Serendipity or Plagiarism? You decide.

Not to be confused with this "Serendipity", which everyone has decided is crap.


Driving home today, I heard the following on the radio.



That's Sly and the Family Stone's "Hot Fun In The Summertime" from 1969. A fantastic song for a summer day like today. Hearing Sly Stone is usually a great experience and I highly recommend it.

As I was listening to the chorus, the encyclopedia of pop music in my head was cross referenced to the volume "L":



That's Led Zeppelin's "Fool in the Rain" from 1979's In Through the Out Door. Strikingly similar? You betcha...and I can guarantee those English blokes had heard a Sly record or two by the late 1970s.

As the Family Stone continued another volume of my inner encyclopedia of pop music was brought down from the shelf...Volume "G":



That's Genesis' "Misunderstanding" from 1980's Duke. No hiding here...more English blokes, led by a drummer (Phil Collins), taking liberally from an English band with a pretty damn famous English drummer (John Bonham of Led Zeppelin), who took liberally from a pretty damn famous American band (and really, who made a career out of 'taking liberally' from anyone and everyone who wrote a song and didn't become famous for it). I think serendipity might be out on this one.

Then there's this piece to the puzzle:



That's Toto's "Hold the Line" from 1979's Toto. As far as it fitting into the lineage (before Genesis), here's what Toto's famous drummer (Jeff Porcaro) had to say:

That was me trying to play like Sly Stone's original drummer, Greg Errico, who played drums on "Hot Fun In The Summertime." The hi-hat is doing triplets, the snare drum is playing 2 and 4 backbeats, and the bass drum is on 1 and the & of 2. That 8th note on the second beat is an 8th-note triplet feel, pushed. When we did the tune, I said, "Gee, this is going to be a heavy four-on-the-floor rocker, but we want a Sly groove." The triplet groove of the tune was David's writing. It was taking the Sly groove and meshing it with a harder rock caveman approach - from Modern Drummer Magazine, 1988

So, I can further guarantee that Genesis knew of Toto (since they were a band made up of very famous, very employed session players that got together to lay down all-too-perfect music of their own), and just ripped them off too.

Nothing against Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford, and Tony Banks, mind you, I like "Invisible Touch" as much as the next guy...I'm just hoping Sly got his props.

-C Murder