when he wrote The Patriot Game in 1957 and he was well aware of, not only the Nightingale, but of Guthrie's version of the tune in the 1913 Massacre. It was Dylans' use of the first verse of the Patriot Game, coupled with the tune, which annoyed him and rightly so.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: beeliner
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 10:00 AM

Here's an excellent modern version of "Minglewood":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcbYD_MTDcY

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: beeliner
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 09:52 AM

Rollin' & Tumblin was not arranged by Canned Heat they do a straight cover of The Muddy Waters record.

Not to belabor a trivial point, but CH's version is similar, not a straight cover. Muddy's instrumental breaks between lines are longer and different - similar but not 'striaght'.

CH and BD are closer than CH and MW.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: Ed T
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 09:35 AM

"Whatever gets you through your life 'salright, 'salright
Do it wrong or do it right 'salright, 'salright
Don't need a watch to waste your time oh no, oh no"

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: GUEST,Woodsie
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 09:25 AM

Rollin' & Tumblin was not arranged by Canned Heat they do a straight cover of The Muddy Waters record. I believe I read an interview with Muddy once where he claimed to have learnt it from Son House.

I was once watching a programme on TV about the earliest recordings of blues and they played what was supposed to be the first ever known field recording (on a cylinder I think) and it was "Rollin' & Tumbling" sung by an unknown female.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: alanabit
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 08:04 AM

Thanks for the information beeliner. I am not surprised at all that the tune predates Robert Johnson.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: beeliner
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 07:16 AM

P.S. The Gus Cannon version is included in the Harry Smith anthology.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: beeliner
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 07:02 AM

Interesting comments from Reggie above, as ever. He knows his blues history better than I do and well enough to know that "Rolling and Tumbling" (or whatever Dylan calls his version) was recorded by Robert Johnson as "If I had Possession Over Judgement Day".

The thing is, it's not really Dylan's 'version'. He copies Canned Heat's arrangement (1967) virtually note for note. On CH's recording it's credited to M. Morganfield (Muddy Waters), who MIGHT have been the first to use that TITLE, but the song goes back even before Johnson, to Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers who recorded it in 1928 as "Minglewood Blues". On that recording it's credited to Noah Lewis.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: alanabit
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 02:53 AM

Interesting comments from Reggie above, as ever. He knows his blues history better than I do and well enough to know that "Rolling and Tumbling" (or whatever Dylan calls his version) was recorded by Robert Johnson as "If I had Possession Over Judgement Day". Big Bill Broonzy's "Worrying You Off My Mind" used the tune of Robert Johnson's "Come On In My Kitchen". I am sure Max and Bobert et al could all swamp us with other examples. Consciously and subconsciously this has been going on for as long as blues and folk music itself. I think it has just become more of an issue since publishers have been able to generate and earn vast profits from copyrighting music. In Dylan's blues songs, as in some of his early sounding "folkie" stuff - as in the examples given earlier in this thread - I think he has leaned more heavily on existing melodies. No one did that more than Woody Guthrie and his legacy as an original is beyond reproach. It would be very unfair though to accuse Dylan of not being capable of creating original melodies. I think he just uses the tunes, which he likes best at the time, whether they happen to originate in his own imagination or not.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 02:19 AM

Dominic Behan used to introduce his 'Patriot Game' with...You've probably heard this by Bob Dylan....with the wrong words' referring to Dylan's use of the tune for 'With god on our side'. The tune is probably older than Behan as well. ====

Of course the tune is older ~~ I once pointed out to Dominic that he had actually used the traditional tune of one of the best-known sets of 'The Nightingale Sing/Bold Grenadier'; & he thought for a moment and said that indeed that was so, tho he hadn't concsciously registered the fact till then. 'Plagiarism' can occur in more than one way.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: Jim McLean
Date: 24 Apr 10 - 04:23 PM

Little Hawk, I don't think improving is the question in hand ... plagiarism, intellectual theft, using someone else's ideas ... and again, there are possible hundreds, if not thousands of people who think Dominic's song, used by Dylan as a basis for his own, is not so much 5 times inferior, but original.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Apr 10 - 03:43 PM

I don't feel that way about Joni Mitchell, but I'd do it for Joan Baez. ;-) Or Buffy Sainte-Marie.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: GUEST,bankley
Date: 24 Apr 10 - 01:45 PM

man, I don't care if she's sprouting porcupine quills and knitting needles, I'd crawl across broken glass with my tongue to kiss her better

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Apr 10 - 01:31 PM

Dylan's version is about 5 times better than Dominic Behan's. It's a much more interesting piece of writing, and he improved on the tune as well.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: Haruo
Date: 24 Apr 10 - 12:43 PM

As a famous Russian mathematician whose name escapes me once said,
"Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize -"

Heck, the Torah and the Gospels are both half plagiarism (though of course there was no Bern Convention in those days).

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: Jim McLean
Date: 24 Apr 10 - 12:35 PM

Tug the Cox .. let's not go down that road again .. suffice to say it wasn't just the tune Dominic Behan was referring to.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: GUEST,Matt_R
Date: 24 Apr 10 - 11:42 AM

Or rather Taylor Swift's corporate songwriting team.

Subject: RE: Joni Mitchell -Dylan is 'a plagiarist'
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 24 Apr 10 - 10:57 AM

I would say that Joni is/was the most original singer/songwriter of the rock era. The early precedents for Dylan are obvious: Guthrie being the most well known, but where did Joni come from? And, Joni's influence is enomous! For example, contemporary Taylor Swift owes so much to Joni's groundbreaking work - whether she knows it or not!