Red Hot Chili Peppers, rip off Tom Petty *

Listen to this:

http://www.wgmd.com/SOUNDS/FEATURES/051706-petty.mp3

 

Rick Rubin produced both tracks.

 

Really interesting investigation: thanks. It has to be said that they have speeded up the Petty song to make it match the RHCP beat (very noticeable on the vocal track). It's also worth saying that Petty (quite possibly unconsciously) took the riff in the first place from the Jayhawks' "Waiting for the Sun".

Stevie

 

Exactly Windfall ... speeding it up certainly makes the case, but that's a lot of work. Someone's looking to cause controversy just because they can. And the announcers don't tell anyone they sped things up - they act like it is the way it is all the time.

 

I think the point is though that when sped up it is exactly the same, it isnt hard to speed up your guitar playing and call it your own song is it!

 

Fair enough, but the commentators could have been a little more transparent about it. (They actually say something about the two songs having the same drum track).

It *is* interesting that the lyrics are also pretty similar.

 

The drum track is the same, just speeded up a little. And yes, there is the lyrical similarity too.

 

This is might sound like a dubious story, but it isn't. I heard their new single, for the very first time, on the radio while driving last week. I don't listen to much outside of classic rock/oldies radio. But I do get easily impatient, and fly around the "dial" sometimes. Anyway, I distinctly remember that while zooming through the stations, the only reason I had come to rest on the modern rock station playing their new single, was because (for a brief second) I mistakenly thought it might be Petty's "...Mary Jane". I quickly realized my mistake and moved on...

 

"Gee, they both mention a town!" How lame.

Yes they are similar, but if you were to sit and sift thru rock history and compare songs for similarities, your head would explode.

 

I haven't heard the RHCP song, but this thread reminded me of when I bought Hollywood Town Hall by the Jayhawks a few years ago and heard that song. When it started, I almost fell on my rear. I couldn't believe how much the beginning sounded like Petty's "Mary Jane's Last Dance." Actually, the other way around since "Waiting for the Sun" was recorded first.

Obviously, I know that musicians have "borrowed" bits of tunes from others forever, but this was incredibly blatant. If I recall the story correctly, the Jayhawks opened for Petty when that album was out and before "Mary Jane" appeared on Petty's Greatest Hits CD. I lost a lot of respect for TP after that.

 

They actually both mention Indiana. .............but, c'mon............The chorus is completely different and it's a pretty basic chord progression.. I seriously doubt Petty would pursue this.........

 

It may be a basic chord progression but the timing between each chord is identical!

 

Has Tom Petty ever used any other kind of chord progression?

 

It wouldn't hold up in court if Petty decided to claim theft. You can't copyright that chord progression. Only the words and melody can be copyrighted in the case of pop music. The melody is not the same, and the words are not the same. I mean how many songs have that drum groove too?? I highly doubt the Chili Peppers consciously worte this song to sound like the Petty tune.

Frank R

 

The verse melodies are pretty damn similar.

 

Close doesnt count. The chord progressions are Am, G D Am.......and Am G Dm Am. The technique is completely different also...I play them on guitar nothing alike. As for the opening lyrics...they seem pretty universal and common to me. I dont think Tom Petty was the first to start out a song about a girl and where she was from...

 

Perhaps that extra flatted third will save the Chili Peppers a few hundred thousand bucks.

 

To me, this is part of why people start losing interest in new rock albums as they get older -- the same ideas keep coming around and around.

 

I always thought Mary Jane's Last Dance sounded like a sped-up Almost Cut My Hair (CSNY). And You Don't Know How it Feels sounds very similar to Out on the Weekend from Neil Young's Harvest

 

I think they should have Tom come out and play Dani California
with them on one of their concerts just as a joke and show no hard feelings

 

A lot of Petty's stuff sounds like things that came before it. For both better and worse ("American Girl" is so ridiculously indebted to the Byrds', that it actually ends up sounding better than many of the Byrds' own songs). He's definitely a guy who doesn't mind wearing his influences on his sleeve...

 

If the Offspring didn't get in any "trouble" for that song "Why Don't You Get A Job?" a few years back, despite it sounding like "Cecilia" plus "Ob-Bla-Di, Ob-Bla-Da" divided by half, I don't think the RHCP's have anything to worry about...

 

The Offspring one was not an identical riff.

 

True. And I wonder if "Dani" is the same as "Dani the girl" mentioned on the last album, By The Way.
What a breakthrough! They're ripping off themselves! How's that for a legal entanglement? Where's Saul Zaentz when you really need him?


Dan