From borrowed melodies to accidental similarities, these tracks proved that imitation can sometimes lead to greatness! Join us as we explore unforgettable hits that faced plagiarism claims but still managed to capture our hearts and top the charts. Which of these musical "borrowings" is your favorite?
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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 ā 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.
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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.