Bob Dylan is a plagiarist

[Flying FuManchu]

No Seriosuly...

Link

Discuss or comments?

 

[Red Ships of Scalla-Festa]

sac-relish!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[brettig]

Does that reduce Bob to the level of Led Zeppelin?

 

[Pinball Wizard]

Are you referring to the lifting of material from a certain occult author? I believe that Page admitted and cited his works on many occasions.

 

[Flaming Friar Sr]

yeah its funny all

 

[Popmartijn]

Are you referring to the lifting of material from a certain occult author? I believe that Page admitted and cited his works on many occasions.

Do all those bluesmen have gotten their credit yet from Led Zepellin? I thought I saw that Willie Dixon is (finally) credited for writing Whole Lotta Love, but what about the rest?

C ya!

Marty (not really a LZ fan)

 

[yertle-the-turtle]

I'm glad the guy's now suing. Too often we get people suing each other left and right for sometimes nothing and to actually take it in their stride and enjoy the free publicity (I think it's a coincidence anyway) is great.

 

[sulawesigirl4]

I was listening to a piece on this yesterday on public radio. The lines in question are from a book of Japanese folklore, I believe. So technically, the stories are probably oral and now being written down and therefore fair game. However, the guy they had on the show commented that it's not unusual for Dylan to take lines from other places and then re-arrange them. Rather like a visual artist takes photos from different sources, scrambles them up and makes collage art.

In any case, I don't listen to Dylan much, but I found it interesting.

 

[Flying FuManchu]

Another Link


Sure Led Zep and Dylan now are in the same boat...

I keep thinking about Bono and "Ultraviolet."

I don't think its coincidence b/c there are too many things lifted for one song... but at least its not straight up plagiarism (i.e. word for word).

Now I don't feel bad about sampling...

 

[MrBrau1]

Well, Bono's line is Acrobat "Don't let the bastards grind you down" is right out of a Yeats poem. I actually think that makes it cooler.

 

[martha]

Wasn't there a line in a song somewhere about every artist being a cannibal and every poet being a thief?

Or did I read that somewhere?

 

[joyfulgirl]

^ what she said

I was just a little while ago watching a video here at work of an interview with the great writer John Berger who said in this interview "all writers steal."

Great writers pay homage to other great writers (famous or obscure) by borrowing a line or two and sneaking it in there. It creates an intimacy between the artist and listener (or reader), too, when you recognize the 'theft' and understand where homage is being paid.

Bad writers just steal because they have nothing of their own. Sometimes it takes looking at the body of work to know the difference. I think we can say with certainly that Mr. Dylan does not need to plagiarize.

Sometimes people 'borrow' when they don't even know they have. I don't think Radiohead was stealing from The Story's "Angel in the House" record which has songs entitled "When Two and Two Make Five" and "In the Gloaming." Nor was The Story stealing from Joni Mitchell when they wrote a song called "Amelia."

There's nothing new under the sun.

 

[brettig]

Yeah I meant Zep lifting the blues stuff. I don't see anything much wrong with it cos they gave it balls!

Note: I'm a big fan of both.