The Same old song...
Posted by simontyler on 18 August 2008 - 9:34pm.
I heard Peter Gabriel's Steam on the radio today; Yesterday Sky Sports used Big Time as a bed for lots of Chelsea Clips, because of Big Phil. They both sound like reworkings of Sledgehammer,It got me thinking how many times has he re-wrote and re-recorded the same song.
Any other examples of artists rehashing their own material, either through A&R / record label pressure or through sheer laziness.
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Status Quo
'Nuff Said
I don't think
that the Gabriel songs you mention are particularly alike.
A classic example of this is...
Steve Cropper playing the 'In The Midnight Hour' riff backwards to write 'Knock On Wood'.
Not sure about...
...'Big Time' being like 'Sledgehammer'. 'Steam' definitely feels like a Sledgehammer rehash though, to be fair!
Methinks 'Steam' was the product of...
record company pressure for a single.
Well...
...doesn't Gabriel own Real World Records anyway, which said track and the album 'Us' was released on?
Bernard Butler
has been pretty much re-writing 'Yes' for the last 10 years.
Both the lead singles for the 2nd McAlmont collaboration and The Tears were some considerable distance from a cigar...
Consitency
Big Time was on the same album as Sledgehammer, and may have been recorded either at the same time or before so I'm not sure if it's a rehash or consistency. Steam is probably at least partly the result of someone saying "make it like that last one - the one that was popular."
I remember when Up was released, the promo that went to radio stations had a track on it called Burn You Up, Burn You Down which was removed before the album actually went on sale. This didn't stop the song from getting some airplay on the radio - in fairness, it was probably the most radio-friendly length at the time. A couple of years later, a remixed Burn You Up, Burn You Down was released as a standalone single and a some of the people who had played the same song from the Up promo commented that that the new single "sounds just like his last one."
FYI: Burn You Up, Burn You Down
It's on the 2CD Best Of.
And it's also
... on Big Blue Ball too. But the mixes on the Up promo, Hit, the single release and Big Blue Ball are all quite different.
I'm even sad enough to be able to tell you what the differences are but I won't do it here.
If you've put the time in
then you might as well spew it out. It might make you feel like you didn't waste your time as your hard won knowledge has been documented and passed down to others.
Here goes...
The version on/not-on Up is a mix by Steven Hague and the single version is an edited version of that mix. The version on Hit was mixed by Tchad Blake during the mixing sessions for Up. The version on Big Blue Ball is an all-new mix produced by Steven Hague and mixed by Tchad Blake much more recently than the other ones.
There you are now. And it's less hard-won knowledge, more reading the credits.
Wasn't there a story
about a musician who was taken to court for plagiarism - the sting was that he was accused of copying his previous band..!?
Can't remember who it was, one of the Eagles or some country rock band maybe?
John Fogerty
Was the man. I believe he was accused of ripping off CCR.
Thanks, would you happen to
know what the two songs were? Ever since hearing about that classic story I've always wanted to listen to both and compare them.
Yep
The Fogerty song was The Old Man Down The Road. He was accused of releasing a record that was basically the same as Creedence's Run Through The Jungle, but with new lyrics. More details here.
Great, thanks!
what a remarkable story.
On a grander scale
How about albums which follow previous templates? Blur's The Great Escape is a decent enough album, but seems to copy too closely the strategy of predecessor Parklife: kick off with the knockabout single featuring a large guitar riff (for Girls & Boys read Stereotypes), drop in a more granny-pleasing noodler based on a descending riff (End of a Century or Best Days), have your big wistful orchestral number half-way through (be it To the End or The Universal)... you run into trouble when it's not as good as the version it appears to be a facsimile of: Yuko & Hiro is a nice little song, but it quivers like a kitten in the shadow of This is a Low.
In my opinion, of course...
Version 2.0
I think Garbage did something similar with the accurately named "Version 2.0." When you compare it to their first album it kind of does the same things at the same times, but with different songs. I hope that makes sense.
Or indeed...
...The Four Tops, who even had a track 'It's The Same Old Song' written by Holland-Dozier-Holland after accusations that their output sounded the same!
'It's The Same Old Song' apocryphal tale...
... is that HDH were being pressured by Berry Gordy to write another hit after "I Can't Help Myself (Sugarpie Honeybunch)", so they reversed the bassline, and "It's The Same Old Song" was born.
Other artists who embraced their reputation for "same-y-ness" in song:
Morrissey/Smiths - "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before"
Kraftwerk - "Boom Boing Tschak"
HDH
Almost unarguably true about HDH being under pressure from Gordy - this was (formidably good) production-line pop, after all. I'm sure I read somewhere that it was written in response to perceived criticism, though. (For some reason, I'm thinking of Ian Macdonald's legendary Beatles musicology tome Revolution in the Head - ring any bells, people?). Then again, for what it's worth, dear old Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_the_Same_Old_Song tells a different story altogether (while also bringing up I Can't Help Myself's familial similarity to Where Did Our Love Go?).
A far more straightforward lift in the HDH canon came when they liked the pre-chorus to 1965 Supremes hit Back in My Arms Again so much they lifted it wholesale - chords, tempo, wordless backing vocals, the lot - for the following year's Isley Brothers hit This Old Heart of Mine. Not that it matters much: the latter's one of my favourite songs ever, although it may help that I heard it before BIMAA...
Costello
Goodbye Cruel World feels like a shameless effort to repeat Punch the Clock.
20 posts in and not one mention of Oasis...
Not forgetting every SAW single from 1987 through to 1991 which were, for all intents and purposes, identical save for a few lyrical changes and the interchangable personnel. (Astley/Bananrama/Donna Summer/Sonia/The Reynolds Girls/Mel & Kim/Kylie/Donovan - It's like a betting slip. Perm any three from 6.)
Keith Richards years ago in an interview on Radio Clyde...
...made a point along those lines.
A very respectful/ synchophantic (apologies for spelling folks) interviewer was asking him "Just where on earth did you come up with the riff for Jumping Jack Flash" in a slightly overly enthusiastic manner. His Keefness gave the magnificent reply "it's Satisfaction backwards."
I laughed.
Although I think Bill Wyman makes major claims on that now...as a non musician I couldn't comment.
The Clash
I know Joe Strummer cannot be criticized (Diplomats son, public school working class hero that he was), but "Bankrobber" is just a slowed down version of "I fought the law".