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As you may be aware Led Zeppelin are being sued by the family of former Spirit guitar player Randy California claiming they copied his song Taurus in the famous and very lucrative Stairway to Heaven.
Have a look at this for instance..
So my question is guilty or not guilty?
And yes before any smart alec chimes in I know they have previous in this respect but I'm genuinely interested in what the guitarists on here make of it....
Guilty. Obviously. Spirit opened for Zep prior to Stairway to Heaven and played Taurus every night. May have been unconscious plagiarism of course but given Zep's penchant for nicking other people's stuff it's unlikely. It's only a small part of the song mind. They probably nicked the rest from elsewhere. Boom.
Jimmy Page has a long track record of nicking other peoples stuff (and shagging underage girls too) so no doubt he "borrowed" this for Stairway.
Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair, or f*cking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... and give some back.
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Stairway to Heaven on 21:02 - Jun 9 with 4217 views
Guilty. Obviously. Spirit opened for Zep prior to Stairway to Heaven and played Taurus every night. May have been unconscious plagiarism of course but given Zep's penchant for nicking other people's stuff it's unlikely. It's only a small part of the song mind. They probably nicked the rest from elsewhere. Boom.
But I don't play guitar so what do I know eh.
[Post edited 9 Jun 2016 20:44]
Unconscious Plagarism!
As suffered by the late George Harrison....
And yes as both you and DWOB have pointed out Page does have form in this regard.
Lets face it theres only 12 notes to play about with and chord progressions have to be put in a certain order for it to fit in with the time and melody of the song.
So only a matter of time till one song sounds the same as the other...but I still maintain a lot of it is done subconsciously not deliberate.
PROUD RECIPIENT OF THE THIRD PLANET SWANS LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD.
"Per ardua ad astra"
Lets face it theres only 12 notes to play about with and chord progressions have to be put in a certain order for it to fit in with the time and melody of the song.
So only a matter of time till one song sounds the same as the other...but I still maintain a lot of it is done subconsciously not deliberate.
When The Levee Breaks is the best one they wrote anyway.
The first ever recipient of a Planet Swans Lifetime Achievement Award.
Lets face it theres only 12 notes to play about with and chord progressions have to be put in a certain order for it to fit in with the time and melody of the song.
So only a matter of time till one song sounds the same as the other...but I still maintain a lot of it is done subconsciously not deliberate.
There are well over 200 million combinations of twelve notes. I think we can safely assume that similarity was not accidental.
Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair, or f*cking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... and give some back.
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Stairway to Heaven on 22:06 - Jun 9 with 4102 views
We've all wrote songs where the chord progression and the bass line descends...he'd obviously heard that song and it's similar but there's a reason why one sells millions of copies and the other doesn't, one version is sprinkled with magic.
What makes a song special isn't the order of the notes it's the spaces inbetween, it's the sound of the whole band, the charisma etc.
Guilty. Obviously. Spirit opened for Zep prior to Stairway to Heaven and played Taurus every night. May have been unconscious plagiarism of course but given Zep's penchant for nicking other people's stuff it's unlikely. It's only a small part of the song mind. They probably nicked the rest from elsewhere. Boom.
But I don't play guitar so what do I know eh.
[Post edited 9 Jun 2016 20:44]
The intro to Terry Reid's "July" is also very similar...
Joe_bradshaw -I thought the cryochamber was the new name for Cardiff's stadium.
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Stairway to Heaven on 07:09 - Jun 10 with 3894 views
This is my view. Even if the tune was "used as inspiration" the song as a whole is palpably different and a masterpiece in its own right. If Taurus was any good people would buy that too.
As long as it's not a direct copy of the song , just STFU. Too many Lawyers ruining the world driving the money and compensation culture and looking for perceived slights (see Gary...I agree with you...).
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