Music plagiarism is a funny thing. We often find ourselves on both sides of the issue: how could Led Zeppelin be so arrogant as to steal all these poor blues musicians’ songs and think they could get away with it? Or alternately: what kind of a prick has Cat Stevens become that he can demand royalties and songwriting credits on a Flaming Lips song? It brings out the Robin Hood in us all: the rich acting like assholes and walking all over the lowly artists. Cat Stevens has us calling for abolition of some copyright laws, while the Willie Dixon/Zeppelin incident has us calling for stronger protection for obscure songwriters.

In a recent interview with the Onion AV Club, Ryan Adams (no stranger to suggestions that he at best wears his influences on his sleeve and at worst is an unoriginal plagiarist) revealed his songwriting process: “Sometimes I’ll be developing riffs for songs, just while I’m sitting around and not playing. Or I’ll be humming something—not really humming, but in my mind I’ll be humming—and I’ll realize that it isn’t anything I’ve heard. It isn’t something from a record.”

Now, let’s just say he is humming something that happens to be a small snippet or similar lyrically to another record, but is convinced it’s something he’s never heard before, and writes it as an original piece. This recently happened to a friend of mine who wrote a song, recorded it and even pressed the record before finally realizing one of his songs was melodically and conceptually a rip-off a song by a certain well-known Jersey singer-songwriter. Luckily the song he ripped off is an exceptionally deep cut, and seeing as how he’s only selling it at shows, it probably won’t ever get into the ears of this superstar.

To make my friend feel better, I relayed the story of Rod Stewart’s “Forever Young,” an inspirational song in which he wishes well to someone (perhaps his children) in everything they try. Only problem is, Bob Dylan happened to have written a beautiful gospel sounding song 14 years earlier for his Planet Waves album. The song not only had the same exact concept of wishing the best for a loved one that would say “forever young,” but also had lyrics that were also suspiciously alike. The song also happened to be called “Forever Young.” But, out of the three writers credited on Stewart’s version, Dylan wasn’t among them.

If you read the lyrics, it appears Stewart and co. had merely taken a thesaurus to Dylan’s original words. Stewart’s first line: “May the good lord be with you / Down every road you roam,” Dylan’s first line “May God bless you and keep you always.” Both talk about building something to get to the stars, Stewart suggests a staircase while Dylan offers up a ladder. The comparisons go on and on; do a side-by-side comparison of the full lyrics and you’ll see what I mean.

Now, the cynical among us may assume that Stewart knew what he was doing, and perhaps he had become vapid enough in the ‘80s to warrant that accusation, but I give him the benefit of the doubt. For one thing, he’s covered a good number of official Dylan covers in the past and if he had really been trying to sneak something by Dylan, he did a horrible job of it. Luckily, Dylan (always a nice guy) gave Stewart the benefit of the doubt and didn’t sue him, but reportedly worked something out with him; most likely some sort of monetary compensation. However, Dylan inexplicably didn’t want his name associated with the song – I can’t for the life of me imagine why.

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