As forthemusic03 expressed in a seperate post, "Scare Easy" reminded them of "I Won't Back Down". While I feel it's more like "Refugee", it reminded me of a simliar observation I got from listening to the Mudcrutch disc...

Call me crazy, but "The Wrong Thing To Do" reminds me SO much of "Love Is Strong" from the Rolling Stones "Voodoo Lounge" disc. I'm not complaining or pointing fingers or calling for lawyers, just sharing one 6-string slinger's opinion!

Subconscious plagiarism? aha (George Harrison)

In any case, there are only so many notes on the reichter scale of music. Some songs will overlap with the similar notes. There are just not enough combinations of notes to go around, anymore. Everything's been covered.

From a 30 plus year career, of course its hard to find new chords.

However, the young know how to be different.

I am not knocking TP, he is my favorite but I am just pointing out a FACT!

How can Petty be different after 30 years of music with the same musicians!

This is why we love PETTY,,,, FOR HIS STYLE!

Cheers and bad thread!

Fact is 'the young' get their inspiration from the more 'seasoned' professionals. They don't come up with anything "new". It's just a derivative of a derivative of a derivative.

quote:

Originally posted by slibilon:
In any case, there are only so many notes on the reichter scale of music.

Say what?? Reichter scale of Music? Huh????

Here's another one:

I was working along this morning listening to a shuffled set of tunes, when this Dixie Chicks song came on:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ym_pRR3A40

I did a double take. Does this sound familiar to anyone else?

^ Wow! You're not kidding, Dr. J!

Accidental Inspiration, no Mike wrote the song with different lyrics and played it in Long Beach, CA some years back with The Dirty Knobs. "You can definitely hear Mike Campbell (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) in it. Campbell also worked on “Lubbock or Leave It.” Mudcrutch, Tom Petty’s original band involving Campbell, recently redid the song for their album of the same name. The music is the same, but the lyrics are different. It’s called “Bootleg Flyer.”, excerpt from "Country Universe".

Hey, Dr. J....

Me BAD, me bad-bad-bad....TDK's song was "Ticket Home" and don't remember any lyrics just Mike and Jason's whiling (sp?) guitars rolling down the line (tracks). So 'Accidental Inspiration' NO way but an inspirational Mike Campbell comes to mind.

^^ Hey, Cathee!

It is still hard to tell from that Country Universe post who actually wrote the song in the first place. I found a website that gives Tom Petty and Mike Campbell as the composers for "Bootleg Flyer," but I can't find a composer listed for "Live Wire." Boy, I don't think I have ever heard two songs sound more similar!

Bootleg Flyer, formally known as Ticket Home, should be listed as written by Mike Campbell with new lyrics by Tom Petty.

Same with Can't Stop The Sun, formally known as Can't Stop The World.

Thanks for the clarification, Ref.

Concept seemed to be right from Stephen Stills. Trying to recall his song which is so close in lyrical content. ("Bush Pilot"? Something that sounds like that?)

Had to smile today. Two rockers are suing another group (Cold Play is involved...) because of plagerism. Some of the testimony is so "human". One guy says that he's been violated, but admits that when he is composing, sometimes he'll recompose the same song he did months earlier, fully unaware until he stops and thinks about it. And maybe what was thought to be plagarism is actually "influences". And there is no clear distinction between the two terms. You have gotta love music fights. Afterall...isn't that what it's all about?

quote:

You have gotta love music fights. Afterall...isn't that what it's all about?

Good God! It'd better not be.

The song was Tree Top Flyer, Bluegill. I was thinking about that myself.

**

quote:

And maybe what was thought to be plagarism is actually "influences". And there is no clear distinction between the two terms. You have gotta love music fights. Afterall...isn't that what it's all about?

In musical life, plagiarism of/by an artist is outright copy and theft, whether conscience or not. To give or receive influence to/from an artist is an accumulation of data over time which affects the current players musical style. It's not a fine line. It's black and white.

But in the musical world, chords can not be copyright. Melodies can.

**

All of art is really building on what others have done before. If you listen to Tom Petty enough, you can hear the influences like the Byrds and Beatles, how his singing style takes a nod from Dylan, the ZZ Top-like opening to Saving Grace as just a few examples.
No doubt if we listened enough to bands today, we'd hear the "Petty" influence on them.
What makes an artist special isn't that he has no influences but rather that he takes them and makes them into something different altogether.
Plagarism is as LC said, copying a melody or parts of one. It would easy to do even if you had no intention of doing it. There's only so many chord combinations that work in rock music and because of that it's easy to fall into someone else's pattern. When I'd play stuff that I wrote, I'd have people coming up to me all the time trying to figure out who did the song. It was funny, they'd insist they'd heard it before and didn't believe me when I told them I wrote it. All it was, was that I was following a well worn chord progression that sounded similar to lots of things, giving the songs a familar feel.
I think that's the toughest thing to do as a songwriter, to make the same old progressions sound unique to you.