Entertainment For Lively Minds
My Sweet Lord's So Fine
Posted by DougieJ on 11 December 2011 - 10:56pm.
I was obviously aware of the plagiarism case relating to this girl group classic which George Harrison (eventually) lost, but I'd never really listened to the song properly until I heard it on the radio the other day.
I think it's fair to say there was a case to answer for our George ;-)
How that nice Allen Klein managed to drag it on for so long is a mystery.
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Same as Joe Satriani and Coldplay
Out-of-court settlement, by all accounts.
They couldn't really deny it..
Quite familiar, isn't it?
I always felt George's defence of 'unconscious' plagiarism relating to He's so Fine was weak, given the Beatles obvious love for early-60s girl groups, but to be fair, while there's clear similarities between Satriani's (to my mind) noodling and Coldplay's 'When I Ruled the World', I think I'm willing to give Martin & Co the benefit of the doubt on this one. I'm sure other opinions are available, however...
George's song
is better though
Fair point.
On a related theme, I wouldn't say Start! was better than Taxman, to which it obviously owes a huge debt, but Weller* uses the central riff to create something distinct (which, other than lyrically, I don't think George does with his 'referencing' of 'He's so Fine').
*see also his 'borrowing' of 10538 Overture for The Changingman.
As far as I know..
the 10538 chord changes had already appeared in the 60s, on Traffic's No Face No Name No Number (1967) and the Beatles' Dear Prudence (1968). Also on the Faces' Flying (1970), which might have predated it as well. Well, it's a nice little figure and easy to play on guitar.
Anyone know earlier examples?
Start is a very direct lift,
Start is a very direct lift, but George never bothered to sue as far as I am aware; one very classy dude.
I mentioned the similarity of...
...Human League B side 'Hard Times' melody to Quintessence's 1969 album track 'Giants' on the Word site a few months back. Former Quintessence mainman Phil Jones' publishing representative told him recently that his name (Phil's) had, mysteriously, without fanfare, now been added to the song's credits in publishing databases.
Who says Word threads have no influence...?
Chiffons
Sorry George, I like the Chiffons' He's So Fine better. I just do.
At the risk of this becoming an attack on the Quiet One,
He does have form, does he not?
Indeed he does
But as John and Paul readily conceded, the Beatles were great "nickers" - John and Paul were just able to better disguise it
Watch Your Step/I Feel Fine
Bobby Parker Watch Your Step
HJH I Feel Fine
Sounds like
J. Page might have heard this one before writing the riff to "Moby Dick"
Brilliant
Thanks Seamus, I had never heard that one before.
(The Bobby Parker song, not the Beatles one...)
Has anyone ever
done a mashup of the two?
Oh yes
And a long time ago, as well. At the time of the original court case, Jonathan King brought out a single which was, essentially, 'He's So Fine' sung by a girl group not dissimilar to the Chiffons, over an instrumental track that closely mimicked My Sweet Lord.
I'm sure there's a copy out there in internet-land somewhere...
Here's One
There was a version by Jonathan King but I don't have that. I do have one by someone called Moon Williams. It's not great but if you want to hear a melding of the two songs.....
http://soundcloud.com/gavinp/moon-williams-hes-so-fine-my
The Jonathan King version...
(Sung by himself, obviously - not a girl group. Funny how your memory plays tricks with you...)
It certainly takes on a whole new...
...creepiness, given Jon's later conviction.
One of several "Er, excuse me" moments
in the Scorsese documentary was how it managed to cover "My Sweet Lord", with Phil Spector and others discussing how groundbreaking a song it was supposed to have been, without even mentioning that the melody was lifted wholesale from one of Spector's biggest early-Sixties-girl-group rivals.
A fairly strong case could be made for saying that the person who wrecked the Beatles wasn't Yoko; it was Phil Spector.
Isn't it true that Allen Klein...
...bought the rights to He's So Fine specifically so he could sue George? Fortunately, the judge recognised this and made him accept George's offer to buy the rights off him, thus ending the matter.
I believe it's the case that somebody...
...bought the rights to 1930s Aussie campfire song 'Kookabura In A Gum Tree' specifically to sue Men At Work over the 'Land Down Under' flute riff. The judge probably recognised that too - the claimant was awarded something like 15% of the MAW hit, but only going back 3 years or so. (Don't take this as gospel - it;'s from memory, but it's something like that, rather than 50% going back many years.)
Just in case anyone is
interested see - http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FCAFC/2011/47.html
Thanks for that QLL...
...anyone would think you're a lawyer in the Queensland area!
Can you sum it up in a couple of lines for us? I've skimmed through it but as its an appeal I'm not sure what the judge is upholding exactly. Either way, as he quotes someone else later on (circa para 262 or thereabouts) it's clearly a “tricky and rather amusing business”...
As briefly as I can
the original trial Judge was asked to consider whether the copyright in an iconic Australian sound, “Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree” (“Kookaburra”) written and composed in 1934 by Miss Marion Sinclair was infringed, and he found that two versions of another iconic Australian work the pop song Down Under infringed the copyright in Kookaburra because the flute riff of Down Under reproduces a substantial part of Kookaburra – the trial judge awarded 5% of the royalty income from Down Under as the correct measure of damages – the manner in which in which the trial Judge comes to the figure of 5% has some fascinating references to other instances – see here: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FCA/2010/698.html
Ah, thank you..
...I thought it was a modest percentage. I'll look at his reasoning in due course...
I love this version of My Sweet Lord...
...By the Belmonts, that goes into He's So Fine at the end
He's the plagiarer, yeah, the plagiarer...
...he's plagiars around, around, around, around, around...
er, sorry... don't know what came over me just there...