Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Hey (Hey!) You (You!) I wanna be your...lawyer!

It sounds a bit like....it sounds very like...good grief, that reminds me of...

In my business, and at my advanced age, shiny, squeaky new pop music inevitably pushes the memory button all too often. Laura Marling's Devil's Spoke is a great wee record, but the verses are Bob dylan's It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding, somewhat folkified. The new American playlist darling Lissie Maurus sounds so much like Rumours-period Fleetwood Mac it's embarrassing. Newton Faulkener's Del Amitri and Peter Gabriel influences are written gauchely large and as for The View's shameless appropriation of Cornershop...don't start.

As it happens, I was perusing Lindsay Hutton's excellent Next Big Thing site the other day and came across this live video of the wilfully and wonderfully eccentric Rubinoos' 1979 hit I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend (they're still going weird: now children's entertainers, a kind of Singing Kettle with Fender Stratocasters).
Then, I was listening to SIBC in the car and Avril Lavigne's single (originally 2007, but now getting heavy rotation) Girlfriend popped up. My Sweet Lord, I thought!


The lawsuit was settled out of court, it seems.(Thanks to Anon. for that info - see comment below) Judge for yourselves!

2 comments:

norrie said...

Absolute direct lift. So blatant it's well....blatant!

I know you have talked about Springsteen lifting things before and he was certainly lifting this and that of the The Knack and Rasperries - listen to some of the 1979 cuts on tracks and you will see what I mean.

Anonymous said...

Avril Lavigne's song was released in 2007 and the subsequent court case was settled out of court in 2008.Her lawyers claimed that The Rubinoos song resembled The Rolling Stones' Get Off my Cloud.