The Sincerest Form of Flattery

[Mulboyne]

The recent death of Gerry Rafferty reminded me of the obvious "lift" from "Baker Street" in Miki Hirayama's 1979 hit "Mandarin Palace":

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Songwriters and producers in Japan at that time rarely plagiarized a whole hit song from overseas but weren't shy at nicking a few key bars or vocal effects to see if they could come up with a winner for domestic artists. Some of them are just hints, which might not bring on the lawyers, but any musician would know what was going on.

Take, for instance, this one from Goro Noguchi in 1979:

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That's the refrain from "Knock on Wood" by Ami Stewart running through:

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This other one from Noguchi isn't anywhere near as clear but the producer was clearly inspired by "Hotel California":

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Here's Carl Douglas performing "Kung Fu Fighting"

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Now try this from Masahiko Kondo:

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"Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" by The Animals

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And here's Kiyohiko Ozaki doing his Eric Burden:

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The New Seekers hit "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing"

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Come on down, Yuki Okazaki:

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I'll have a dig around on YouTube to see if I can remember some other examples.

[Catoneinutica]

If George Harrison was found by the court to have pilfered that riff in "My Sweet Lord," these J-songs would all be slam-dunk cases. Interesting stuff!