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Re: Musical idea: alluding to another band's song in your song

Posted: Wed May 26, 2021 5:04 pm
by zircona1
Another song that does this is 'Volcano Girls' by Veruca Salt, which winks back at their own hit. I love that song, and 'Take Me Home Tonight', and 'The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight', so not crap, at least on the lyrical front.

Re: Musical idea: alluding to another band's song in your song

Posted: Wed May 26, 2021 5:13 pm
by chexmixbreath
Countless bands/artists do this, it's all part of the fun of being a music fan when you make those connections in your head. This is almost always intentionally done as an homage and a way for the artist to reveal their own influences.

Re: Musical idea: alluding to another band's song in your song

Posted: Wed May 26, 2021 6:44 pm
by wot
Les Paul's "How High The Moon" quotes/steals a solo from Django Reinhardt's "How High The Moon."

that absolute fraud. that liar, cheat, bumbling buffoon of a musician. the carnival has left town, but the clown remains, encased in vinyl and wax for all of eternity. the shame he and his progeny have brought to music will the stain the human race for eons.

dude, it's all stolen. all of it. name a song, name ONE song. stolen. borrowed. biffed. "adapted" if you think the artist is a "genius."

I wish everyone was Andy Cohen. He's so honest about it. It's so much fun.

Re: Musical idea: alluding to another band's song in your song

Posted: Wed May 26, 2021 7:25 pm
by DaveA
wot wrote: Wed May 26, 2021 6:44 pmdude, it's all stolen. all of it. name a song, name ONE song. stolen. borrowed. biffed. "adapted" if you think the artist is a "genius."

I wish everyone was Andy Cohen. He's so honest about it. It's so much fun.
Former FM Hosoi?? Is it you?

Anyway, debatable perhaps whether there's "nothing new under the sun," in music or anything else. Less debatable, I think, is whether a work in question feels fresh, though in that case the judgement might run more of a risk of being in the eye of the beholder and/or be contingent on knowledge (or lack thereof) of artistic forebears, plus various predilections, etc. So we wouldn't necessarily be standing on firmer ground, would we?

Re: Musical idea: alluding to another band's song in your song

Posted: Wed May 26, 2021 7:31 pm
by Dave N.
Does anyone know if the Jesus Lizard meant to rip off Miles Davis on “Then Comes Dudley”?

Re: Musical idea: alluding to another band's song in your song

Posted: Wed May 26, 2021 7:59 pm
by DaveA
Oh, and note: when I mention that something being perceived as "fresh" might depend on one's predilections, what I mean is that if someone is super immersed in a genre/sub-genre/era/etc., and a fan of it, they might be able to perceive subtle differences/nuances/accents/etc. that a mere dabbler or someone zoomed out from that sound altogether might not notice or care to appreciate much at all.

So the perception of something as being "fresh" is a bit of a double-edged sword: a work that's derivative to the point of being downright unimaginative might seem very novel to someone who's had little contact with similar things that came before or exist in the same era, but also something fairly unique could be perceived as more "samey" to someone who doesn't have many other reference points for similar things.

Sorry if this is all very nerdy/tiresome.

Re: Musical idea: alluding to another band's song in your song

Posted: Wed May 26, 2021 8:53 pm
by ernietaintsniffer
Not crap, due to Half Man Half Biscuit using Graham Walker Sounds’ Crossroads in Hair Like Brian May Blues.

Re: Musical idea: alluding to another band's song in your song

Posted: Fri May 28, 2021 11:08 pm
by chexmixbreath
Jeff Buckley - "Nightmares by the Sea" has a part that I'm positive is supposed to be a nod to The Smiths - "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before". When I first noticed it, well, it sorta uh, stopped me, because I had heard that part before.

Re: Musical idea: alluding to another band's song in your song

Posted: Sat May 29, 2021 2:51 pm
by DrAwkward
Just last night I was telling Dixie about how Motley Crue borrowed the signature riff for "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" by the Beatles for the coda for their epic deep cut "Slice of Your Pie." Solid work, there.

Re: Musical idea: alluding to another band's song in your song

Posted: Sun May 30, 2021 3:35 pm
by Mason
I usually hate lyrical allusions to other songs, like name-dropping a song or wink-wink quoting a better-known lyric. In the same way that I usually hate when bands make their logo a wink-wink redo of another band's logo. I would say this stance is 50% out of c'mon, find your own vocabulary, find your own means; and 50% from the MST3K rule to never remind audiences of a better movie while they're stuck at your movie.

Strictly musical allusion, ambivalent Not Crap. If we do mean deliberate allusion, not plagiarism or an accident. Worked for Charles Ives, for one.

Straight-up plagiarism is probably better.

I am not FM Andrew B. Cohen_archive, but as a listener I know he is a songwriting magpie, good at collecting shiny things he encounters. So I'm not inclined to think his lift from "In the Mouth a Desert" was about deliberate intellectual allusion. I think he just took it. Although¹ maybe it was allusion, who am I to say.

It is cool to steal riffs, chord progressions, song structures, drum fills, whatever you need.
Only in moderation, and you should double-check that you're not being a hack with it. But it can really hit the spot!

1. at this point I am remembering the time on the old board I speculated about Future of the Left's songwriting and that dude PM'd to tear a strip off me for being presumptuous