Andrew Loyd Webber ripped off Pink Floyd!

[Red Knight]

Okay, this may or may not be news to anyone here because I just came upon this weird discovery today while listening to Pink Floyd's Echoes.

I'm not musician but I DO like Andrew Loyd Webber and just LOVE Pink Floyd. Anyway, I was listening to 1971's Echoes and I heard part of the song and something clicked in my head---PHANTOM OF THE OPREA! THAT'S from Phantom of the Oprea!

I quickly alerted my wife who dismissed it as coincidence and reasoned that it happens a lot with music. That's probably true but I had to listen to both and it's really astonishing. So I did some web research and of course I wasn't the only one to pick up on it. Even Roger Waters from Pink Floyd noticed--and he hated Webber without any help:

Yes, the music of "Sir" Andrew Lloyd Webber is rather horrible - but has not Waters, in condemning Phantom Of The Opera as "fucking fifteenth rate from beginning to end", as he does, missed something? Has he not noticed something uncanny about Phantom Of The Opera, the title song, something about the opening notes that go "DAAAA-da-da-da-da-da"?

"Yes, Echoes"! he booms. (Echoes was an LP-side-long, and rather-good- actually, track on Pink Floyd's Meddle.) "Echoes. Yeah the beginning of that bloody Phantom song is from Echoes. (_He sings_) DAAAA-da-da-da-da-da. I couldn't believe it when I heard it. It's the same time signature - it's 12/8 - and it's the same structure and it's the same notes and it's the same everything. Bastard. It probably is actionable. It really is! But I think that life's too long to bother with suing Andrew fucking Lloyd Webber. I think that might make me really gloomy."


Here's the Floyd version(at 3:33 and 4:33 of the video you can hear it but it kicks in more powerfully at 5:55 of this video:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBe7ooQNEic


And here is Phantom(listen to the beginning and compare to the previous parts of Echoes):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXKHYgorL0o&mode=related&search=

Why does any of this matter?

When I figure that out I'll let you know.

I am curious though, whether he "borrowed" from any other songs.

[KenHodson]

1. Oh Crap... This reminds me! Now I need bunches of help here...

Maybe somebody can help me out here:

Modest Mouse song... I think it's in the middle of "Talking Shit About a Pretty Sunset" - the song goes into a pleasant interlude. I like that song a lot.
Then (a long time ago), on NPR's new age show, I heard the same tune. Longer with no lyrics but still pleasant.
Help?

[bbernardini]

2. But...neither one is in 12/8.

You would think Waters would know his own time signatures.

[skygazer]

3. Noticed that a long time ago

Though I do enjoy Phantom. I also notice that throughout Phantom, Webber used the same type of musical phrases that establish continuity as are used throughout The Wall - the repeated use of certain bits (a la Another Brick, etc.) I don't know if that's consciously from Floyd - I've noticed that in other musical theater but it's very obvious in Lloyd Webber's stuff.

[Red Knight]

6. Interesting

As I said, I'm no musician, I just know what I hear. Indeed Andrew Loyd Webber may not have conciously borrowed from anyone. It amazes me that with all the music in the world anyone can write anything truly original anyway.

This also happens in fiction, with very similar ideas finding their way to print.

Maybe my title of the original post is a bit strong.

I guess Waters wouldn't think so though, eh? Hee-hee.:mad:

[skygazer]

8. I'm sure he wouldn't

I love Waters and his work with Floyd was sheer genius in my opinion. He's one of the people in life who I'd really love to sit down with and have a long chat over a beer or something. Anyone who can write the stuff he's written has a mind I'd like to delve into. edited to add - as witnessed by my sigline.

But he can be pretty ascerbic, to put it mildly. Ah, well, they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery so whether it was intentional or not, it can always be looked at that way.

I'd rather listen to Floyd than Webber any day.

[Boojatta]

4. Is this relevant?

Ferrara once served as an expert witness for Andrew Lloyd Webber, who was being sued by Ray Repp, a composer of Catholic folk music. Repp said that the opening few bars of Lloyd Webber's 1984 "Phantom Song," from "The Phantom of the Opera," bore an overwhelming resemblance to his composition "Till You," written six years earlier, in 1978. As Ferrara told the story, he sat down at the piano again and played the beginning of both songs, one after the other; sure enough, they sounded strikingly similar. "Here's Lloyd Webber," he said, calling out each note as he played it. "Here's Repp. Same sequence. The only difference is that Andrew writes a perfect fourth and Repp writes a sixth."

But Ferrara wasn't quite finished. "I said, let me have everything Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote prior to 1978—'Jesus Christ Superstar,''Joseph,''Evita.'" He combed through every score, and in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" he found what he was looking for. "It's the song 'Benjamin Calypso.'" Ferrara started playing it. It was immediately familiar. "It's the first phrase of 'Phantom Song.' It's even using the same notes. But wait—it gets better. Here's 'Close Every Door,' from a 1969 concert performance of 'Joseph.'" Ferrara is a dapper, animated man, with a thin, well-manicured mustache, and thinking about the Lloyd Webber case was almost enough to make him jump up and down. He began to play again. It was the second phrase of ""The first half of 'Phantom' is in 'Benjamin Calypso.' The second half is in 'Close Every Door.' They are identical. On the button. In the case of the first theme, in fact, 'Benjamin Calypso' is closer to the first half of the theme at issue than the plaintiff's song. (...)"

From:
http://www.gladwell.com/2004/2004_11_25_a_borrowed.html

[Red Knight]

5. I don't hear it

I just pulled up some versions of Benjamin Calypso and, frankly, it sounds like..well, Calypso music. I didn't hear Phantom in that at all. Maybe I missed a sequence but I pulled up four different ones and didn't hear it anywhere.

As for Repp---his song was from 1978 and Echoes was 1971, so Floyd wins that one.

[itsmesgd]

7. ALW completely rips off the baseline from Echoes

or as rappers would call it "samples"

[HuffleClaw]

9. i've read that almost nothing he's done is truly original

that he's 'borrowed' from opera, classical, pop, jazz... or as his supporters would say, was INSPIRED by...

[KG]

10. Roger Waters isn't a fan of webbers

It's A Miracle Lyrics
Artist: Roger Waters
Album: Amused To Death

...We cower in our shelters
With our hands over our ears
Lloyd-Webber's awful stuff
Runs for years and years and years
An earthquake hits the theater
But the operetta lingers
Then the piano lid comes down
And breaks his fucking fingers
It's a miracle.....

[Cabcere]

11. Beat me to it. n/t

:D

[Orrex]

12. Does anyone remember "Saturday Night Dead?"

I think that it aired about 15 to 20 years ago possibly (probably?) after Saturday Night Live. It was, as I recall, a b-movie horror showcase like Chiller Theater but with a hostess named Stella, who was clearly a watered-down (and less pneumatic) version of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.

Anyway, the opening sequence of the song The Phantom of the Opera is to me very reminiscent of the theme music to Saturday Night Dead, albeit played at a faster pace.

Anyone know what I'm talking about?