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Homage vs. Piracy


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I've been thinking about Nels' George Harrison homage in You Never Know and thinking about the really negative reaction and accusations by some on this board.

 

It is a very apparent homage because it is a straight quotation of a lick from a rather famous song.

 

I think back to Neil Young's Mr. Soul and the riff that seems lifted from Satisfaction and Springsteen's Outlaw Pete which seems to emulate the chorus riff of Kiss' I Was Made for Loving You. These seem to be a bit different in my mind in that the core riff of each song follows a chord progression from the two cited songs and build on possibly the same references that the original songs did.

 

I find the homage riff to be charming and playful and am still taken aback a bit by the seeming anger that some have.

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If you want to pay homage than do it the way Jim James did and record some George Harrison songs. Lifting a rift and putting it in a new song just makes me want to hear the old one, especially with a classic like My Sweet Lord. Maybe they were paying homage to George Harrison ripping off The Chiffon's "He's So Fine" when he wrote My Sweet Lord.

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Yeah, it's too obvious to be anything but a homage. At least the verses with the Nels lick. Once you've heard that, the earlier verses call it to mind as well. I wonder if we would have all been noticing a similarity if they hadn't included the explicit repro?

 

I'm always surprised that people don't talk about the opening line of Solitaire more. This harkens back to "Good Vibrations" in my head, and is a whole lot more interesting topic than the Harrison homage to me. Not that I think there is any intent to pilfer here, either...after 100 billion songs, there are going to be some with similar combinations of notes.

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