10 Rock Songs Ripped Off From Other Songs
4. Come Together - The Beatles
The Beatles are never a band that needed to delve into their influences too much. One casual listen to an album like Sgt. Peppers is enough to let you know that these guys are the masters of the pop hook. Hell, even when John Lennon got caught red handed trying to crib a few ideas, it ended up sounding like nothing anyone had heard before.
Opening up Abbey Road, Come Together is one of the most sinister sounding Beatles songs, with a downtempo groove and one of the greatest bass licks of all time. The only problem? It just so happened to have lyrics lifted directly from Chuck Berry's You Can't Catch Me. According to Paul McCartney, it wasn't exactly subtle in the beginning stages either, with the first drafts of Lennon's sketch being almost a copy and paste job of Berry's original song.
It didn't take long for them to step it up though, with McCartney suggesting the swampy tempo that they eventually found for the tune. Berry's estate did come calling regardless though, leading to Lennon repaying them by covering different Berry songs for his solo album Rock n Roll, with the proceeds being paid to Berry to settle out of court. You can say Berry was a jumping off point, but comparing a song like this to the fast tempo father of rock and roll just seems a bit silly after a while.