Talent show alumni getting sued for ripping off Under The Bridge?

It is not peculiar to see parts of songs or even entire songs sounding like something else. For example, Can’t Stop somehow shares the riff with Shania Twain’s Honey I’m Home and we’ve had quite a lot of discussion here regarding the similarities between Dani California and Tom Petty’s Mary Jane’s Last Dance. On the other side, for example, Franz Ferdinand’s Walking Away is using the exact same chord progression as John’s Invisible Movement, the song this website was named after. How can musicians find their way in this mess, anyway? What is whose?

Perhaps that is what the producer team behind English reality show contestant Diana Vickers had on their minds when they came up with her new song, My Wicked Heart. As many people pointed out, the song sounds a lot like Red Hot Chili Peppers’ biggest hit to date, Under The Bridge.

Ms Vickers herself was quoted as saying that the track sounds like “Florence + The Machine doing “Under The Bridge” via “Crazy Chick” with some big brassy other things thrown in. While the writer of this news item clearly remembers hearing such expert opinion on own music from some other young, aspiring artists; perhaps the big brassy things didn’t really hide the obvious.

She also said the following, in an interview quoted (but not linked) in a MTV article.
“That happened without us even knowing!” she explained. “We had the song and it didn’t have the ‘My Wicked Heart’ bit in it and then we put the vocal in and we were like, ‘Why does it sound so familiar?’”

According to British Tabloid The Sun, a source close to the Red Hots claims that a legal action will be taken against ms Vickers as she had not seeked a permission of any kind. That source also said: “She has done herself no favours by revealing she listened to the track while writing My Wicked Heart.” On the other side, A Warner/Chappell spokesperson refused to comment.

However, almost ten years ago, at his solo show in Amsterdam’s legendary venue Paradiso, John talked about ripping off T. Rex’s song “Rip Off” off a chord or two…for Under The Bridge. Does this make things any different?

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Judge for yourself. And be civilised, by the way.

*Many thanks to Lucy for the heads-up.

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