All in the noticing?
Items required for this experiment:
Greatest Hits by Cat Stevens
Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots by The Flaming Lips
some free time
Step 1) Play Father & Son by Cat Stevens and then halfway through switch to Flight Test by the Flaming Lips (skip about a minute in).
Step 2) Do it again.
Step 3) Now tell me these aren't the same song.
I am not accusing the Flaming Lips of some kind of disingenuous copying, instead I am wondering if there is a) some obvious connection between the two songs that I am missing or b) there is a more subtle connection that I am picking up on but cannot explain.
Discuss.
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Who is this guy?
Sam Felder is a web designer and occasional writer in Los Angeles, CA.
Born in Washington, DC, Sam and his family moved to Peoria, IL, where he grew up and went to school. He returned to DC in 2003 and left for the west coast in late 2005.
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These aren't the same song.
As the resident Flips fan around here (I will be spending New Year's Eve with them at the Aragon!), first, this is old news. Second, despite what They Might Be Giants say, simultaneous events DO happen, we aren't isolated temporally.
This all goes back to the idea that there are only so many combinations of notes , so eventually we will come to a point where all the songs that could have been written, have been.
From the notes I've read, during the mixing of Yoshimi, Dave Fridmann(producer) mentioned to Wayne Coyne(lead singer, writer, The Flaming Lips) that the songs sounded somewhat similar. Shocking news to Wayne, he decided that they should speed up the tempo of Fight Test to avoid any confusion. Unfortunately for the greatest band in modern times, they still got into trouble.
Okay, the guitar line is nearly identical, but the phrasing and vocals separate quite early in the song. But the only thing that really bothers me is that Yusuf Islam (the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens, who was formerly known as Steven Georgiou) has renounced his entire back catalog. In my mind, that means that everything is free game. Now, somebody coincidentally gets a little close to his (in his mind) evil work, and he wants to get paid?
It boils down to this. There is no hidden connection, it was a coincidence. This is a weak song from a weak album, which sounds similar to a decent song from a great album. The only song worth salvaging from Yoshimi is In the Morning of the Magicians. Let's take it at that, forget the whole issue, and put The Soft Bulletin back into the CD player.