The Led Zeppelin Plagiarism Compendium

Led Zeppelin

Babe I'm Gonna Leave You: Joan Baez - Babe I'm Gonna Leave You (Anne Brendon)
Dazed and Confused: Jake Holmes - Dazed and Confused
Black Mountain Side: Bert Jansch - Black Water Side
How Many More Times: Howlin Wolf - How Many More Years / Albert King - The Hunter / Jeff Beck - Bolero
Communication Breakdown: Eddie Cochran - Nervous Breakdown
Your Time Is Gonna Come: Traffic - Dear Mr. Fantasy

Led Zeppelin II

Whole lotta love: Muddy Waters (Willie Dixon) - You Need Love / Small Faces - You Need Loving
Lemon Song: Howlin' Wolf - Killing Floor / Robert Johnson - Travelling Riverside Blues
Moby Dick: Bobby Parker - Watch Your Step
Bring it on Home: Sonny Boy Williamson - Bring it on Back

Led Zeppelin III

Since I've Been Loving You: Moby Grape - Never
Hats Off: Bukka White - Shake 'em on Down

Led Zeppelin IV

Stairway to Heaven: Spirit - Taurus

Physical Graffiti

Custard pie: Sleepy John Estes - Drop Down Mama
In my time of dying: Bob Dylan - In my time of dying (Blind Willie Johnson)

Presence

Nobody’s Fault But Mine: Blind Willie Johnson - Nobody’s Fault But Mine

Didn't have the courtesy to credit any of these artists but at least they were kind of enough to give hints on the titles for us to know which song they were attempting to rip off.

Stones did this with some songwriting credits (e.g. "Melody" credited Billy Preston for "inspiration"; Ronnie Wood got the same for "Hey Negrita").

Nobody’s Fault But Mine: Blind Willie Johnson - Nobody’s Fault But Mine

this one seems more than a hint. was it a cover version?

Some CD reissues releases have a few (no doubt court-ordered and/or settlement-stipulated) updated credits, e.g., "Whole Lotta Love" co-credited to Dixon, "Lemon Song" co-credited to Wolf.

Nobody’s Fault But Mine: Blind Willie Johnson - Nobody’s Fault But Mine

this one seems more than a hint. was it a cover version?

― Daniel, Esq.

Yep, an uncredited one at that though. The song on the Presence album is credited to Plant/Page. When confronted about it Page said it was a public domain traditional blues song and that it didn't even belong to Blind Willie Johnson in the first place. It is sort of a gray area for sure since although BWJ was the first musician to record it, it wasn't registered with any copyright association and resides indeed in public domain.

snooze

The Bob Dylan Plagiarism Compendium

The Pablo Picasso Plagiarism Compendium

King Lear is an uncredited ripoff of King Leir

Same should be said about 'Drop Down Mama' by Estes and 'In my time of dying' first recorded by Blind Willie Johnson as 'Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed' (Their version is definitely inspired by Bob Dylan's version and not the former though) both of them also without copyright registers.

It seems the boys grew smarter with each subsequent album and only took credit for songs in public domain as time passed by.

The Stones ones are different though - those aren't ripping off existing songs, it's ripping off the guys who were playing with them.

The Bob Dylan Plagiarism Compendium

The Pablo Picasso Plagiarism Compendium

― Hadrian VIII, Thursday, August 19, 2010 12:22 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Idiotic. These Zeppelin ripoffs are clearly plagiarism and theyve been called on the carpet on most. the most egregious is the theft of Dazed and Confused, the guy who originally did it was apparently ignorant of his rights and slept on them until the statute of limitations ran.

Zeppelin sucks.

King Lear is an uncredited ripoff of King Leir

― Hadrian VIII, Thursday, August 19, 2010 12:25 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Totally missing the point. Again.

Zeppelin sucks.

Yeah, I used to think "Oh, Whole lotta love is soet of based on a similar thing on the Small Faces album, so I'm told" until I actually got to hear the track and then I thought "IT'S EXACTLY THE RUDDY SAME!!!"

"Zeppelin sucks" = why you can't be honestly engaged on this topic

Srsly though Bill, this lingering "rock war" ("SABBATH VS ZEPPELIN: WHO WILL BE MASTER")from your pimply Creem magazine days, it's time to let it go.

It's all good. I mean, literally, it's all good.

Love Zep, but everytime some kind of rockist says 'DJs don't make real music' I remind them of what Jimmy Page did.

Whether or not the band borrowed or stole, no one borrowed or stole John Bonham and John Paul Jones.

"Zeppelin sucks" = why you can't be honestly engaged on this topic

― Hadrian VIII, Thursday, August 19, 2010 9:40 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I'll engage in whatever fucking topic I feel like, thank you.

Ha, no, I meant my own engagement.

And yet here we are!

Srsly though Bill, this lingering "rock war" ("SABBATH VS ZEPPELIN: WHO WILL BE MASTER")from your pimply Creem magazine days, it's time to let it go.

^if you think this is what I am doing, you're kidding yourself.

Whether or not the band borrowed or stole, no one borrowed or stole John Bonham and John Paul Jones.

ya srsly, regardless of where they got the songs from, they still had to play them

and they played the SHIT out of them

Those two guys may have, but it's kind of ruined for me by the loosy goosy, violin bow wielding sloppy guitar playing, the 26 minute rockabilly medleys and the faux-cocksman of a frontman. I'd rather listen to Beck, Bogert and Appice.

"One of the surest tests [of the superiority or inferiority of a poet] is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different." - T.S. Eliot

Nice quote, but I doubt that you can honestly argue that Zeppelin played his tunes better than Howlin Wolf

lol guys it's 2010

steal or not (I think it's pretty common knowledge that Zeppelin shamelessly ripped off blues musicians using the "public domain" excuse, not exactly a smoking gun), who cares? in the end, Zeppelin's music sounds great to my ears.

besides I mean using this same slippery slope are we gonna say people who don't write their own songs suck too?

xpost hahah yeah srsly this is one rusty can of worms. Hasn't this been done here like 6,000 times already?

"One of the surest tests [of the superiority or inferiority of a poet] is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different."
And in practically every case, the original was superior than the uncredited LZ remake. I mean, Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters, etc, eat those boys for breakfast.

TS Eliot was a dick fwiw

god the electric blues is so fucking boring

led zep basically made it tolerable

The point of the thread is the egregiousness of their plagiarism. Obviously lots of people like the plagiarized songs, theyve sold a trillion records. I happen not to like them, which puts me in a minority, I guess. The fact that many people think they are "good" doesnt mean they werent ripped off. Which Zep acknowledged after guys like Willie Dixon sued their ass.

besides I mean using this same slippery slope are we gonna say people who don't write their own songs suck too?

well first off, that's not a slippery slope at all because the issue here is the dishonesty in taking other people's material; artists who perform other people's songs are crediting the songwriters and any money they make gets split with the people who wrote the song

signed, a classical singer

Actually, Bill, that quote swings both ways. I like Zep fair enough and I like Howlin' Wolf but I think it's a little late to engage in the polemic about white Englishmen ripping off black American artists. They did, were successful at it, alas, and made some good music at times, even. Imso, 'tis better at this point to encourage people to buy the originals than to disparage their love of Zep or the Stones or whatever.

the point is, does plagiarism matter? is it worth getting worked up about?

um.... YES

I mean talk about stupid questions

led zep basically made it tolerable
No, they watered it down, took all the drama out of it and made it shit.

not a stupid question imo

xp

Then you are stupid. Plagarism sucks.

the plagiarism definitely matters, it's just that like the revelation that this occurred was old even by 1990.

Actually, and I am merely quoting the master, the best way to resolve this dispute is surely champagne and reefer.

there was one debate I read somewhere (newsgroups???) that theorized that Led Zeppelin were subscribing to the old accepted notion amongst blues guitarists that blues was a 'shared' communal music so that ideas could be used collectively and 'borrowed', per se.

Although as one of the respondents correctly pointed out, that doesn't really apply when you're a major recording artist on a major label, rather than being an unsigned blues guitarist gigging at clubs.

Guitar Magazine also did a fairly nice breakdown of Zep's plagiarism in an issue around 1995-1997, although they focused more on one to two specific songs ("Lemon Song" was one).

I'd like to know how many albums Zeppelin sold last year. I bet it's a significant one. The plagiarism issue is still a valid one, though maybe alleviated a little bit by the fact the writers of the songs are getting a cut. Except for the poor Dazed and Confused guy. And Page did a flat out note for note rip of that song, if I remember correctly.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6a/Manet%2C_Edouard_-_Olympia%2C_1863.jpg/300px-Manet%2C_Edouard_-_Olympia%2C_1863.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/ba/Tizian_102.jpg/250px-Tizian_102.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7b/Venus_dormida.jpg/250px-Venus_dormida.jpg

"Actually, and I am merely quoting the master, the best way to resolve this dispute is surely champagne and reefer."

Certainly works for me.

plagiarism or not, I can't trick my ears into not liking what I hear when "Dazed and Confused" comes on. there's no contradiction in finding the act itself deplorable while still "liking" the music

loosy goosy, violin bow wielding sloppy guitar playing

LOL you know what the blues really needs to make it exciting is rigid, perfectly exercised technique.

what if it's a taut butt

they say that butts can be taut. but originality...

i honestly never knew what "tautological" meant but whenever i see it, it seems like a sign ilx is having some debate that's disappeared up its own butt

I don't know about other conversations where this word was pulled out, but I think it's perfectly appropriate here. Here's a helpful paragraph from the wikipedia page on tautology. It seems to perfectly describe the TS Eliot statement.

In rhetoric, a tautology is a series of statements that form an argument, whereby the statements are constructed in such a way that the truth of the proposition is guaranteed or that, by defining a dissimilar or synonymous term in terms of another, the truth of the proposition or explanation cannot be disputed. Consequently, the statement conveys no useful information regardless of its length or complexity making it unfalsifiable.

1) truth of the statement guaranteed? check.
2) words defined in a way that can't be disputed? check.
3) no useful information conveyed? check.
4) unfalsifiable? check.

That, my friends, is a tautology. It is an annoying aphorism that provides absolutely no insights whatsoever.

You are an annoying aphorism that provides absolutely no insights whatsoever

(i'm sorry for the tirade. It is one of these phrases that I've heard repeated so many times in bullshit circumstances that I just snapped)

You are an annoying aphorism that provides absolutely no insights whatsoever

nyah nyah!

this only works as a dismissal of eliot if we assume there is no other rubric by which we can assess the quality of an artist's output (hint: there probably is!)

"Basically I think it diminishes them as people that they didn't give co-writing credits in at least some of these cases. About 10% of them or so are really egregious cases of stealing, e.g. Dazed and Confused. At the same time, Jake Holmes's version kind of sucks compared to Led Zeppelin. So they're diminished as people but not as a kick ass band.

― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2)"

i think it diminishes them more as people that they were horrible human beings through most of the '70s, myself. fortunately for me when i listen to a record i very seldom stop to wonder what i think of the musicians as human beings.

Jesus christ, has anyone ever escaped the past unscathed? Any artist? Any anyone?

Just Tom Hanks.

*reads about the mud shark incident*

"NOT YOU TOO ZEP! NOT YOU TOOOOOO!!!!!"

josh: william butler yeats got out of lincoln park okay, at least.

in re the OP list -- so there's no plagiarism at all on Houses of the Holy?

"D'yer Mak'er" is a reggae rip-off of "Angel Baby" by Rosie & The Originals. (They even put "Whatever happened to Rosie & The Originals?" on the lyric sheet.)

And, of course, "The Crunge" is a James Brown pastiche.

And, of course, "The Crunge" is a James Brown pastiche.

It doesn't exactly steal from any specific James Brown tracks though, does it?

Can't think of any JB tracks in 5/8 time or whatever it is. Plant does namecheck a coupla Otis Redding song titles though.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-27497950

this one seems particularly lazy. the music is just a basic groove - no huge rip there. just write some lyrics, robert.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaXA_Hr0CE8&feature=kp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvKGM93yoCI

Zep actually co-credited this one to Ritchie Valens' mother, who I believe was originally credited on "Ooh! My Head."

oh carry on then led zeppelin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3FnpaWQJO0

Given that it's literally the only instance in their entire catalog of voluntarily giving co-credit, it's understandable that someone would think otherwise.

I thought "When the Levee Breaks" was co-credited to Memphis Minnie? It is on my LP.

Whoops, you're right, it is!

can't forget Charles Obscure

i'm kind of torn between thinking copyright laws should allow significantly more reuse and thinking that it's shitty to not give credit to artists you're borrowing from. complicated also by the historical power inequities that are at play when white artists steal from black artists.

what's the copyright situation in jamaica? listening to a lot of reggae recently and thinking about such a remix-heavy culture, with "version upon version" of tunes i can only imagine were not created w/ permission from copyright holders, if there were even clear owners to begin with

tealing from the (relatively) rich seems OK and sometimes laudable, stealing from the (relatively) poor feels wrong - but it can't work one way and not the other, can it?

Throwing Randy California's estate a bone seems like the right thing to do - but honestly don't know if he deserves a songwriting credit even though Page almost certainly ripped off Taurus a lil bit.

lol this thread. 2010 was a different time.

I think criticizing them for not crediting it is very reasonable. Criticizing them for not being "original" or something just seems totally ignorant of the entire history of music.

― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Monday, February 10, 2014 2:59 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'll criticize you for being one of the biggest fucking idiots of all time. The toilet plunger plunged up your fucking afterbirth after your mother sat on it, but somehow you miraculously survived.

― Prince Kajuku (Bill Magill), Monday, February 10, 2014 3:03 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

say what you want about Bill but this is ace

what's the copyright situation in jamaica? listening to a lot of reggae recently and thinking about such a remix-heavy culture, with "version upon version" of tunes i can only imagine were not created w/ permission from copyright holders, if there were even clear owners to begin with

This is a p interesting subject actually. No sheet music industry/history! And thus no solid copyright precedents.

what's the copyright situation in jamaica?

Pretty much non-existent it would seem. Producers routinely took credit for writing songs.

Smiley Culture objected, but.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKlu3A3BBgE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWlc_D7k9yk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsnBT3NofiQ

I like the Stone Roses' "Second Coming" a lot, but "Tears" always puts me off due to its weirdly slavish imitation of the structure and arrangement of "Stairway"

Ok this list totally left off that they lifted "Immigrant Song" from The Osmonds' "Hold Her Tight."

Well that and the theme tune from Get Smart

holy shit how did i not notice that before

Heh I started this thread and it might seem like I hate LZ but I actually love them. They stole from so many artists (mainly Plant and Page) but Bonham and JPJ + production make otherwise thin songs sound massive. It's the credit thing I have an issue with, not the transformation of said songs into something epic.

"Immigrant Song" posts are jokes, I assume? I can't tell who's being serious anymore.

Uh no every time I hear it a few hours later I have Get Smart stuck in my head and it took me years to figure out why

Just in case: "Hold her tight" was 2 years after "Immigrant Song"

Anyway, "Immigrant Song" takes the nick from "Bali Ha'i" South Pacific. True.

Ha, well, it's totally the same rhythm and contour, but the intervals are different (iirc, "Immigrant Song" = up an octave, down a semitone, back up a semitone; "Get Smart" = up a P4, down a semitone, back up a semitone). So it's a cool observation and interesting connection but def not plagiarism. The Osmonds song obv came a couple years after "Immigrant Song". 2xp

Anyway, "Immigrant Song" takes the nick from "Bali Ha'i" South Pacific. True.

Indeed it does. I played that one in the pit only about 680 times, my brain clearly has no concept of where ideas actually come from.

Not plagiarism, but ye Gods does "Thank You" sound like the Small Faces.

Afterglow?

I wasn't thinking in term of an exact track, more of the overall feel of the Small Faces ca. 1968/69, Plant's vocal is very Steve Marriott in places - that verse after the guitar solo!

definitely. also, the hammond.

or whatever sort of organ it is.

A hard organ, I’d wager

"Moon-Face explained about Joe, and how he had gone to the Land of Ice and Snow, where the big white bears lived." -- Enid Blyton (The Enchanted Wood (1939))

and the hot springs blow