wWNoKIrH7ms]
I’ve long been a fan of XTC‘s “Leisure,” which originally was only available on the UK import double-album release of English Settlement (talk about your killer double albums…). The part of the song that always sealed the deal for me was the coda. It always sounded familiar, but I always thought that was because it was so right for the song. Until today, when during the course of catching up on some of the cool Hoagy Carmichael recordings I’d missed during my first 46 years on this planet, I listened to the song “Lazy Bones.”
Well, duh!!! Maybe I did hear someone sing this song on a variety show when I was a kid, but it was about time I learned that Andy Partridge was referring to an earlier song when he wrote that coda! Have you ever came way late to the party concerning an artist referencing an earlier song?
By the way, it was also about time I learned that Hoagy himself actually composed and sang “Yabba-Dabba-Dabba-Dabba-Doo” on The Flintstones. He did not, however, do his dialog in Russian.
Some of the fun of LCD Soundsystem is trying to get all the sonic/lyric references. I wouldn’t say that I’m late to James Murphy’s party, but I continue to make connections the more I discuss the new album with others who like Bowie, the Stooges, Depeche Mode, Thomas Dolby, Pink Floyd, etc.
How about 27 years and millions sued in royalties? One of the worst examples of this I can think of happened in Australia with the band Men at Work over their 1981 song “Down Under”.
There is a 4-second flute riff that was dubbed onto the track, apparently as a last minute aftertouch by the producers. Fast forward 27 years, when in 2008 a TV quiz show asserted the riff was from an old childrens song called “Kookaburra Sits In The Old Gum Tree”. Despite the fact “Kookaburra” was based on a traditional Welsh folksong in the public domain, and the writer of “Kookaburra” died in 1988 without raising a peep, the company who now owns the copyright to Kookaburra took the writer Colin Hay to court and successuflly sued. Damages have yet to be awareded but it could be as much as 60% of the royalties – for a 4 second riff, some 27 years later.
The poll made me think about “London Calling,” and when I was a young punk thinking “Wrong ’em Boyo” was a Clash original with a cool false start to the song. Needless to say I had no clue who Lee Dorsey or the Rulers were at the time.
Ahh, youth…
I had a similar “Well, duh!!!” moment with “Wrong ’em Boyo,” jeangray – not too long ago:
https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/index.php/last-man-standing-lemgsongus-interruptus
Whaaaaat?! Those Specials songs were covers?????