In the Words of Candi Vega

The Candi Vega Blog

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

The Beatles' Shadow Song

George Harrison. Do lang do lang do lang. He's so fine.

I had no idea GH got "caught" for subconsciously infringing on R. Mack's "He's So Fine" (perf. by the Chiffons)! Seems he accidentally copied some of the melody and the chord progression in his, "My Sweet Lord." If I had heard the two back to back without knowing, I never would have guessed---the orchestration is different and they barely sound the same to me. But there was that durned "substantially similar" reckoning by the judge, which was enough to make him lose the case and pay Klein (his former manager who bought the lawsuit!) a big chunk of money. Later, Klein was found in fiduciary breach (is that what it's called? I'm still learning!) because he bought the lawsuit from Mack since he knew what Harrison was worth. Ay yi yi!

Here are two sites if you want to read more about this mess from the past:

http://www.benedict.com/Audio/harrison/harrison.aspx

http://abbeyrd.best.vwh.net/mysweet.htm