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What about those Brits, huh?! No, not the ones that voted to exit the EU; Jimmy Page and Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin. They won a plagiarism suit that was filed against them by a guy (now dead) who said they ripped off his song when they wrote “Stairway to Heaven.” Say it isn’t so, boys! Well, apparently the jury agreed that they didn’t pilfer the melody to the tune.  

You know these kind of cases happen a lot. Johnny Cash lost a case that he plagiarized “Folsum Prison Blues.” Recently the Estate of Marvin Gay won a case against of couple of guys (who I don’t really know.) A really bad loss was when a group called The Verve was found guilty of stealing the Rolling Stones music from “The Last Time” for the Verve’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony.” It was a terrible judgement! Anyway, I guess a song sometimes reminds you of some other song it’s because they are kind of same song!

Well, I think this case had some merit. Just listen to the first couple minutes of each of these songs.

Taurus by Spirit

Stairway to Heaven

Okay, so what do you think? Pretty damn similar aren’t they? Yet the court said they didn’t steal that riff. Robert Plant wasn’t much help in testifying; he said he was a little foggy during that period. I’ll bet. Apparently he couldn’t even remember that they opened some concerts for Spirit in the late 60’s and hung around with them when this was written. I guess it all comes down to how do you prove, that from a finite set of notes and tunes and stuff, someone intentionally copied it? Don’t know but even Mrs. Dear Leader, who is a gifted musician and song writer, came down on the side of the Zeppelinners.  

Why do I bring this up?  Well, mostly because I really liked Spirit and have VERY fond memories of the summer of ‘69 and their song “I Got a Line On You.” (And Stairway to Heaven is overrated.)

I Got Line on You

Oh sweet youth, wasted on the young!

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