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Jimmy Page and Robert Plant are going to court over the song "Stairway to Heaven"


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1 hour ago, PsychoKiss344 said:

Seriously, who even is Spirit?

It doesn't sound that similar to me

What are you kidding me? the intro to SWTH is a straight rip off of the Spirit song....Don't get me wrong I love Led Zeppelin, and have no problem Jimmy reworking other peoples songs, but give them credit for christ sakes you cheap bastard Jimmy "led wallet"  Page.... pay those you steal from......As Lenny said so eloquently he is  thieving bastard.........

And Spirit was a fantastic cult band from the late 60's early 70's...Their album "Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus" went gold in 1976 so they did have a decent following back in the day..........

 

Edited by classicrawker
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59 minutes ago, moreblack said:

Even if it rules in Spirit's favor, they can't. The guy's dead.

Under Wolfe's contract, the executor of his estate is entitled to collect half of the damages on behalf of the estate, so in that sense, yes they can.

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45 minutes ago, dalsh327 said:

The Beatles were bigger thieves than Led Zeppelin. 

Explain yourself immediately, how dare you, The Beatles never stole nothing! :lol: Come Together yes but that wasnt stealing, it wasn't like he took some relatively obscure thing and tried to pass it off as his own, it was a deliberate reference to music he loved...a rock n roll standard no less.  John Lennon wasn't trying to claim 'here come ol' flat-top' as his own.

They took ideas, tried other styles, saw someone do something a certain way and used it, like Roy Orbison but they never just stole something.  There's a difference between using the way someone holds a note or harmonises or a particular motif of the day, theres a difference between that and just stealing in a Zep sense of the word, everyone does the aforementioned, its being inspired by or wanting to make music in a certain vein.

Edited by Len B'stard
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5 minutes ago, Len B'stard said:

Explain yourself immediately, how dare you, The Beatles never stole nothing! :lol: Come Together yes but that wasnt stealing, it wasn't like he took some relatively obscure thing and tried to pass it off as his own, it was a deliberate reference to music he loved...a rock n roll standard no less. 

They took ideas, tried other styles, saw someone do something a certain way and used it, like Roy Orbison but they never just stole something.  There's a difference between using the way someone holds a note or harmonises or a particular motif of the day, theres a difference between that and just stealing in a Zep sense of the word, everyone does the aforementioned, its being inspired by or wanting to make music in a certain vein.

That's the same argument Jimmy Page gives. If people want to know why you have "no new music" it's because songwriters and performers are paranoid about being sued over a familiar tune. People on here have found examples of GNR ripping others off, but no one's sued them. 

No one sues until the song makes money. 

 

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30 minutes ago, dalsh327 said:

That's the same argument Jimmy Page gives. If people want to know why you have "no new music" it's because songwriters and performers are paranoid about being sued over a familiar tune. People on here have found examples of GNR ripping others off, but no one's sued them. 

No one sues until the song makes money. 

 

Yeah, i pointed out that the 'where do we go now' refrain off of SCOM is taken from a song off the Vanishing Point soundtrack.  I'm a bit conflicted about this, on the one hand i see your point and there's a lot of vulture shit goin' down but on the flipside, with bands like Zep especially, a point needs to be fucking made here because it's to do with the identity of the music.  Zep coming along as a bunch of white Englishman stealin' off of The Wolf or Willie Dixon, not crediting them, we're not talking about covers here, or some sort of vocal inspiration, we're talking about lifting parts of songs wholesale, thats fucking scummy and it skews the identity of the music and if these things aren't made a point of the right person(s) do not get their just dues, back in the day when Zep did it it was all the more cynical because you are talking about a time when black people were not getting their just dues and exposure (which OK they benefited from a great deal of it in the 60s due to the endeavours of white Englishmen so lets be fair here) but at the same time, the masses, the general public didn't know the Wolf like they knew a Zep, so they take their shit, claim it to be their own and you have a generation growing up that don't know better and The Wolf gets the short end of the stick.  It ain't fair. 

There's even a bit of it in hip hop now, you have rappers like Action Bronson coming out who have just flat out stolen Ghostfaces style, like just plain lifted it claiming that 'it's just how i sound naturally maaaan' but it's not just the voice, it's the manner, the wordplay with obscure free associative slang to decipher...now a whole generation that don't know their history will grow up on Bronson and probably hear Ghost-Deini and be like 'that guy sounds like Bronson'. 

And also, and this is a fervent belief of mine though it is often disputed, with origination comes substance.  The rhythm and blues as those old boys played it, presented it, meant it can neeeeever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever shrink in the face of some cheap facsimillie by a bunch of English boys.  They can be great, fantastic even but whats real is real, you can't feel Mick Jagger as much as you can Jimmy Reed, Eric Clapton can't sing about Georgia with more feeling and depth than James Brown, it just doesn't work that way.

And as far as Page and all that chat about songwriters and performers paranoid about being sued well I'm sorry but fuckin' be original.  Thats it, just be original, nobody has a go at John Rotten for stealing anything, there's umpteen innovative artists out there and they're not all avante garde nutbags, look at someone like Johnny Marr, he's a brilliant guitarist who can do all sorts of shit with a guitar and basically invented this niche for himself by sort of taking guitar playing as it stood in the 80s and just deconstructing the archetype.  So, OK, no solos, look at what style their ISN'T and see what you can do with it, hence you have all that folksy arpeggio stuff on Smiths albums, but picking these melodious thingies as a means to propel the song, to do the rhythm work of the guitar, getting rid of all the big riff shit and lo and behold you have some fantastic guitar playing, it's there to be done if doing it is your interest but you simply can't sit there looking at another mans work and will it into being your own or think that because you stole it and exposed it to a wider audience that has some sort of dictatorial bearing on it's authorship.  Pages argument doesn't hold up because we are not talking about listening to The Stone Roses and going 'yknow, that sorta sounds like The Byrds', we're talking about wholesale forgery.

But as i said earlier, i agree to a point too cuz they're kinda just sharking for money, aren't they?

Edited by Len B'stard
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1 hour ago, dalsh327 said:

The Beatles were bigger thieves than Led Zeppelin. 

Not in the slightest. The Beatles were perhaps the most innovative band in the history of popular music. Witness the bizarre chord changes, studio experimentation and lyrical innovation. Nobody else had their originality. You can sometimes detect their roots, but they are utilised in such an ingenious way, amalgamated with other influences, that their music is still profoundly original. Nobody was really doing things like, being essentially a rock band (this is their basis) yet combining rock with English music hall, psychedelia, Liverpudian humour and Hindustani classical. This is one album by The Beatles!

Heck, I'm probably more a listener of The Stones these days yet I cannot deny that The Beatles were miles head in terms of songwriting.

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39 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

Not in the slightest. The Beatles were perhaps the most innovative band in the history of popular music. Witness the bizarre chord changes, studio experimentation and lyrical innovation. Nobody else had their originality. You can sometimes detect their roots, but they are utilised in such an ingenious way, amalgamated with other influences, that their music is still profoundly original. Nobody was really doing things like, being essentially a rock band (this is their basis) yet combining rock with English music hall, psychedelia, Liverpudian humour and Hindustani classical. This is one album by The Beatles!

Heck, I'm probably more a listener of The Stones these days yet I cannot deny that The Beatles were miles head in terms of songwriting.

I was listening to The Beatles in Hamburg, i think it was their last recorded gig there.  Anyway, FUCK ME they could play a blinder in them days!  This notion that they weren't a good live band is fucking ridiculous, going off on a bit of a tangent here i know but when you hear them like that you really 'get' The Beatles thing, Lennons forceful rhythm work REALLY stands out, George is very George like only like...on steroids, fast and loose and the drumming is thunderous, they really really could swing in them days.  They made a rod for their own back telling people about the screaming girls and the detrimental effect it had on their playing because people have just taken that for fact, that they were just naff musically which is absolute bollocks, in fact there's few live albums I've heard as powerful as that.  Jerry Lee Lewis live at the Star Club is also similarly powerful, maybe it's something to do with the German club audiences of the time cuz you always seem to find great live recordings from there in that era.

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19 hours ago, axlslash said:

Under Wolfe's contract, the executor of his estate is entitled to collect half of the damages on behalf of the estate, so in that sense, yes they can.

True, it's just weird the guy never did anything about it while he was alive. And now people acting on his behalf suddenly decide to launch this all these decades later.

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2 hours ago, moreblack said:

True, it's just weird the guy never did anything about it while he was alive. And now people acting on his behalf suddenly decide to launch this all these decades later.

Many musicians don't give a fuck about it I suppose.  In defence of Zep, though it pains me, a lot of the blues in untraceable too.  Like they take something from someone which that someone had taken from someone with THAT someone had taken from someone until it just becomes like an American folk song of unknown origins but a lot of Zeps thieving doesn't come under that category.  Maybe he weren't personally bothered.  KRS one has come out and said that, that he personally ain't bothered if anyone samples his work, uses it, whatever.

I'm surprised no one has sued Noel Gallagher, he's an example of quite blatant thievery of the more Zep variety.  

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John and Paul even admitted to lifting from others!! Back then people weren't so lawsuit crazy though. 

Any songwriter will tell you that they'll borrow a tune and revamp it and rework it until they can craft it into something that they can call theirs, especially when they're starting out. After Dylan made it big there were tons of Dylan rip offs but it upped the ante on songwriting. Dylan even admitted he stole from a variety of places, but they were more literary than musical. 

Watch Your Step..you'll hear Beatles and Led Zep lifting from it 

Edited by dalsh327
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