McCartney plagiarizing Lennon? You decide!

Hi, gang!

I'm not new to the forums, but I can't seem to rescue my old account. I can safely say that I'm glad to be back. The Fabs remain one of my passions. :)

I've been wondering about this topic for a while. Do you think Macca copied Lennon's "Dear Yoko" in the song "Dance Tonight"? Nay, you say.

Well, if you listen to the demo of "Dear Yoko", as it appears on Youtube, you may change your mind. I wrote an entire post about the topic here on my blog (not a commercial venue, btw!) and I want you to see it and judge by yourself.

Since I can link, here it goes with the best of intentions. I'm just an average Beatles fan just sharing my thoughts!

Have fun, and keep on listening to the Fabs.

Cheers,

Zorty

To my untrained ear it sounds to me like these songs are in different keys. I could be wrong about that. However, the chord progressions are similiar(in different keys!) as are the strum patterns. I'd hardly consider this plagerism.

Yeah, I agree with bobdude. They do sound similar, but I doubt that this is a case of plagiarism. As we all know, being Beatles fans, these two had a famous rivalry that practically forced them to "one-up" one another -- how many songs did John write that sound very obviously like a Paul song, and vice-versa? However (and not to sound condescending) Paul had shown himself to be very creative on his own in the years since John's death and it would be unfair to say that everything he's done (or will do) is (or will be) influenced by John. Even if the rivalry exists for Macca still, I think I'm chalking this one up to coincidence.

Fascinating though! The songs do sound similar. Perhaps it's just similar musical upbringings and stylings caused these two to create fun mandolin/ukulele/banjo inspired songs twenty-odd years apart!

i never meet you welcome back

No, I don't think so. Both melodies are very derivative of earlier music, and I'm sure that one could make the case quite easily that Lennon was also plagiarizing in the case of "Dear Yoko".

There's not an original melody left, and hasn't been for centuries.

The only real similarity is the strum pattern and that John's playing high up the neck is similar to the mandolin sound. The chord progression is similar, but not the same.

It's always very hard to prove if something is plagarised. But, I don't think "Dance tonight" was. The melodies are really very different. Sure the strumming and beat may be similar, but historically in musical plagarism cases, they've ruled that those kinds of things alone don't mean plagarism.

I think it's just down to influence really. These two always had an influence on each other's songwriting. They figured out how to write music together, and fine tuned (bad pun) their songwriting process together.

I think it is inescapable that in some of John's songs you can hear Paul's influence and in some of Paul's songs you can hear John's influence.

And who knows, maybe Paul WAS trying to emmulate John's sound on that one song? Not copy it, because they aren't exactly the same just similar. Perhaps that's his way of remembering and keeping John alive. (Like how "Here Today" and "Something" seem to always show up in his current set lists, as a tribute to John and George).

Great topic though! It's always fun to debate if songs are too similar to each other. I always find it interesting what is and what isn't considered plagarism when the cases actually go to court.

Surfin' USA is a great example of blatant Rock plagarism. And Chuck Berry won! WOOHOO!

I'm with Bob and Maggie.