00:00Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the top ten
00:09songs that we just keep coming back to, even if they've been proven to be rip-offs of other
00:14compositions.
00:39Elvis Presley's legendary 1956 hit single Love Me Tender is one of the most perfectly
00:45constructed love songs of all time, a delicately sung and beautifully written ode to the author's
00:51beloved.
00:52But this song wasn't just plucked out of thin air — at least, not in its entirety.
00:56Its melody is actually identical to the old Civil War tune, Ora Lee.
01:08To the point where its composer George R. Poulton was actually credited on Presley's updated
01:13version.
01:14Call it a modified or even an improved take on the song if you'd like, but Love Me Tender
01:19has roots that stretch far beyond 20th century music.
01:25Say darling, I love you, and I always will.
01:37Number 9.
01:38Stay With Me, Sam Smith.
01:40Any songwriter will tell you that plagiarism isn't always intentional.
01:56And in Sam Smith's case, they claim that any similarities between their 2014 smash hit Stay
02:02With Me and Tom Petty's iconic I Woke Back Down are merely a coincidence.
02:14In fact, Smith says they never even heard the song before they were forced to hand over
02:18songwriting royalties to Petty and his co-writer Jeff Lyn.
02:22It's hard to deny that the melodies are similar, but it did raise an interesting debate over
02:28what is considered plagiarism in music.
02:30We know we love both songs, and who knows, maybe Smith is right and their choruses just
02:36happen to sound the same.
02:37I guess we'll never know for sure.
02:40Call them, stay with me.
02:45Number 8.
02:46Viva La Vida, Coldplay.
02:48Ice to the world, seas it rise when I gave the wood.
02:55Coldplay well and truly burst out of their indie rock with the pop stomper Viva La Vida in 2008.
03:02A huge commercial success for them, even by the band's lofty standards.
03:06But according to the legendary guitarist Joe Satriani, Chris Martin and company lifted the
03:11vocal melody of the verse directly from his instrumental track, If I Could Fly.
03:23This one is hard to defend.
03:26You can hear just how the chord progression and guitar solo mirror Martin's opening lines.
03:31In fact, this song has been attacked from all angles with accusations of plagiarism,
03:36with everyone from Yusef slash Cat Stevens to the Italian 18th century composer Alessandro
03:42Perissati being pointed to as potential sources for the melody.
03:46Never an honest word, but that was when I ruled the world.
03:54Number 7.
03:55Bittersweet Symphony, The Verb.
03:571990s Britpop didn't get too much better than The Verb's Bittersweet Symphony.
04:08But even though it remains one of the most beloved songs of the decade, it's not exactly an entirely
04:13original piece.
04:14Sure, The Verb received permission from the record label Deca Records to use a sample
04:19of an orchestral version of the Rolling Stones song, The Last Time.
04:29But not doing the same with the song's composition rights owner, former Stones manager Alan Klein,
04:35turned out to be a hugely expensive decision.
04:37The Verb ended up being forced to lose out on all royalties from the song, estimated to be a figure
04:43in the millions, before Mick Jagger and Keith Richards eventually signed over the rights to The Verb in 2019.
04:57Number 6.
04:58Life on Mars.
04:59David Bowie.
05:09It might seem odd, but long before he was a globally recognized superstar, David Bowie was a
05:15struggling songwriter working for a record label rewriting foreign hits in the English language.
05:21After his translation for the French song Comme des Habitudes was rejected by Frank Sinatra in favor
05:27of Paul Anka's My Way, Bowie got some revenge.
05:43He borrowed the song's chord progression and created one of the most memorable songs of the 70s,
05:48Life on Mars.
05:49Call it plagiarism or good old-fashioned payback, but there's no denying the similarities.
05:55Both My Way and Life on Mars are 10 out of 10s in our book.
06:08Number 5.
06:08Surfing USA.
06:10The Beach Boys.
06:17The Beach Boys were most certainly one of the most original and innovative bands of their time,
06:22but that didn't mean that they were immune from accusations of plagiarism.
06:26Their 1963 hit, Surfing USA, very clearly is greatly influenced by Chuck Berry's 1958 ode to
06:33young girls, Sweet Little Sixteen.
06:35They really rockin' in Boston, and Pittsburgh, PA, deep in the heart of Texas, and round the Frisco Bay.
06:46Lyrical content differences aside, they're basically the same song.
06:50Beach Boys lead singer Brian Wilson rejected the idea of conscious plagiarism,
06:54but he was eventually forced to list Barry as a songwriter on the track.
06:58And it's pretty easy to see why.
07:00Everybody's not surfing, surfing USA.
07:05The Red Hot Chili Peppers have been known for their mind-bending,
07:20riffery, and complex onstage jamming for years, but in contrast, their 2006 hit,
07:25Danny California, is pretty straightforward.
07:28So much so, in fact, that its four-chord progression on the verse was deemed to be
07:33very similar to Mary Jane's Last Dance by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
07:43To be fair, while the exact chords used differ, the tone and drive of the verses are strikingly
07:49similar. But Petty, who had been around the block at that point in time, was quick to play down any
07:55rumors of legal action, giving the peppers a pass while saying that these things happen in rock
08:00and roll. A noble gesture, indeed.
08:11Number 3. The Lion Sleeps Tonight, The Tokens
08:14One of the most famous and heartbreaking stories of song theft of all time is undoubtedly the tale of
08:28Solomon Linda and Umbube. This song was improvised and recorded by Linda in South Africa in 1939,
08:35where he then sold its rights for the equivalent of about $2.
08:47Fast forward 20 years, and the song has been adapted for international audiences into The
08:52Lion Sleeps Tonight by The Tokens, generating millions of dollars for people who had nothing
08:58to do with its creation. Linda, on the other hand, was living in poverty and would die in 1962,
09:0546 years before he received his songwriting credit, and his estate eventually earned royalties for his work.
09:21Number 2. Down Under Men at Work.
09:28Men at Work's legendary 1981 hit Down Under noticeably uses the melody of the Australian nursery rhyme,
09:40Kookaburra, as part of its flute arrangement.
09:42Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree,
09:47eating all the gumdrops he can see.
09:50According to the band, this was done as an in-joke and tribute to the tune and its aussie roots.
09:56The rest of the song is totally original. However, a record label called Larrikin
10:01Records, which owns the rights to Kookaburra, ended up successfully taking Men at Work to court
10:06for a slice of the royalties the song had earned. Fans of the band were outraged that a very obvious
10:13nod to a well-known melody was considered to be a theft of property. But according to plagiarism laws,
10:18Men at Work were still at fault.
10:20You better run, you better take cover.
10:25Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get notified
10:30about our latest videos. You have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them.
10:35If you're on your phone, make sure you go into your settings and switch on notifications.
10:391. My Sweet Lord, George Harrison
10:54George Harrison lost many battles to be heard during his run with the Beatles, but when each
11:00member dove into their respective solo careers, it was clear that Harrison came out on top. His
11:05legendary album, All Things Must Pass, is a bona fide classic. Still, George was forced to admit
11:11that he accidentally ripped off the song He's So Fine by the Chipons when writing one of his signature
11:17hits, My Sweet Lord. You can really hear why this was one of the most famous plagiarism cases
11:31in music history. The songs are extremely similar. Does it detract from My Sweet Lord as a listening
11:37experience in the slightest, though? Fortunately, it does not.
11:48In your opinion, what is a song that is just so good and makes you turn off your brain and ignore
11:53any obvious plagiarism? Let us know in the comments section below.
Comments