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John and Paul using the same riff!
6 February 2015
4.00pm
walrusz
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Here is a video I put together about something I’ve noticed for years, check it out:

feature=youtu.be

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6 February 2015
4.12pm
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ewe2
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Rishikesh
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That’s great :D Particularly funny in the context that John commented in an interview around this time about George’s plagiarism of He’s So Fine that stealing a bit was ok but there are limits :D

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6 February 2015
4.55pm
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parlance
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Yeah, I always figured that was a deliberate reference. In an (obviously alternate universe) fanfic story I’m reading, John and Paul lead one song into the other in concert, which I wouldn’t mind hearing.

parlance

Beware of sadness. It can hit you. It can hurt you. Make you sore and what is more, that is not what you are here for. - George

Check out my fan video for Paul's song "Appreciate" at Vimeo or YouTube.

6 February 2015
6.33pm
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Expert Textpert
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Yes. It was an homage to Paul. He also quotes the Beatles on the same album. He sings “sweet sweet, sweet sweet love” to the tune of “beep beep, beep beep yeah.”

"If you're ever in the shit, grab my tit.” —Paul McCartney 

6 February 2015
7.17pm
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robert
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So I think that’s very cool – at the same time I think it’s more coincidence than intentional. Here’s why – and if you’re a guitar player I think you’ll follow this,  even if you don’t agree – that lick is a very common style of movement on a guitar – even in the same key because of its placement on the guitar neck – it’s very easy to play and sort of a natural motion if you’re just searching for a signature guitar lick.

Just listen to the opening and main continuing guitar lick in Cold Turkey – it’s almost the same lick. Because if you’ve got your hands on the neck of the guitar and you’re playing what’s often called a basic box pattern – that’s the riff you get.

So if’s an homage – it’s Paul taking the lick from John in Cold Turkey – except that with just a little digging one could probably find hundreds of guitar players that have used that lick in songs.

In fact at the risk of sounding pompous – a band I was in made a song out of that exact same basic pattern – we did it in the 90’s and until this moment I never really noticed that my lick was based on that riff from over 20 years earlier – which actually proves that point that if a minor composer like myself could stumble into the lick – anybody could.

All in all to say – I don’t think they were trying to sound like each other.

If one wanted to pursue it further one would have to know when John came up with the Beef Jerky riff – since we all know that he and Paul kept pieces of songs lying around for years and years before turning them into songs. So John may have come up with this way back during the White Album for all we know.

We do know that John wrote some of Beef Jerky (1973) before Paul Let Me Roll It was recorded (1974).

But it’s very cool nonetheless.

"She looks more like him than I do."

7 February 2015
3.41am
walrusz
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Hey Robert…

Thanks for your comments. I am a guitar player and I understand your reasoning. My video does not state that there was a plagiarism issue, at the end I do say it is merely “interesting”. That said, I think there is something going on there. It’s too close in key, tempo, and era…. Only my opinion! Thanks again, Mike S.

7 February 2015
4.10am
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robert
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I actually wasn’t responding to your video – which is way cool – but what parlance and Expert Textpert were saying that the two riffs “that was a deliberate reference” and that “Yes. It was an homage to Paul.” – I don’t think that’s true.

"She looks more like him than I do."

7 February 2015
4.15am
walrusz
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Gotcha…

7 February 2015
4.30am
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I’ve read before that Lennon lifted the riff from Paul’s song. Don’t recall where, but I just found another reference stating the same in this book:

Still the Greatest: The Essential Songs of the Beatles’ Solo Careers
By Andrew Grant Jackson

Whether Jackson is correct or not, I don’t know. He says “Lennon dug ‘Let Me Roll It ‘ so much he re-appropriated the riff.”

"If you're ever in the shit, grab my tit.” —Paul McCartney 

17 February 2015
5.04pm
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Joe
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Good clip! I knew both riffs were similar but I don’t think I’d heard them side-by-side before.

robert said
We do know that John wrote some of Beef Jerky (1973) before Paul Let Me Roll It was recorded (1974).

Let Me Roll It was released in 1973, the same year that Beef Jerky was written.

Expert Textpert said
Yes. It was an homage to Paul. He also quotes the Beatles on the same album. He sings “sweet sweet, sweet sweet love” to the tune of “beep beep, beep beep yeah.”

He also sings “Somebody please, please help me” on Going Down On Love. He was clearly starting to think about The Beatles favourably again. Apparently Elton John gave him a Beatles doll around this time, which he initially thought was an odd gift but later started to appreciate. And of course he did I Saw Her Standing There with Elton at MSG, and performed on Elton’s cover of LITSWD.

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