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Help me win an arguement


Mike_C

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I agree with your co-worker.. If you think of that song you think "Linda Ronstadt" not Warren Zevon. So it's her song.. Warren was probably happy either way.

Years ago I was checking out another bar bands set list, and they had a song listed as "Blue By You"

out..

Jeff.

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I agree with your co-worker.. If you think of that song you think "Linda Ronstadt" not Warren Zevon. So it's her song.. Warren was probably happy either way.

Years ago I was checking out another bar bands set list, and they had a song listed as "Blue By You"

out..

Jeff.

So does she own 'That'll Be The Day' and 'It's So Easy?'

The song belongs to the songwriter, even moreso if he records it.

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I agree with your co-worker.. If you think of that song you think "Linda Ronstadt" not Warren Zevon. So it's her song.. Warren was probably happy either way.

Years ago I was checking out another bar bands set list, and they had a song listed as "Blue By You"

out..

Jeff.

So does she own 'That'll Be The Day' and 'It's So Easy?'

The song belongs to the songwriter, even moreso if he records it.

No, Buddy Holly had hits with them first.. There's plenty of songs you'd say were Elvis's, but he didn't write them.

You guitar geeks can stick up for the writer of this song or that song, but in the public mind (Right or wrong..) the singer makes the song.

out..

Jeff.

Edited to add:

Most of the time it's whoever has a hit with a song first that "owns" it in the public mind.

One song that didn't do this for me was Pinball Wizard. I heard the Elton John version first, and later when I heard The Who's version I thought it sounded terrible. But after years and years of hearing The Who's version the Elton John version sounds bad now.

out again,

Jeff.

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That's not the way I understood Mike's question. The coworker apparently made a statment that it was a Ronstadt song, to which Mike seems to have replied that Zevon wrote it. Since the thread is titled such that he appears to be seeking help to win an argument, it would stand to reason that some disagreement ensued following Mike's statement (which is correct). The "argument" seems to be over who wrote the song, not who made it popular.

To that end, Mike is correct.

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I agree with your co-worker.. If you think of that song you think "Linda Ronstadt" not Warren Zevon. So it's her song.. Warren was probably happy either way.

Years ago I was checking out another bar bands set list, and they had a song listed as "Blue By You"

out..

Jeff.

So does she own 'That'll Be The Day' and 'It's So Easy?'

The song belongs to the songwriter, even moreso if he records it.

No, Buddy Holly had hits with them first.. There's plenty of songs you'd say were Elvis's, but he didn't write them.

You guitar geeks can stick up for the writer of this song or that song, but in the public mind (Right or wrong..) the singer makes the song.

Elvis's songwriters didn't record them. Zevon and Holly did. I reckon plenty of folks aren't aware that Holly had hits with those two - and they consider them Ronstandt songs.

Why the ad hominem attack?

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Elvis's songwriters didn't record them. Zevon and Holly did. I reckon plenty of folks aren't aware that Holly had hits with those two - and they consider them Ronstandt songs.

Why the ad hominem attack?

If Elvis has a big hit with another songwriters tune, it will always be a Elvis song to the general public. It's the same with that Zevon tune and Linda Ronstadt.

But if Mike's co-worker is saying she wrote it, then of course the co-worker is wrong there.

And since I think everyone that posts here is a "guitar geek", that wasn't an attack at all..

out..

Jeff.

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Most of Elvis' early material were Lieber/Stoller penned products and he was a part of that package, so it only makes sense that people think of them as Elvis songs. That being said, he didn't WRITE them and if the argument was about who wrote the tune, Mike wins. Kind of like Russ Ballard, who wrote thousands of sappy songs (including "New York Groove") from the 70s on. Ballard did have one minor hit in the early 80s, but it was so memorable that it escapes me completely. I don't think of any of those pop tunes as "Russ Ballard songs", but if he'd recorded them himself I would've. Most people I know think of "Because the Night" as a Springsteen tune rather than a Patty Smith or "Fire" as one of his instead of whoever that disco queen was that hit with it bigger. Those people aren't guitar geeks by any stretch-none of them play.

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I've read interviews with Ronstadt, and she's always been quite candid that she's no songwriter, searches very hard for material, and comes up with her own eclectic mix of covers of well-known songs plus songs by lesser-known writers. In that interview she was particularly complimentary of Zevon's work, and loved to do his stuff.

Elvis sang a lot of stuff written just for him, so it had the effect of being an Elvis song, but he also did covers. Would anyone argue that "My Way" is an Elvis song?

I remember hearing that one time after "The Bodyguard" movie came out, Dolly Parton sang "I Will Always Love You" in a public performance (Grammies? Oscars?)and Whitney Houston was heard to have said, "What's she doing singing my song?" Bitch.

I don't think record sales alone should determine whose song it is.

There are songwriters and songwriting teams who write for specific artists and have no aspirations to perform -- for example, Gamble & Huff for Motown, Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart for Paul Revere & the Raiders and later the Monkees, Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn for Frank Sinatra, etc. Then there are singer-songwriters who have a modicum of success and a high-powered pop star covers their work. Poor Poor Pitiful Me is in the latter category.

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John Hiatt has had far more success and wallet-lining from other people doing his stuff. He's insanely talented, but never really had any meaningful chart success.

That has nothing to do with Linda Rondstadt, who owes most of her cool stuff to Waddy Wachtel's arrangements and killer playing. Those songs without Waddy would be like any meaningful Jackson Browne song (wait...did I just say that?!?) without Lindley.

Yes, I am a proud, flag-waving, card-carrying guitar geek. Would anybody be here if they weren't? Posting here makes you one by default.

To keep this even semi-relevant, Mike C. just won 1/2 a $20 from his co-worker.

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Zevon...... and he played a Hamer to boot!!

Zevon.jpg

My take is: Whoever wrote it ... it's their song......

Think about it ... When the songwriting grammy for "Smooth" was awarded it wasn't Santana on the stage accepting it....

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"My Way" is a Sid Vicious tune.

Damn! Right you are. How could I forget?

Oi did it moooyyyyyyy whhyyyyyyyy!

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Yes, I am a proud, flag-waving, card-carrying guitar geek. Would anybody be here if they weren't? Posting here makes you one by default.

You guys are in denial. It's worse than you think. We are Internet Guitar geeks.

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