My Rolling Stones Moment

In 1997, The Rolling Stones were putting the finishing touches on their newest album, Bridges To Babylon. One of the songs from the release, “Has Anybody Seen My Baby?”, was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and is a funky, slinky groove with samples and a killer hook.

The killer hook begins at 1:15

According to Richards, he was playing the album one day when his daughter and a friend began singing along to the tune, with noticeably different lyrics. “They were listening to k.d. lang's ‘Constant Craving.' It was Angela and her friend that recognized it.”

Oh, that killer hook. (at :45)

Jagger and Richards claimed not to know the song and it’s certainly within the realm of probability. With the ubiquitous nature of popular music following us everywhere from restaurants and boardwalks to grocery stores and bathrooms, the pair may’ve heard lang’s 1994 hit somewhere in the background and subconsciously recalled it while writing their tune. Wanting to avoid a lawsuit over the similarities, the songwriting duo offered lang and her songwriting partner, Ben Mink, co-writing credit on the tune.

Many artists purposely appropriate melodies, chord progressions and styles from other artists while, for others, that’s a deplorable concept and a huge no-no. Often times, when writing something that sounds too ready for prime time, I second-guess and question myself to be sure that I’m not somehow taking something that exists in a song and claiming it as my own. Since 1988, I’ve made it a point to eschew listening to the radio or keeping music running as white noise in the background, based on an interview with Bobby McFerrin, who stated that he’d avoided other people’s music for a while in order to develop his unique sound and style. I tend to only engage with music that sounds way different than what I’d actually write, simply in order to minimize the possibility of accidental plagiarism.

After 30 years in the biz, I’ve finally had my “Rolling Stones” moment.

Last week, I completed work on my newest album, The Beauty and the Terror, which is basically the follow-up to 2013’s Dive! After several weeks of mixing, my wife, Jae, has become familiar with many of the tunes (repetition will do that) and has her favorite ear-worms already. Last night, she calls out to me from the living room.

“Honey, I’ve got your song stuck in my head again.”

“Which one?”, I inquire.

“Crazy Love”, she replies.

“You mean, ‘Love Was Coming Through’?” I gently corrected her.

“The one that goes, ‘love, love, love, love, crazy love’”

“I think you’re confusing it with a Van Morrison song.”

Now, if you were to ask me to name a Van Morrison song, I could answer “Brown-Eyed Girl” with a high degree of certainty and that’s it. But my trivia-minded trap set of a brain somehow correctly matched the song title to the artist. And then, I got a weird vibe and went to look up the tune.

The chorus hits at :24

The part in question starts at 1:41

My first thought was, “damn, have I ever heard this song before?” It didn’t even sound familiar to me, the verses sounded nothing like mine. But then the chorus hook chimed in and my second thought was, “holy crap, that’s kinda similar.”

So, what’s similar and what’s different?

If you compare just the measures in question, the descending bass line, chord movement and melody are nearly identical. Sans melody, it’s a progression that’s been used in thousands of songs. What makes the comparison notable are the lyrics, laid out here next to each other:

“Crazy Love” - “you give me love, love, love, love, crazy love”

“Love Was Coming Through” - “when love sweet love was coming through”

Thematically, I can see where this hook might’ve implanted itself in my brain at some point while shopping, walking or taking a leak. I’ve never listened to a Van Morrison record and have certainly never heard the 1970 album Moondance from which “Crazy Love” comes. I was starting to feel a little insecure about it until I pulled back to look at the big picture.

The four-measure chorus from Morrison’s song is just that, a chorus that then heads back to the verse. In my song, the four measures in question are simply a tag to the larger melodic and chord movement. In other words, there’s a lot more going on and the structure is vastly different, save for those four measures.

With the Stones/lang comparison, the verses are completely dissimilar while the choruses are the same in just about every way, except the lyrics. Melody and chords are in lock-step. With the Morrison/Futch comparison, the verses are completely different and the choruses are extremely different in flow, length, movement, melody and lyrics, until you hit those four bars, which line up melodically and progression-wise with some similarities in lyrical content. At least that’s what I feel. Others, like my wife, may just hear the sameness in the chorus hook.

So, what’s the verdict? I acknowledge that I may’ve heard “Crazy Love” at some point in my life and the hook got lodged in my subconscious where it remained until this song was written, but I certainly didn’t call up “Crazy Love” and say to myself, “ooh, I’m so stealing that hook,” because that’s not just asking for trouble, it’s begging for it. In context, the matching sections are a small piece of a larger picture and we could easily go back through history, overlaying bits of different songs and finding parts that sound somewhat similar. In doing research for this blog, I discovered that “Crazy Love” has been a popular tune to cover with versions by Aaron Neville, Brian McKnight, Helen Reddy, Maxi-Priest, Rita Coolidge and Rod Stewart among those who have covered it. Who knows which version hit my ears and lodged in my head enough to spit back out those four measures?

Also, the Stones were reportedly interested in avoiding getting sued to all holy heck by lang and Mink for appropriating their chorus, which would’ve definitely been an easy target, given that they’re the world-famous Rolling Stones and how would k.d. lang NOT have the opportunity to hear the tune? I remember when I first heard “Has Anybody Seen My Baby?” and, not knowing the story, thought, “goddamn, did they rip off k.d.?”

I imagine that somewhere somebody will hear my tune and think, “that sounds like ‘Crazy Love’” the same way I hear certain Green Day songs and think, “that sounds like __________”. (Seriously, listen to American Idiot and try not to detect bits and pieces of everything from Michael Jackson to The Alarm.) Considering that Morrison probably was inspired to write the hook after hearing countless R&B groups do variations on it in the 60s, I’m gonna chalk it up to genre and not worry about it. And if Van’s lawyers come knocking at some point, I’ll be ecstatic that my song managed to even grab their attention, though audio fingerprinting extends their reach to a ridiculous degree. If “Love Was Coming Through” flags the copyright sensors on YouTube, I’ll at least know to expect a knock on my virtual door by men in black, at which point I’ll just offer a co-writing credit to Van Morrison.

The Stones taught me that much.