10 Perfect Rock Songs That Were Inspired From Another Band

A Little Too Close for Comfort.

 Jimmy Page Robert Plant Led Zeppelin
Jim Summaria / Wikimedia Commons

The beauty of rock and roll is how well bands can reinvent it throughout the years. As much as people like to clown on pop musicians using the 4 chord trick to make their songs sound good, it's what you put into the song that's actually able to make it work. Hell, if you've put the right kind of attitude behind your song, you can pretty much make an entire track out of someone else's material.

Throughout the years, there have always been bands that are a little bit too blatant as to where their inspiration has come from. Whether it be through the licks that they use in the song or the mannerisms that they use when playing, there's no doubt that these songs do have a musical parent of sorts with another band.

That doesn't cheapen the power of these songs by any stretch though. If anything, it proves that the foundation of both of these songs were so good that we actually managed to get two distinctive hits out of the deal. Although there have been cases made for legal action, all is fair in the Wild West of rock and roll. Because as we all know, it takes a smart artists to borrow, but it takes a genius to outright steal.

10. Given to Fly - Pearl Jam

In the words of Stone Gossard, most of the Pearl Jam catalog was constructed to be a throwback to the glory days of rock and roll. And it's not hard to see why either, considering the Paul Rodgers-sounding delivery of Eddie Vedder or Mike McCready pulling a lot of his sound from Jimi Hendrix's playbook. Every so often though, you can make a song that hits a little too close to your influences.

On their 1998 album Yield, McCready hit on a pretty melody that he thought resembled riding a wave in terms of how the dynamics worked. Though the actual song Given to Fly ended up becoming one of the few comeback hits for PJ around this time, the similarities are a little too close to Led Zeppelin's Going to California for the more seasoned rock fans in the audience.

This isn't like a carbon copy though. Even with the similar grooves and chord structures, McCready did create something very much his own, with the whole thing rolling in a unique way that's completely different from Robert Plant pining for a girl with a flower in her hair. As much as as they want to be respectful of their past, this is one of the few songs from Pearl Jam's glory days that may have gotten a few confused looks from the elders of grunge rock.

 
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