Beatles lyrics and melodies borrowed from other songs

The bridge in "Whatever Gets You Through The Night" borrows lyrically somewhat from Buddy Holly's "Listen to Me":

Buddy: "Hold me darling, listen closely to me.."

John: "Hold me darling, listen to me..."

 

Count again. 9 notes- the entire verse melody of All My Loving less one note.

 

Golden Slumbers and Mary Had A Little Lamb are basically rewrites of old songs.

 

One is a verbatim quote (like sorrow in all too much) and the other is borrowing a melody or line and making it a little different and putting your own spin on it within your own composition (like most all of the other examples here)

Same with the 'she loves you yeah yeah yeah' quote in all you need is love

 

I think this thread should be changed into "The John Lennon Nicks Obscure R&B Songs" thread. He really knew his stuff, and he was able to lovingly take little tidbits (either a short riff or a single line of lyrics) of so many obscure R&B songs and then incorporate them into stuff over the whole course of his career. Wow... Arnie

 

No, but didn't he do "Love Letters"... that piano part in on an Elvis song too.

 

Elvis P actually recorded "Love Letters" twice, one in 1966 and again in 1970.

Now back to our thread....

 

Y'know, I was looking at clouds this afternoon and one looked just like John and another looked just like Paul. Amazing. I'm sure it relates to something.

 

Get Bach

 

It's definitely there!

 

I hear the first 9 notes of "All My Loving" that correspond with "Close your eyes and I'll kiss you, tomor..."

 

Yea Remember hearing a live on TV versison of Stewball by the Hollies that made me think of "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)"

Check out YouTube The Hollies on The Bobby Gentry Show.

 

I hear what you're referring to but I highly doubt it's enough to qualify as a ripoff. An aside, Brubeck is a favorite of mine.

 

George Harrison admitted he took the riff from "The Bells of Rhymney" (by The Byrds) to make "If I Needed Someone".

In the other hand, slso Oasis some some stuff from The Beeatles too.
But I don't know if that falls under the category of "borrowing" or "influence".

 

And the Byrds didn't even write it.

 

Wow I was thinking of the chorus. It is also the first three notes of the chorus.
You are thinking it was coincidence. It is too close for me to be coincidence but who knows.
I wonder if the chords are the same. They sound similar.

 

I noticed that the first time I heard the track- maybe 5 years ago!

Until I checked the recording date, I wrongly assumed it was a 'tongue in cheek' nod to The Beatles.

 

Wow page 3 and 'Golden Slumbers' has not yet had a mention!

 

Mentioned in Post #53. Sorry... Arnie

 

Replace with "Wow, page 3 and "Moonlight Sonata" has not yet had a mention. ;-)

 

John said that "Do You Want To Know A Secret" was inspired by "I'm Wishing" from the Disney film Snow White, which his mom Julia used to sing to him. Snow White says: "Want to know a secret? Promise not to tell?" at the 0:16 mark:



Arnie

 

John's lyric is actually "Hold me darlin' come on listen to me..."

 

The exact same 9 notes appear in The Who's "The Kids Are Alright" on the words "And I know sometimes I must get out...". I first noticed that when I was about 8 or 9 years old.

 

Yes, he really did know his stuff. He was the Motown (especially Smokey) nut of the Beatles before most of us Brits had ever heard of Motown or their artists.