Is it plagarism if you steal from yourself?
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Artist:
I bought the only Kirsty MacColl release I own (so far) because I heard her song played on a radio show devoted to Marshall Crenshaw. He wrote and plays guitar on the song. But I couldn't shake the feeling that it sounded familiar. At some point I realized that he had taken the tune for one of his songs, (We're Gonna) Shake Up Their Minds, from his album Downtown, changed the rhythmic emphasis a bit, re-wrote the lyrics and voila! - an almost-new song.
Kirsty's version is attached above, and Marshall's is in Comments. Have a listen.
Locating MOG account...
Comments (21)
I take it back. He didn't change the rhythmic emphasis, and the song is even in the same key! Boy, a mashup of these would be simple, eh?
I like both of them....didn't she die in an accident a year or two ago? That was sad
Killed by being hit by a boat in the Aegean in December 2000.
Wow, I didn't know it was that long ago....anyway, it was sad
Yeah, Mark. This has been noted before somewhere in the MOGiverse (by a Crenshaw devotee, I believe), but both versions are so good that I don't care if he fed on his own child to produce a second (so to speak). Self-plagerism? Kinda. Although Crenshaw might call it having a style or making use of one's assets.
I'm not sure, Is this a trick question?
Same thing happened when I bought Ben Weasel, and heard his song Strangers. I kept thinking i knew the song but did not know who had sung it before him. Then I put on the Kinks and realized it was a cover....weird
Jeff, for you aren't they ALL trick questions? ;-)
Hey! Is ??that?? a tr......
I think it's more of his style ... yeah there are some guitar similarities in the arrangement - but if this is pure self-plagiarism - then he's been writing the same song over and over again for years and years. The melodies are different enough that if someone else wrote the first one he probably would have won a law suit. (in my humble opinion...)
Even Bach plagiarized himself. He was probably influenced by all those blues singers who sing the same melody over and over again. Didn't Elton cannabalize one of his own melodies for his elegy to Lady Di?
Absolutely - and today when the label is saying "Give us another one like [fill in the hit song blank]" you get all sorts of derivatives.
Bach usually aligned and grouped things by number in the "opus" deliniation, and even labeled when something was more of a Variation on a particular theme, as most of the classical composers did back in the day. Not that there is anything _wrong with riffing on yourself...
I thought at first this was going to be a post about John Fogerty--how, when he went solo after CCR, the record label actually sued him for sounding too much like CCR. Considering he wrote the bulk of CCR's material, he was basically sued for sounding like himself.
LOL!!! I forgot about that one ... good point.
Every time you plagiarize yourself, Marilyn Manson kills a kitten!
You've only got one Kirsty MacColl album? You of all people? Well, kiss my turntable and call me Cousin Brucie....
I can help with this.
A small pedantic point: She was killed off the beach in Cozumel in Mexico.
Hey, I really love that album and am thinking of getting her box set. I am just too swamped with unheard music to do that right now. Now that I can afford to buy what I want, I don't have enough time to listen to it. The joys and trials of old age...
One of the British mags (Q, I think) put out a sampler last year which included her track "Sun on the Water" which, considering that's where she died, seems a bit insensitive.
Signed,
Mr. Sensitive, AKA "Come Into My Coffin"
Dermahrk, I checked: your old Mogger-of-the-week profile in the Mog Gazette is by far the funniest. The two jokers above you here are not exactly humorless either.
well they do sorta sound a bit different lol
enjoyed both of em
cheers derm x
If you're gonna steal, stealing from yourself makes sense. Royalties from two songs that you only wrote once!