Love and Theft

With Coldplay currently being sued by Joe Satriani over which song sucked first, I started thinking about what songs sound like each other and at what point does it become plagiarism. After all, there are only so many chords and melodies in modern music. If musicians can sue other artists because their songs sound alike, think of all the old Blues musicians who Jimmy Page owes money to for the entire Led Zeppelin catalog.

The most famous lawsuit I can think of was this ridiculous suit stating that George Harrison had stole the melody from The Chiffons for his "My Sweet Lord". George amazingly lost this suit.

I was listening to Sirius this morning and they played the Mellencamp craptacular song "I'm Not Running Anymore" and I starting humming the Three Dog Night classic "Shambala". While I don't like the whole lawsuit thing, I do think Three Dog Night should sue John Mellencamp for this one. Listen and tell me they don't sound like the same song. The verses, the chorus, the melody, well...everything. I'm sure Mellencamp would say he was influenced by it. Whatever. Love and Theft indeed....

Three Dog Night-Shambala


John Mellencamp-I'm Not Running Anymore