The Led Zeppelin Plagiarism Compendium

ahh yes that's who it was

xposts - And Jake Holmes' "No Time Or Space" was totally ripped off without credit by Bernie Krause before Harrison ever had a chance to rip it off the uncredited Krause without credit

Still, you have to give him credit.

ZEPPELIN RULES!

this was a good thread

been in a led zep kinda mood lately, it still happens to me every couple of years or so

Basically I think it diminishes them as people that they didn't give co-writing credits in at least some of these cases. About 10% of them or so are really egregious cases of stealing, e.g. Dazed and Confused. At the same time, Jake Holmes's version kind of sucks compared to Led Zeppelin. So they're diminished as people but not as a kick ass band.

What was the response to Led Zeppelin's "plagiarism" at the time? Were there astute critics who pointed it out in the press? Was the public attitude toward such things different back then?

the press were already pretty adversarial towards LZ at the time, and it had little impact on their success, so I'm guessing if it was pointed out it was also ignored.

Would be interesting to read more about it -- I imagine there was a strong strain of blues/folk nerdery in GB at the time and Zeppelin probably sounded to them like Blues Hammer to Steve Buscemi's character in Ghost World

I remember when Michael Jackson's "Will You Be There?" controversy (ie the one with the foreign artist who claimed it ripped off his song before it was discovered that both ripped off a 40s tune), MTV did a shitty segment on it and then at one point, brought out a band who wrote a song that sounded somewhat similar to "Kashmir" and brought Page/Plant out to comment.

They, of course, were very ambivalent (comments like "I dunno, songs occasionally have similarities"), but I felt like MTV was trying to back them into a gotcha moment so they could go "OH? LED ZEPPELIN HAS A PROBLEM WITH SONG APPROPRIATION? REALLY?"

in re the OP list -- so there's no plagiarism at all on Houses of the Holy?

I stand by everything i posted on this thread 3.5 years ago

well look what the toilet plunger plunged up

mature, very mature

Again, not sure why you would get on somebody for criticizing Led Zeppelin's plagiarism on a Led Zeppelin plagiarism board.

I think criticizing them for not crediting it is very reasonable. Criticizing them for not being "original" or something just seems totally ignorant of the entire history of music.

I'll criticize you for being one of the biggest fucking idiots of all time. The toilet plunger plunged up your fucking afterbirth after your mother sat on it, but somehow you miraculously survived.

and to think I thought Seth Putnam was dead

Jake Holmes's version kind of sucks compared to Led Zeppelin.

could not disagree with this more

"One of the surest tests [of the superiority or inferiority of a poet] is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different." - T.S. Eliot

Getting really tired of this moronic, contagiously stupid meme about how the truly great artists "steal." I want someone to come out in unrepentant support of this statement and then tell me how each of the following bands fit into the template: the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Oasis, Bob Dylan, the Ramones, and Nirvana.

"we were the biggest nickers in the book, plagiarists extraordinaire" - P. McCartney

dylan took people's arrangements of songs, and sometimes lyrics and melodies from trad tunes, most recently stole some stuff from a japanese book and some other old poetry on recent albums

nirvana were embarassed cuz they felt like ppl would just laugh as smells like teen spirit as a pixies ripoff

oasis stole that coke commercial, but they were kind of a shitty band overall tho

ramones probably ripped off some old obscure girl group shit or something, but they are the ramones they rule

all those bands are great, and all of them borrowed liberally

do you really need specific examples? there's so many to choose from

if you want to know how and from whom the beatles, stones, oasis, dylan, the ramones and nirvana dd their stealing, just ask them. they would be happy to tell you. except oasis. you might have to pry it out of oasis with whips and tasers.

So just for fun, let's compare the Beatles (we can even limit their output to pre-1965) and, say, the Yardbirds. If you had to name one of these bands plagiarizers and the other borrowers, how would you assign them?

Congrats on not understanding the TS Eliot quote

My point is that the meme itself is just plain dumb, reductive, and serves no other purpose than to make the person who repeats it sound like they have some profound insight into the nature of reality.

welcome to the internet

seems to me that the burden of proof is on you. in what way do any of those NOT borrow liberally from their peers and predecessors

xp

The point isn't which word you use, it's that everyone takes from other artists, but the best ones make something new and/or improved out of it, while the weaker artists sound like they're just copying or "imitating."

You're right; I don't understand the TS Eliot quote. But that's because it's stupid and falls apart under scrutiny, unless you constantly apply ad hoc rationales to when things count as borrowing and when they count as stealing, so that your previous view of certain artists can be maintained under this theory.

your reading of the quote is very uptight and literal

Shakey, I don't dispute that nearly everyone borrows liberally.

"Hard Day's Night" was actually largely cribbed from obscure blues musician Mango Taft's "Bitch of a Week"

how does "Gangnam Style" fit into all of this

well if yr complaint is that Eliot implies some sort of literal grading system I think yeah you are missing the point. To varying degrees, some artists make something interesting out of what they borrow, while others do not. I don't think it's any more complicated than that.

xp

your reading of the quote is very uptight and literal

Maybe-- but then the phrase itself is fairly meaningless as far as "imitating" and "stealing" go. What are the definitions of these words in this sentence? Perhaps someone can explain in a way that doesn't require a circular and/or tautological reading (i.e. "'stealing' is when it's done well, and 'imitating' is when it's done badly).

when i withdraw $80 from the bank after seeing my friend andy do the same, that's imitating. when i withdraw $80 from the bank even though i didn't have $80 in my account, that's stealing. when i spend that $80 on a jake holmes LP at a thrift shop, that's cratedigging. when i import that LP into pro tools and make a new song out of it, that's either sampling, remixing, postmodern or lame, depending on which plug-ins i use.

throw some reverb on that jawn let's get wild

Maybe-- but then the phrase itself is fairly meaningless as far as "imitating" and "stealing" go. What are the definitions of these words in this sentence? Perhaps someone can explain in a way that doesn't require a circular and/or tautological reading (i.e. "'stealing' is when it's done well, and 'imitating' is when it's done badly).

― Poliopolice, Monday, February 10, 2014 4:53 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's the whole point of the quote. You're being really dense, it's not analytical philosophy.

lol fcc

i honestly never knew what "tautological" meant but whenever i see it, it seems like a sign ilx is having some debate that's disappeared up its own butt

tautological = disappears up its own butt

disappearing up your own butt = original

disappearing up someone else's butt = borrowing

what if it's a taut butt

they say that butts can be taut. but originality...

i honestly never knew what "tautological" meant but whenever i see it, it seems like a sign ilx is having some debate that's disappeared up its own butt

I don't know about other conversations where this word was pulled out, but I think it's perfectly appropriate here. Here's a helpful paragraph from the wikipedia page on tautology. It seems to perfectly describe the TS Eliot statement.

In rhetoric, a tautology is a series of statements that form an argument, whereby the statements are constructed in such a way that the truth of the proposition is guaranteed or that, by defining a dissimilar or synonymous term in terms of another, the truth of the proposition or explanation cannot be disputed. Consequently, the statement conveys no useful information regardless of its length or complexity making it unfalsifiable.

1) truth of the statement guaranteed? check.
2) words defined in a way that can't be disputed? check.
3) no useful information conveyed? check.
4) unfalsifiable? check.

That, my friends, is a tautology. It is an annoying aphorism that provides absolutely no insights whatsoever.

You are an annoying aphorism that provides absolutely no insights whatsoever

(i'm sorry for the tirade. It is one of these phrases that I've heard repeated so many times in bullshit circumstances that I just snapped)