What do you think?

Barenaked Ladies - Alcohol
Barenaked Ladies - Be My Yoko Ono
Barenaked Ladies - Enid
Barenaked Ladies - Old Apartment, The
Beastie Boys, The - Girls
Beastie Boys, The - Shake Your Rump
Beck - Where It's At
Cake – I Will Survive
Cake - Short Skirt Long Jacket
Dylan, Bob - Man In Me, The
Dynamite Hack – Boys In The Hood
Echo And The Bunnymen – Killing Moon, The
Flaming Lips, The - Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt. 1
Garbage – Cherry Lips (Go Baby, Go!)
Garbage – The World Is Not Enough (Movie Version, not the Radio Version)
Garbage – Vow
Garbage - Why Do You Love Me
Presidents of The U.S.A., The - Some Postman
Our Lady Peace – One Man Army
R.E.M. - I’ve Been High
R.E.M. - Nightswimming
R.E.M. - Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight, The
R.E.M. – Bad Day
R.E.M. – Bittersweet Me
R.E.M. - Electrolite
R.E.M. - How The West Was Won And Where It Got Us
R.E.M. – Turn You Inside-Out
Stroke 9 – Kick Some Ass
System Of A Down - Toxicity
Tears For Fears – Mad World
Tenacious D - Tribute
Weezer - Beverly Hills
Weezer – El Scorcho
Weezer – Island In The Sun
Weezer – Keep Fishin’ (Radio Version)
Weezer – Good Life, The
“Weird Al” Yankovic – Trigger Happy
“Weird Al” Yankovic – Yoda
“Weird Al” Yankovic – Your Horoscope For Today

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But EMI denies their songs for karaoke requests now.

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Speaking of, Nirvana had a lot of nerve to list Kurt Cobain's name as the songwriter of the old blues/folk standard "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" on their 'Unplugged' album. Leadbelly has been considered the 'writer' or 'originator' of that song - for the past 60 or so years.

The same BS as Page and Plant trying to get away with taking writers credit for the two Willie Dixon songs on the first Zep album. They were sued by big Willie and lost. They did the same thing with several other blues standards that they got away with taking credit for (The Lemon Song & Nobody's Fault But Mine to name two).

Another one: On the Ray Charles version of "America The Beautiful", Ray Charles is listed as a songwriter - right next to the original author of the song, Samuel Ward. Depending on which version you request, you might not have to pay anything since it belongs to the Public Domain, or you might have to pay the rate for the publisher representing Ray Charles. (This has been ongoing for years, not just since his death.)

No, it doesn’t work that way. A song is composed of two basic elements – lyrics and music, which breaks down to a melody and the harmonic changes. Bernie and Elton share credit because one wrote the lyrics and one wrote the music. Lennon and McCartney started out the same way, and eventually evolved into writing most of their songs individually. Nonetheless, their agreement apparently was to share credit, even though Lennon clearly wrote “I Am The Walrus” and McCartney clearly wrote “Let It Be”, and they both contributed different pieces to “A Day In The Life”.

Copyright law is not always black and white, and I don’t know if it clearly defines what is close enough to be ‘different’ or the ‘same’. Look at what happened to George Harrison. In that case the court invoked the ‘8 bar’ rule, which (paraphrasing here) states that a song violates a previous copyright if it has the same melody/chord changes for 8 bars or more. (I don’t know where that puts blues and country songs, for which there are hundreds that have the same basic harmonic and melody changes.) But the court ruled that “My Sweet Lord” had the same melody and chord changes as “He’s So Fine”.

The Toad The Wet Sprocket remake of Rock And Roll All Nite was considerably different than the KISS original, but they didn't add their names to it (at least, not on the KISS tribute CD anyway). But if for some strange reason, you guys did that version, would you have to credit TTWS, or even ask them for permission?

I was always told that you can’t copyright an arrangement, hence the arrangement is not a part of the song copyright. What TTWS did, as with thousands of covered re-records, was take a song copyright, including the melody, harmonic chord structure and lyrics, and change the arrangement. You don’t get a ‘writers’ credit for that.

What Ray Charles did – supposedly – was to add different lyrics. I still don’t understand the deal with the Xmas carols, as nothing is changed but the arrangement.

Is "Draggin' the Line" by R.E.M. the same tune as the Tommy James classic?

"Lithium" was done a while back by one of the crappier competitors. It was serviceable for those who wanted to sing it (I'm being charitable here).

Best,

So I'll strike the song from the list.

Just a question, on this, on the song Glass Onion Lennon states that the Walrus was Paul, I always took that to mean that Paul wrote I Am The Walrus and not John, which one would consider it was Lennon's song...but who knows. Anybody have any other thoughts or comments and/or answers on this?

(Who was also the guitarist on the recent Tull songs we did - Brian mentions that somewhere. Other than his talents on guitar, obviously, a misspent youth with too much time on his hands (no 500 channels or video games). At least his parents got their money's worth for his Music degree...)

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“The Walrus” is an ancient Scandinavian symbol for death, and John was simply mocking the “Paul Is Dead” rumours. That’s why the line is actually “I told you ‘bout the Walrus and me, man. You’re know that we’re as close as can be, man. Here’s another clue for you all – the Walrus was Paul”.

There’s also a line in the song about making a “dove-tail joint”, which was commonly used in the assembly of coffins.

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What Goes On: The Beatles Anomalies List

The Beatles may well have made perfect music, but they didn't always play it perfectly. "What Goes On" started out as a UseNet message board twelve years ago, and has been compiling 'anomalies' in recorded Beatles songs ever since.

Fans of the 'greatest band of all time' can look through the list of anomalies that John, Paul, George and Ringo occasionally made while recording their amazing music. An 'anomaly' includes flubbed lyrics or notes, mixing errors, vocal misdirection and a host of other tiny inconsistencies that are bound to happen when you are breaking musical boundaries.

It's always galled me that Elvis took credit for words AND music on the song "Love Me Tender"...the music was an old Civil War song entitled "Aura Lee".

I also have a question for BC: You've recently stated that both Weezer and Garbage have denied their two new singles from being produced for karaoke. Does this mean that all of their songs are now denied, or do they simply have a lock on their new stuff?