There are dozen of artists that have 'borrowed' melodies and riffs from the Beatles for their own songs... But what did the Beatles 'borrow' from others?

Well known examples are of course the intro of "Lady Madonna", which sound exactly like the intro of "Bad Penny Blues", and "Because", which was based on Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata".

A while ago, I got the CD "The Very Best of the Tower Recordings" by The Sunrays (a Beach Boys soundalike band managed and produced by Murry Wilson, father of Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson). There's a song on that CD called "I Live For The Sun" (which went to #51 in the US in 1965) which has a part where they sing "Sun, sun, sun, sun" and it sounds an awful lot like the "Sun, sun, sun" in "Here Comes The Sun". And obviously "I Live For The Sun" predates "Here Comes The Sun". I wonder if George consciously or unconsciously used that part, or if it's maybe just entirely coincidental... Or maybe I'm just hearing something that nobody else hears...

Quoted from Joost

There are dozen of artists that have 'borrowed' melodies and riffs from the Beatles for their own songs... But what did the Beatles 'borrow' from others?

Well known examples are of course the intro of "Lady Madonna", which sound exactly like the intro of "Bad Penny Blues", and "Because", which was based on Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata".

A while ago, I got the CD "The Very Best of the Tower Recordings" by The Sunrays (a Beach Boys soundalike band managed and produced by Murry Wilson, father of Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson). There's a song on that CD called "I Live For The Sun" (which went to #51 in the US in 1965) which has a part where they sing "Sun, sun, sun, sun" and it sounds an awful lot like the "Sun, sun, sun" in "Here Comes The Sun". And obviously "I Live For The Sun" predates "Here Comes The Sun". I wonder if George consciously or unconsciously used that part, or if it's maybe just entirely coincidental... Or maybe I'm just hearing something that nobody else hears...

John lost a suit to Chuck Berry's publishers who stated he "used without authorization" one of Chuck's songs in "Come Together".

Similarly, George had to pay up for nicking the Chiffon's (?) "He's so fine" in his #1 single "My Sweet Lord".

Didn't know about Bad Penny Blues, I'll have to look that one up!

Also, Paul has a song on Chaos and Creation the intro of which is almost completely ripped off from a popular 60s song. Can't remember which at this time, maybe someone can chip in.

In my mind, the bottom line is that it is pretty much impossible to write something in isolation from what's been written before. In most cases, I believe, what makes a new song attractive is it's originality ... + its roots in the familiar.

For example, Yoko's screeching is original, but (at least to most westerners) not really familiar-sounding

Quoted from alexis

Didn't know about Bad Penny Blues, I'll have to look that one up!

That wasn't even subconsciously, I believe Paul actually asked George Martin to play something similar to Bad Penny Blues for the intro! It sure does sound an awful lot like it.

For my money, 'Love Me Do'

sounds an awful lot like Roy Orbison's 'Candy Man.'

And 'Taxman' sounds as if it were stolen note for note from

Paul Weller's old band,The Jam. Their song, 'Start.' (joke)

"Tell Me Why" always reminded me of "Why Do Fools Fall In Love".

Quoted from Mairi

"Tell Me Why" always reminded me of "Why Do Fools Fall In Love".

interesting!  

I think that you are on to something there, Mairi. I agree.

Those thieves.

Here is an insightful youtube video about John's harmonica style on 'Love Me Do.'



Bruce and Del discuss headlining at the Tower Ballroom in early 1962 and showing John a few tricks, which they picked up playing the Texas blues clubs, and which John,in turn, shared with Brian of the Stones later on. That backstage meeting is documented with some pictures taken by Paul's little brother.







Please pardon me if this has been posted already.

Quoted from Ligger

Here is an insightful youtube video about John's harmonica style on 'Love Me Do.'


Bruce and Del discuss headlining at the Tower Ballroom in early 1962 and showing John a few tricks, which they picked up playing the Texas blues clubs, and which John,in turn, shared with Brian of the Stones later on. That backstage meeting is documented with some pictures taken by Paul's little brother.







Please pardon me if this has been posted already.

What a great post, Ligger, thank you SO MUCH!

A couple of questions please:

1) Who is the other guy, "Bruce", with Delbert McClinton?
2) Does the timing really work out for John learning harmonica from Delbert? The reason I ask is that if you look closely, the poster for the event shown in the youtube clip showed that the Beatles were Parlophone recording artists already ... meaning they had already recorded Love Me Do (and maybe From Me to You also). So does this mean that whatever John learned from Delbert was AFTER those songs?

Finally, a comment ... there has been a LOT of discussion of what kind of harmonica John used on Love Me Do - a straight one, or a chromatic. John clearly states hear his had a "button", which means a chromatic. I wish I remembered what forum this big discussion was taking place on ... people were really passionate about both sides!

Thanks again for the awesome post!

Quoted from Joost

There are dozen of artists that have 'borrowed' melodies and riffs from the Beatles for their own songs... But what did the Beatles 'borrow' from others?

Well known examples are of course the intro of "Lady Madonna", which sound exactly like the intro of "Bad Penny Blues", and "Because", which was based on Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata".

A while ago, I got the CD "The Very Best of the Tower Recordings" by The Sunrays (a Beach Boys soundalike band managed and produced by Murry Wilson, father of Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson). There's a song on that CD called "I Live For The Sun" (which went to #51 in the US in 1965) which has a part where they sing "Sun, sun, sun, sun" and it sounds an awful lot like the "Sun, sun, sun" in "Here Comes The Sun". And obviously "I Live For The Sun" predates "Here Comes The Sun". I wonder if George consciously or unconsciously used that part, or if it's maybe just entirely coincidental... Or maybe I'm just hearing something that nobody else hears...

Can someone post audio clips of "Bad Penny Blues" (Lady Madonna), "Candy Man" (Love Me Do), "Start" (Taxman), "I Live for the Sun" (Here Comes the Sun) please?

Lennon stole the riff to "I Feel Fine" from Bobby Parker's "watch your step", and the "Day Tripper" riff he brutally took from Bo Diddley's "Road Runner"  

Quoted from Slave Trader

Lennon stole the riff to "I Feel Fine" from Bobby Parker's "watch your step", and the "Day Tripper" riff he brutally took from Bo Diddley's "Road Runner"  

Can someone please post clips of these as well? I think this is fascinating! Thanks!

Quoted from alexis

2) Does the timing really work out for John learning harmonica from Delbert? The reason I ask is that if you look closely, the poster for the event shown in the youtube clip showed that the Beatles were Parlophone recording artists already ... meaning they had already recorded Love Me Do (and maybe From Me to You also). So does this mean that whatever John learned from Delbert was AFTER those songs?

The Poster is for a gig on 21st June 1962. Love Me Do was first recorded with Pete Best on 6th June 1962. But the final recordings (with Andy White) were not made until much later. So there would have been plenty of time for this to have taken place. If you listen to the first version you can really hear the difference in harmonica style. I'll post it on Monday if you don't know it.

Quoted from BlueMeanie

The Poster is for a gig on 21st June 1962. Love Me Do was first recorded with Pete Best on 6th June 1962. But the final recordings (with Andy White) were not made until much later. So there would have been plenty of time for this to have taken place. If you listen to the first version you can really hear the difference in harmonica style. I'll post it on Monday if you don't know it.

I, who know nothing, do humbly beseech the keeper of the knowledge ... please Mr. Postman!

Quoted from alexis

Can someone please post clips of these as well? I think this is fascinating! Thanks!

I feel fine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJCzjF7MvpM

Day tripper: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs8FJergjas

(Sorry, i'm too untechnical to be able to post them directly here )

Quoted from Slave Trader

I feel fine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJCzjF7MvpM

Day tripper: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs8FJergjas

(Sorry, i'm too untechnical to be able to post them directly here   )

I think he meant 'Watch Your Step', and 'Roadrunner'. But thanks anyway.

Quoted from BlueMeanie

I think he meant 'Watch Your Step', and 'Roadrunner'. But thanks anyway.

Yeah, and the links are to those songs  

what you say, BM, sure Lennon "borrowed" those riffs, right?  

Quoted from alexis

I, who know nothing, do humbly beseech the keeper of the knowledge ... please Mr. Postman!

Here's Love Me Do, recorded on 6th June 1962 at Abbey Road, with Pete Best on drums. You can clearly hear John's inferior harmonica style, compared to the later versions.

Quoted from BlueMeanie

Here's Love Me Do, recorded on 6th June 1962 at Abbey Road, with Pete Best on drums. You can clearly hear John's inferior harmonica style, compared to the later versions.

Thanks, BM for posting!!

You know, mainly because the WHOLE performance on this June 62 clip was so tentative and hesitant compared to later versions, it's a tough call for me to say what the improvement in John's harmonica was due to.  As I recall, it was one of their first days in a professional recording studio, they were full of nerves ... Paul's voice is bad and John's isn't so hot either. I think I remember reading that prior to this session, on stage it was JOHN who sang the "Love Me Do" after the "Pleeeeeeeze", and George Martin made them switch it around for Paul to sing it so that John could get to the harmonica on time for his signature riff. That, plus Pete Best's erratic tempo, makes it hard for me to know if John's harmonica bits, among other things, didn't get better by the next recording session simply because they were more at ease and had practiced the arrangement more!

(I do play harmonica some, but, alas,  not well enough to tell if it's a different technique or not...)

Thanks for starting this thread, Alexis, and for keeping it going, Blue. I love learning about the roots of the Beatles music. That video series about John Lennon's Portable Jukebox is a treasure of insights.

I just watched another episode about the origin of the opening guitar lick on 'I Feel Fine' from 'Watch Your Step,' written by Bobby Parker in 1961. Mr Parker seems so proud to have influenced the Beatles. In the video we also hear John talk a bit about his song writing process at the time.




I also discovered, quite by accident, one more reference to 'I Feel Fine,' in a Hollies Shindig performance of Chuck Berry's, 'Too Much Monkey Business.' During the song, each of the three vocalists takes a verse and when it comes to Graham Nash's second turn, at 1:17, he starts singing the lyrics of 'I Feel Fine.'  It is alive rendition and fun to watch. The drummer doesn't miss a beat, so it was probably planned and rehearsed that way. They obviously thought Chuck Berry had been "borrowed" from yet once again.

I wish I could post YouTube video more cleanly. Help!

They are little tiny baby Hollies! Are they allowed to be that small?

I'm just loving this thread. Very illuminating! Thanks for all the links, folks!

Quoted from alexis

For example, Yoko's screeching is original, but (at least to most westerners) not really familiar-sounding

i don't mean to offend any one, but yoko's screeching sounds like my cat in a blender to me ( hey! i am entitles to my opinion after all )

Sorry, Joost. Thank YOU for starting this thread.

Here is Roy Orbison doing Candy Man in 1986 (w/ backup singers):



It  first came out as the flip side of Crying in July 1961 in the US
and September 1961 in the UK:

http://royorbison.musiccitynetworks.com/index.htm?inc=59&blog_id=768&page_id=4386

Were the Beatles influenced by it on Love Me Do?

Ask Paul:



P.S. Has anyone noticed that it's hard to find photos of the Beatles and Roy Orbison backstage during the May, 1963 UK tour, these days? It used to be easy. What's up with that?

I wish I could ask Paul. Or Roy's heirs.

Quoted from Ligger

I wish I could post YouTube video more cleanly. Help!

YouTube links usually come as this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnuvSIwhFQI

Now, all you gotta do is post this link OR, to put the clip on the board straight away, put the combination of letters and numbers that is given behind the 'v='  between these (without the spaces): [ youtube ] and [ /youtube ].
So, in this example, it will look like this in your post (again without the spaces): [ youtube ] bnuvSIwhFQI [ /youtube ]

I have modified all the previous mess(ag)es for you.  

Thanks a lot. You are a gent.

But I am sure it will still take me some time to get it right. Please bear with me.

Quoted from Ligger

Thanks a lot. You are a gent.

But I am sure it will still take me some time to get it right. Please bear with me.

I will. Keep practizing.  

OK, here goes some practice.

In 1956, Elvis performed 'Baby, Let's Play House.'

At about 1:37 you can hear the line that John used on a Rubber Soul Song,
'Run for Your Life.'

Elvis on US TV:



John on an outtake of Run for Your Life, from Rubber Soul where he starts with that line:


The song was originally written and recorded in 1955 by Arthur Gunter:

http://browneyedhandsomeman.blogspot.com/2006/10/night-train-to-nashville-arthur-gunter.html


This is fun.

Well done!  

And then there's the Italian conspiracy concerning Yesterday. I dug this up:

Quoted Text

The Beatles stole the melody of their song Yesterday from an old folksong from Napoli (Italy). Lilli Greco, the Italian musicexpert and composer says so. In a newsbroadcast he played the melody of the song Piccere’ che vene a dicere, dated 1895. The Italian pressoffice Ansa confirmed that the two songs look very much alike. Greco says to have more proof than that. He says he's been to London and spoke with Brian Epstein. According to Greco, Epstein revealed that John and Paul used to love old music from Napoli.

Quoted from Slave Trader

Lennon stole the riff to "I Feel Fine" from Bobby Parker's "watch your step", and the "Day Tripper" riff he brutally took from Bo Diddley's "Road Runner"  

and nobody knew at the time???  

They might have known it, but the Beatles were so big, was anyone going to challenge them? At least openly?

Here's another confession from Paul. I was looking up "Many Years from Now" for another reason, and saw this in the Editorial Reviews: "Paul's heist of the "I Saw Her Standing There" bass line from Chuck Berry's "I'm Talking About You" (found on Berry's The Chess Box)".

Another Chuck Berry ripoff! I don't own the book so I don't have it here, but I recall Paul confessing to "stealing" his "Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da" phrase from a friend, whom he later paid (after the recording was made) because he felt it was better to have recompensed the guy outright, rather than have him complain later.

Quoted from Slave Trader

Lennon stole the riff to "I Feel Fine" from Bobby Parker's "watch your step", and the "Day Tripper" riff he brutally took from Bo Diddley's "Road Runner"  

Quoted from Andy Smith

and nobody knew at the time???  

Hey ST - I hear it differently ... to me the Bo Diddley riff is much more of a generic blues/rock riff than something like "Day Tripper". Paul's bass line in "I Saw Her Standing There" uses that progression, and a million other songs, even the "Courageous Cat" cartoon is pretty close.

Bobby Parker's "Watch Your Step" really does sound a fair amount like "I Feel Fine", but you know, it too is a pretty generic one. Listening to The Allman Brother's band song (title? ... key line is "There's a man out there, might be your man, I don't know") from the Live at the Fillmore album - now THAT is a ripoff of "Watch Your Step".

The Beatles continued to absorb influences long after their initial success, often finding new musical and lyrical avenues by listening to their contemporaries. Among those influences were Bob Dylan, who influenced songs such as "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" and "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)".[103] Other contemporary influences included the Byrds and the Beach Boys, whose album Pet Sounds was a favourite of McCartney's.[104] Beatles producer George Martin stated that "Without Pet Sounds, Sgt. Pepper wouldn't have happened... Pepper was an attempt to equal Pet Sounds."[105] After Sgt. Pepper was released, Beach Boys' leader Brian Wilson was so despondent that he went to bed for months.[106]

Along with studio tricks such as sound effects, unconventional microphone placements, tape loops, double tracking and vari-speed recording, The Beatles began to augment their recordings with instruments that were unconventional for rock music at the time. These included string and brass ensembles as well as Indian instruments such as the sitar as in "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" and the swarmandel as in "Strawberry Fields Forever". They also used early electronic instruments such as the Mellotron, with which McCartney supplied the flute voices on the intro to "Strawberry Fields Forever", and the ondioline, an electronic keyboard that created the unusual oboe-like sound on "Baby You're a Rich Man".

Beginning with the use of a string quartet (arranged by George Martin with input from McCartney) on "Yesterday" in 1965, The Beatles pioneered a modern form of art song, exemplified by the double-quartet string arrangement on "Eleanor Rigby" (1966), "Here, There and Everywhere" (1966) and "She's Leaving Home" (1967). A televised performance of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 directly inspired McCartney's use of a piccolo trumpet on the arrangement of "Penny Lane". The Beatles moved towards psychedelia with "Rain" and "Tomorrow Never Knows" from 1966, and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "I Am the Walrus" from 1967.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles