Dani California and Last Dance With Mary Jane
 

Check it out...the new RHCP's single sounds exactly like the Tom Petty song from 1993. Thoughts?

http://www.wgmd.com/SOUNDS/FEATURES/051706-petty.mp3



the action

Vocal version they use of Petty is obviously sped up so the beats match RHCP

Sped up Tom Petty.

I'd say it is the same beat but the RHCP version is a bit faster

sounds like a rip off to me..sped up or not.

This is the third messageboard I've seen this topic on, and it's weeks after my boyfriend first pointed it out to me. Do people not hear copying until it's thrown in their face? Apparently. I wonder if the Chili Peppers will ever comment on it. I still wish Suicidal Tendencies would have sued Puddle of Mudd for "She Hates Me". Man I'm sleep deprived.

Last Dance with Mary Jane: Am - G - D
Dani California: Am - G - Dm (all barred chords)

To say the RHCP intentionally ripped off Tom Petty is pretty silly IMO. If you think he was the first to ever play that chord progression, then you'd be wrong.

Is that the one that sounds like "I Saw Your Mommy"? 'Cause I remember hearing a song on the radio a couple of years ago and telling everybody what a straight rip-off it was.

Actually the chord sequence in Mary Jane's Last Dance was ripped off from a Jayhawks song Waiting for the Sun off their Hollywood Town Hall album. So actually this is the third time for that riff.

Wow, those guys are pretty effing annoying.

I don't think anyone is actually upset that the same three chords are used. It's a question of using the same chords to create the same melody. This is the basic idea of copyright violation. There must be 10,000 songs with a D-A-G or G-C-G-D progression, but most of them do not sound the same.

Yeah, they are very similar. I didn't catch it right away, but it was bugging me that it reminded me of another song. Finally saw this on another forum and it clicked.

Kind of annoying, but I didn't care for the song that much anyway, not one of the top 10 on that album for sure.

This is the first thing I thought about when I read this thread. "Theirs goes, 'Ding ding ding dingy ding-ding.' Ours goes, 'Ding ding ding ding dingy ding-ding.'"

What total dillholes on that program.

Anyway, the guy who said both songs were close to Sweet Home Alabama wasn't as crazy as sounded. The progression is also 1-7-4 (D, C, G), just like these two songs.

BTW - the co-host showed how musically ignorant he was by getting the chords wrong. Trust me, anyone who has played guitar for two minutes knows the proper chords in SHA.

Well Frusciante himself said Sweet Home Alabama was a direct influence on the song.

Those hosts were annoying, by the way.

When you say the same melody, what do you mean by that? The vocal melody? The rhythm? And if two songs share very similar verses but have completely different bridges, choruses, solos, outros, and basslines, would that still constitute a copyright violation? Sorry, I'm not familiar with copyright law at all.

The song clips from Amazon (hope these work):

Last Dance with Mary Jane

Dani California

There are SEVEN chords. Now there are thousands of variations of those chords, and billions of possible combinations of chords. But there are still only seven chords.

A 1-7-4 progression is a very common progression. Unless somone literally covered MJLD, there is no copyright violation.

I understand your point - give someone three colors of paint and they will produce wildly different artwork. It's the same with music. But sometimes, they will produce the same thing.

I'm not going to say that the songs don't sound very similar. Clearly they do. But it's no copyright violation. I'm sure there are songs that MJLD sounds just like as well. Hell, I'll give you one - the chorus to Highway to Hell is A G D, just like the verse of MJLD. Now is that a copyright violation? Of course not. But it's the same thing - A G D.

Music begets music, inspiration flows from song to song. That's music's history. I can clearly see how similar these songs are, but I can also see how different they are - the tempo, a great deal of the verse, the chorus, etc.

But unless we are talking straight copy - there is no copyright violation.

I'm sorry. It must not have been clear from my post. I'm not sure that this is copyright violation. But the argument the DJ and his guest use (that since the chords are the same it's a violation is not correct). However, the gold standard in song copyright cases is probably "he's so fine/my sweet lord." That song was determined to be a copyright violation. If that song was a violation, which I personally don't think it should be, than this song clearly is.

Info on the lawsuit including sound samples. http://www.copyrightwebsite.com/audi.../harrison.aspx

wow. i opened this thread expecting to find a mashup done by someone with talent. instead, i got radio idiots. wonderful.

Both songs were produced by Rick Rubin*. Hmmmmmmmm. :)



*(I haven't yet listened to the file posted by the OP; forgive me if that little tidbit was mentioned)

If anyone's heard the song Waiting for the Sun by the Jayhawks, there is more than just the chord similarity. The song starts of with the same solo strum pattern as Mary Jane's Last Dance. A lot closer than the RHCP song. I beleive the Jahawks were on tour with Petty and he subliminally stole the riff.

Tom Petty Responds To Red Hot Chili Controversy
Does "Dani California" sound too much like "Mary Jane's Last Dance"? Tom Petty tells Rolling Stone he doesn't give a shit.

"I seriously doubt that there is any negative intent there. And a lot of rock 'n' roll songs sound alike. Ask Chuck Berry. The Strokes took 'American Girl' [for their song 'Last Nite'], and I saw an interview with them where they actually admitted it. That made me laugh out loud. I was like, 'OK, good for you' ... If someone took my song note for note and stole it maliciously, then maybe [I'd sue]. But I don't believe in lawsuits much. I think there are enough frivolous law suits in this country without people fighting over pop songs."

Wow!!! In this lawsuit-happy society how refreshing is that to hear.

With so many songs ever written, I believe that every song is a ripoff of at least one song!!

This does have some strange similarities!!

Tom Petty has always struck me as a cool guy. A guy who's early carreer was almost destroyed by legal problems and came out swinging with his best album (Damn the Torpedoes). His friend George Harrison was sued for copyright infringement over My Sweet Lord so he knows the territory well.

Eddie Money's "Two Tickets To Paradise" came on the radio and I was reminded that Billy Joel basically ripped it off like CRAZY for "I Don't Know Why I Go To Extremes." Like, to an alarming degree.