Lennon-McCartney versus The Rutles

Hello All,
Sadly today i read that Neil Innes had to share 50% of The Rutles songs royalties with Lennon-McCartney, considering Harrison's involvement why was the spoofs of his songs (and also Beatles covers like Twist & Shout) also credited to Innes/Lennon-McCartney ?.
Lennon was also quoted as telling Neil Innes to keep 'Get Up And Go' of the original album because Paul McCartney will probally sue, but 'Ouch' still was included ?

 

It had nothing to do with Lennon or McCartney.It was ATV-the publisher that objected.

 

It was ATV Music (at the time, the company holding the publishing rights to the majority of the Lennon/McCartney songs) that went after Innes, not the Beatles themselves.

EDIT: Ha, great minds!

 

Innes did not have the funds to mount a defense against ATV. If he had, he would likely have prevailed. His songs copy arrangements, style, and instrumental configurations more than melodies or lyrics, and the former things aren't copyrightable. Obviously not a lot of attention was paid to the individual songs, the court just awarded a blanket 50% to ATV. Besides the George Harrison parody, it also made no sense copyright was awarded for Livin' in Hope and Number One, both of which primarily bear similarities to non Lennon/McCartney songs.

 

Good, i didnt think it was either Macca's or Lennon (Yoko's) style, did Harrison at that point in time have enough power to get the others to challenge ATV, especaily as his songs were not Lennon-McCartney, any idea if the ruling still remains today?

 

Don't think so.I don't think they ever did change the credit to Lennon/McCartney/Innes.They're just 'Innes' on the 1991 Rhino CD...

 

I had heard about this years ago and sure enough on my Rhino CD it IS credited to Innes/Lennon/McCartney. What a crime. I doubt if this would have happened if Lennon & McCartney had owned their copyrights.

They probably wouldn't want to spend the time, money or energy to be honest after all they had had their fair share of lawsuits by this time between as well documented in "Sue Me, Sue You Blues" by George. George hated ANY sort of legal action if it wasn't necessary after "My Sweet Lord" as well.

 

What about Goose Step Mama? Will they share royalties with Leiber, Stoller and Barrett?

 

Neil is such a great guy that he doesn't seem to be fazed at all with the situation. For me, as a 12 year old kid, I was a huge Beatles' fan that spent more time listening to the Rutles' soundtrack than the Fabs music. In all fairness, if there had been no Beatles, there would have been no Rutles. I had a chance to open for him when he performed here in Hamilton last spring and we had a great chat backstage talking about the Rutles' project.

I am also certain that if John and Paul owned the songs, Neil would have been given the ok.

 

Did Innes have to share royalties on the Archaeology album as well?

 

Regardless of how it's credited on CD, BMI lists the songwriters of the original Rutles soundtrack songs as Innes/Lennon/McCartney, so that is how the royalties are paid out.

According to bmi.com, the Archeology songs are credited to just Innes. On those songs I think he was more careful to avoid the direct one-to-one correspondence between songs that exists with most of the Rutles soundtrack songs. Also, the Lennon/McCartney catalog is owned by a different corporation now than in the 70's so that may be a factor.

Ultimately it was silly that Innes lost in the first place. Aside from possibly a few songs like Ouch and Get Up and Go, the similarities between the Rutles and Beatles songs do not meet the standards for plagiarism in my opinion.

 

The story I always heard was that Harrison was perfectly cool with the 1978 show, to the extent of appearing in it (essentially for free). But he did warn Innes, "I think some of those songs are a little too close to our old songs for the lawyers." It was ATV Music who sued them and got the lion's share of the royalties.

I was also told that this paled next to the issues Innes had with Eric Idle over the years on various Rutles projects. Lots of bad blood there. (And McCartney wasn't happy, since the Rutles show and album came out within a week of his London Town album.)

I've been meaning to sit down and watch the Rutles DVD again. Such a great show. One of my prized possessions is a March, 1978 3/4" cassette of the U.K. version of the Rutles show, where they have the alternate take of the Dan Ackroyd interview as "the man who gave the Rutles away." Great bit. (I think they included it years later in the DVD.)

 

I belive the sweet irony of all this was that Innis eventualy sued Oasis for plagarism for their song "Whatever" sounding too much like his "How sweet to be an idiot"

bitter sweet.

 

I lied--I thought it was on the CD but it's listed at the BMI website. Memory is a tricky thing.

 

All You Need Is Cash has become my daughter's new favorite new DVD and we watch it all the time so we were just talking about this subject last night. I think it's a shame that the publishers felt they had to go after the songs. My daughter asked me which Beatles song were the "models" for the Rutles songs and for the life of me I could not come up with a definitive answer. Each song would invoke the "idea" or "vibe" of a certain Beatles' song, and while the instrumentation and arrangements were easily recogniazble none of the melodies or (exact) chord changes were, at least in my opinion. I would have loved to see that scenario play out in court! From what I've read Harrison, obviously, and Lennon were totally cool with the songs. Harrison and Lennon thought the whole thing was hysterical but McCartney and Starr took it a little more personally.

Watching this again also got me to thinking:

How did Ricky Fataar (of the Flame, the Beach Boys, Bonnie Raitt, etc.) and John Halsey (of Timebox and Patto) get onboard for this project? Was Neil Innes playing with them in another band before the Rutles idea came up?

 

When Paul McCartney was a guest on Jimmy Fallon's show recently, the Roots played a Rutles song when he came out for his interview. McCartney gave the band a funny look.

 

Here are some of the songs and I think are the ones modeled after;

Goosestep Mama - Some Other Guy
Number One - Twist and Shout
Hold My Hand - All My Loving, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, She Loves You, Please Please Me, and... ?
Blue Suede Schubert - Roll Over Beethoven
I Must Be In Love -
With A Girl Like You - If I Fell
Between Us - And I Love Her
Living In Hope - Act Naturally, What Goes On?
Ouch! - Help
It's Looking Good- Run For Your Life
Double Back Alley - Penny Lane
Nevertheless - Within You Without You
Love Life - All You Need Is Love
Piggy In The Middle - I Am the Walrus
Cheese and Onions - A Day In The Life
Get Up and Go - Get Back
Let's Be Natural - Dear Prudence


I welcome any corrections to this list, plus additions to the ones I missed.

 

I had read Lennon never returned his preview tape of the Rutles special when sent a copy for his approval/input. (He liked it)

 

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I love The Rutles! I was introduced to this film 2 years ago via my rediscovery of George's works and LOVED IT. Absolutely hilarious, and extremly clever. The soundtrack album is a masterpeice of clever arrangements and chuckle worthy lyrics.

Innes was nothing short of a genuis, being able to match the mood and feel of each song to capture the sonic essence of the various parodied Beatles compositions. Sheer genuis.

 

Living in Hope is most similar to Don't Pass Me By.
It's Looking Good has some similarity to I'm Looking Through You.

I Must Be in Love is a song that really exposes how silly the lawsuit was, and how little scrutiny the actual music received. It doesn't resemble any Beatles song melodically or lyrically. The only thing I can hear is that the way the guitars are strummed in the "anytime, of the day, I can see..." section is kinda similar to how they are strummed in I'm Happy Just to Dance with You.

 

The very beginning of I Must Be In Love reminds me of Ticket to Ride.

 

My favorite Rutles song is "Let's Be Natural". It nails the White Album style so perfectly it could almost pass as an outtake, while gently poking fun at Lennon's "Bed-In".

 

I love "Doubleback Alley". It's got a melancholy feeling all it's own, while also drawing on "Penny Lane", obviously.

 

Yep, the opening guitar riff is very reminiscent. And the "ooh-la-la" is probably borrowed from "You Won't See Me."

Interesting legal comment from Wikipedia:

As of early 2006, these six songs from the first Rutles CD (which were not on the original LP release) are credited solely to Neil Innes: "Baby Let Me Be", "Between Us", "Blue Suede Schubert", "Get Up And Go", "Goose Step Mama", and "It's Looking Good".[6] The other 14 songs from the CD (that is, all of the songs from the original LP release) have all had John Lennon and Paul McCartney added to the songwriting credits along with Neil Innes. However, the booklet accompanying a 2007 reissue of the album on Rhino/Warner Brothers credits all 20 songs solely to Innes.

I'm very surprised some stuffed shirt didn't note the intentional similarity of "Get Up and Go" and "Get Back."

 

Through the Ventricles of your heart, my dear . . .

Said stuffed shirt was John Lennon, as I recall. I'm sure Eric Idle can figure out yet another way to give the screws to Neil.

Note that the relation of the Archeology tunes to Beatle originals is more tenuous. Innes remake [as Ron Nasty] of Neil Innes' Shangri-La is a remake of a remake anyway [and there's a fourth orchestrated in a very George Martin Theater-Hall style on a television show some where in the interwebs*]. But the Archeology version starts with the lead riff from Innes/Oasis How Sweet To Be An Idiot/Whatever before turning into a free-for all of Beatle instrumental tunes. The Hey Jude styled fade-out has vocal stars galore:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB58fXxmK2s

I have a diabolically weird thread that somehow didn't get gorted concerning the Beatles, The Bonzo Dog Band, May 1968. the Rutles and Neil Innes entitled Would you mind talking to us about Trousers? that touches on this strange relation between the Beatles and The Bonzos and the freak circus of politics that was 1968.

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=254513&highlight=trousers

Now when I hear the second CD of The Beatles I can't get The Donut in Granny's Greenhouse out of my mind.

*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkNeQLyJ6u8