Cryptomnesia Songwriting Jam

Motorik

Motorik

Kick Henry Jackassowski
AKA the 'He's So Fine'/ 'My Sweet Lord' Jam

I'll often come up with something on the guitar and think 'hey, this is pretty good', then as I develop it further the penny drops and I realize 'my' tune is actually Miley Cyrus 'Wrecking Ball' or something.

What songs by your betters have you been inadvertently copying recently?

I spent a whiles last night unknowingly writing Cyndi Lauper's 'Time After Time'.:embarrassed:
 
Not recently but years ago I wrote a brilliant song, or so I thought, for the band I was with. When we started working on the structure and the arrangement, we realized it was pretty much "It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over" by Lenny Kravitz, only without the string section. I know, the progression is fairly common and could perhaps even be considered a standard, but still.

A few years ago I wrote and recorded a song, and got close to 4.000 plays on Soundcloud, but listening to the main riff, the verse melody and the bridge, it dawned on me that this was basically "We Are The Pigs" by Suede, only with a major E chord instead of minor. I seriously considered selling my guitars and investing the money in model trains.
 
Yeah, I do that a lot, which is why I usually record a quick take of any new song I've come up with and let it percolate for awhile before I expend any serious effort in finishing it.

I think I probably mentioned this here already, but the weirdest one recently was this sort of bluesy rock tune with the lyrics taking the POV of an amoral criminal escaping the law. As I was writing it I was thinking, 'Yeah, this guy has suffered. He's a villain, a crook, probably done some bad things in his life, but he still lives by a code that helps him reconcile his evil deeds with his need to survive!' The lyrics started something like "One step ahead of the hangman / One hour ahead of the sun / One life staring down the barrel of the gun." It was a different kind of song for me, really heavy, really deep.

Anyway, fast forward a few weeks, and I'm taking a look through Disney+, and I decide to watch Aladdin, which I had only seen once before back in the early 90s. A few minutes into the movie the main character has his introduction song, "One Jump Ahead," and it only takes a few bars for me to realize he's singing my Gun song. It's the exact same tune, except faster and with humorous lyrics. Even the "one ____ ahead of the ____" was the same.
 
Monson said:
Not recently but years ago I wrote a brilliant song, or so I thought, for the band I was with. When we started working on the structure and the arrangement, we realized it was pretty much "It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over" by Lenny Kravitz, only without the string section. I know, the progression is fairly common and could perhaps even be considered a standard, but still.

A few years ago I wrote and recorded a song, and got close to 4.000 plays on Soundcloud, but listening to the main riff, the verse melody and the bridge, it dawned on me that this was basically "We Are The Pigs" by Suede, only with a major E chord instead of minor. I seriously considered selling my guitars and investing the money in model trains.
Click to expand...

Oh God! Imagine you were playing it on stage and the crowd started singing 'we are the pigs, we are the swine' along to it and you had that moment of realization then!
 
I like folk songs and have no problem what so ever with the folk tradition of stealing everything you can as long as you’re up front about it.

It’s pretty badass to write something unique, but only allowing yourself to do that is a huge hinderance to creativity.
 
Tralfaz said:
Yeah, I do that a lot, which is why I usually record a quick take of any new song I've come up with and let it percolate for awhile before I expend any serious effort in finishing it.

I think I probably mentioned this here already, but the weirdest one recently was this sort of bluesy rock tune with the lyrics taking the POV of an amoral criminal escaping the law. As I was writing it I was thinking, 'Yeah, this guy has suffered. He's a villain, a crook, probably done some bad things in his life, but he still lives by a code that helps him reconcile his evil deeds with his need to survive!' The lyrics started something like "One step ahead of the hangman / One hour ahead of the sun / One life staring down the barrel of the gun." It was a different kind of song for me, really heavy, really deep.

Anyway, fast forward a few weeks, and I'm taking a look through Disney+, and I decide to watch Aladdin, which I had only seen once before back in the early 90s. A few minutes into the movie the main character has his introduction song, "One Jump Ahead," and it only takes a few bars for me to realize he's singing my Gun song. It's the exact same tune, except faster and with humorous lyrics. Even the "one ____ ahead of the ____" was the same.
Click to expand...


Ha! I like that you were getting the tune AND the 'criminal-playing- a-dangerous game' theme. That's terrific. :bigg:

Imagine you started rewatching all the Disney films and you noticed all these other song you've written are actually analogues of Disney songs.
 
I have inadvertently stolen from myself. In one case I let it stand as one version is a Christmas song, so for one time a year I use those lyrics.

I wrote a song called Berkshire Morning and YouTube identified it as sounding too much like Sunday Morning coming down, so I had to change up the tune a bit.
 
I wrote a song for the country band I was in many moons ago call 'Tennessee Bride'. I had pitched the song to the band and we were in in middle of reworking the verses, though we never finished it . Then the lead singer comes in (maybe 2 months later) and said, 'Hey - I was listening to the radio and heard a brand new tune that has the exact same hook as your Tennessee song'. So I actually had it first...but never finished it.
 
Denverdave said:
I wrote a song for the country band I was in many moons ago call 'Tennessee Bride'. I had pitched the song to the band and we were in in middle of reworking the verses, though we never finished it . Then the lead singer comes in (maybe 2 months later) and said, 'Hey - I was listening to the radio and heard a brand new tune that has the exact same hook as your Tennessee song'. So I actually had it first...but never finished it.
Click to expand...

And that song…

Save a Horse
 
I once rewrote Tom Petty's "Good to be King", which is sad, because it's once of his least-good songs.

I lived with a guy in college who was in a too-cool punk rock group, and their guitarist accidentally brought in a cool new riff that was actually "Hold on Loosely" by .38 Special.

And my guitar teacher when I was a kid played me a new tune that came to him in a dream, but it was actually Free Fallin', just transposed to E.
 
Still got it! Yeah!

Spent over an hour last night writing a great tune then finally realized it was a chord melody variation of Lady Gaga's and Bradley Cooper's 'Shallow' song from 'A Star is Born':facepalm:
 
Without realizing this was an old thread, I came in here to post the same two stories I submitted two posts ago.

More recently, I've got a song with an original lyric/concept, but the melody sounds real derivative to me. I'm playing it for my songwriter group tomorrow, and hopefully they'll call it out. They caught me ripping "Money for Nothing" (verse melody, not the Sting part or guitar riff) about a year ago.
 
When I was in high school, I came up with what I thought was the coolest piano riff. I played it all the time for a few weeks until I realized I'd swiped it from Whitesnake's "Don't Turn Away."
A few years ago, I wrote a great progression on the acoustic. Then it dawned on me that the chorus section was basically "Rainbow Connection." The melody I had was totally different, though, so I went ahead and finished it.
 
Working on the new Bird Index album as a four piece, before I decided to move, we were all really psyched with this big instrumental / guitar solo break that we were working on, until we all realized - almost at the same time - that we were just playing Time by Pink Floyd...
 
Not sure if it properly counts as I wrote it years before it came out but on a homebrew wine sesh in Saudi I wrote and recorded a song that is practically identical to Shawn Mendez Stitches.
 
I was working a part, recorded the guitar, started tracking the bass, my wife came in and said "I didn't know you were recording the Cure, I like that song."

I had pretty much reinvented Love Song.
 
In one of my college bands, I had been working on a song for a few weeks. When I had it ready, I played it for my bass player and he immediately said, I thought it started on a B. I slid it up to a B and immediately knew it was The Last Goodbye by Agent Orange. So we ended up deciding to cover it :grin:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top