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Nirvana: Did The Band Steal 'Come As You Are' From Killing Joke?
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- čas přidán 23. 09. 2021
- Nirvana: Did the Band Steal 'Come As You Are' From Killing Joke?
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#nirvana #kurtcobain #killingjoke
I cite my sources and they may differ than other people's accounts, so I don't guarantee the actual accuracy of my videos.
You immediately recognize the song when you hear it’s opening guitar riff. Come as You Are would be the final top 40 hit for Nirvana’s career and the lyrics would take on a whole new meaning following Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain’s death. But the song’s reputation was also tarnished over accusations of plaigarism. But the story’s deeper than that and we’re going to explore what happened in today’s video.
Ahead of Nirvana entering the studio in early 1991 to record Nevermind they would sent producer Butch vig a demo tape featuring a handful of songs including come as you are. The song was recorded pretty quickly with the Cobain’s guitar solo being completed in just twp take, while the vocals were done in three takes. Nirvana Drummer Dave Grohl would look back at how frontman Kurt Cobain approached songwriting for the band telling VH1’s classic albums We wanted them to be almost like children’s songs; we would tell people they were intended to be as simple as possible,”“Kurt’s focus was the melody - he used to say that the music comes first and the lyrics come second.”
Ahead of Nevermind’s release the label and their management assumed that the first single ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit” would be and i quote a base-building alternative cut while the second single which was planned to be come as you are would cross over to other radio formats. However when Smells Like Teen Spirit became a massive hit, the album’s second single was used to maintain the band’s popularity, but Cobain had second thoughts about releasing Come as You Are as a single.
Nirvana’s manager s Danny Goldberg would recall In the 2000 book, Eyewitness Nirvana: The Day-By-Day Chronicle, , “We met to discuss what [Nevermind‘s] second single would be. We couldn’t decide between ‘Come as You Are’ and ‘In Bloom.’ Kurt was nervous about ‘Come as You Are’ because it was too similar to a Killing Joke song [‘Eighties’], but we all thought it was still the better song to go with. And, he was right, Killing Joke later did complain about it.”
Nirvana’s 1991 track Come as You Are sounded like a slowed down version of Killing Joke’s 1985 track Eighties. “
Killing Joke guitarist Geordie Walker still harbored some resentment , telling Guitarist magazine that the group were and i quote “very pissed off about that”., “It’s obvious to everyone. Our publisher sent their publisher a letter saying it was, and they went, ‘Boo, never heard of ya!’ But the hysterical thing about Nirvana saying they’d never heard of us was that they’d already sent us a Christmas card!”
But Killing Joke opted not to file a lawsuit at the time citing person and financial reasons. It likely would have been an expensive endeavour and it wouldn’t have been an easy case because the Killing Joke track eighties bore some resemblence to the damned’s 1982 track ‘Life Goes On.The members of Killing Joke would deny being familiar with the Damnd’s 1982 track. But the story doesn’t end there. Two other songs by lesser known bands makes use of a similar sounding riff. A band called Garden of Delight had a song called 22 faces that was released in october of 1984, 6 months after killing joke released eighties as a single. But there’s more to the story we have to go all the way back to 1966 and listen to the equals song baby come back. According to music journalist Alex Smith, Killing Joke openly admitted to knowing about the riff from the equals and being influenced by it for their song eighties
It would seem by the 2000’s the beef between Nirvana’s former members and Killing Joke was water under the bridge as Killing Joke frontman Jaz Coleman sang their song Requiem with Foo Fighters at a handful of gigs in the years that followed. In 2003 Dave Grohl would perform drums for Killing Joke’s new album at the time The Death and Resurrection Show. Killing Joke bassist Paul Raven would tell Rolling Stone of the whole controversy over come as you are and eighties revealing “Yeah, Dave and I had a few laughs about that over the past year or so. He mentioned it to me when I met him backstage at Pantera a couple of years back.
Released as the second single from Nevermind in March of 1992, "Come as You Are" peaked at number 32 on the Billboard Hot 100. It remained on the hot 100 charts for 4.5 months while it also peaked at number 3 on the billboar
Here's our look at the history behind the song 'Smells Like Teen Spirit.' czcams.com/video/eV8dGqQY_8o/video.html
@@sstaners1234 next week…longest video I’ve ever done and another highly requested band coming next week
@@rnrtruestories hey sid think about (kittie) also early 2000s hit brackish blew up radio and then they faded. I didnt even know they were still playing till I looked them up. Cant wait for the new vid, be safe and Godspeed brother.
Suggestion: 'Countess Bathory' by Venom 😉
@@rnrtruestories It’s just a musical coincidence with Come as you are and the other’s before and after.
Can’t believe it’s already 30 years
Even Mozart used that riff. He called it “Cometh as you Appear”
😂😂😂
I dig that number.
🤟🤟🤟🤣🤣🤣🤣
Cometh As Thou Appear is my favorite Mozart song.
I laughed out loud that's great
Killing Joke claiming they never heard The Damned's song is just as absurd as Nirvana allegedly claiming they never heard Killing Joke's song.
Both The Damned and Killing Joke are two of the most influential punk/post-punk/goth bands of all time and they frequented many of the same circles.
Not many consider The Damned as pioneers as you have. Sure some do but.....
I have heard of killing joke , but i have never lisent to them ( big difference) but i have heard and listen to nirvena ….see? Two different things
All I got to say is Peter Steele.
@chris williams very true.
@@leoguzman1851 Metallica covered Killing Joke "The Wait" on the Garage Days EP . Killing Joke just opened for Tool on the Fear Innoculum tour because Tool loves them. They were well known in the 80s punk circuit. Nirvana most likely were huge fans.
The further you go back the better the guitar tone sounds lmao
Analoge gear.
@Clandestine Council DATs ADATs Digital mixing board etc
@Clandestine Council not looking fir a big debate there were digital effects racks, MIDI had been around for decade any quality produced albums had some digital fingerprint.
@Clandestine Council Something else that I did think about Is that as time went on more and more Analog tubes were imported from China to be put an American sound devices. And they were pretty crappy
Nirvana's tone is the best out of these examples, anyone who say's otherwise is just deaf or in denial. P.d. I Hate nirvana.
An up and coming band in the 80's asked David Lee Roth when will we know our band has made it. Without hesitating, DLR said " When you can spell the word "subpoena" without thinking about it, that's when you have made it. "
That's some gangsta ass shit
Ironic in light of VH's many cover songs through their careers... Randy Rhoads didnt play covers by choice, oz made him play Paranoid and Children of the grave for encores.
Good old uncle Dave!
Dave is always good for a quote...
That's very true. Broke musicians don't get sued, and even if they got sued they are "judgement proof". I attended a presentation from a music lawyer. The only impression I got from his job was was "my job is to convince a judge that someone else needs to give us money". Anything else was incidental.
You know the situation is fucked up when a band is all, "We are totally going to sue you for ripping us off. However, if we do that, we'll get sued for ripping someone else off." LMFAO. That's classic!
Whether they know it or not music is always being borrowing or taking inspirations whether it be beats rhythm tempos or in this case guitar rifts into someone else's work whether he or she knows it or not
This literally happened with Radiohead and Lana Del Rey.
Sueing is expensive, just because they didn't doesn't prove they had no case.
Holy shit, it's almost as if every guitarist ever has probably played something very similar by accident.
Perfectly put. It's so easy to play you could stumble upon it and be like "wow I wrote the most catchy thing EVER!"
I managed to write seasons in the abyss as a kid in the very same way.
@@cafesociety8525 There's a hungarian musician - when he was a kid, he thought he invented the G-maj chord :D
@@ficergo3759 bless his little soul.
Sometimes i think we maybe hear a song and forget about it. Maybe it was famous maybe it wasn't. As a musician you're being influenced all the time by music. Could be on a conscious or subconscious level.
When I saw Killing Joke at the House of Blues in Hollywood, Jazz Coleman explained how he got a Christmas card from Kurt begging him not to sue…A decade later, Dave Grohl paid the “debt” by joyously agreeing to play on a Killing Joke album.
It's kind of a beautiful coming full circle sort of thing. It's amazing how things that mattered 10 years earlier simply didn't anymore.
Dave Grohl delivered some of his best drumming on that album, too. That groove on Death And Resurrection Show is sick.
Damn, Grohl is a helluva good friend.
And is one amazing album. Every freakin' track.
I thought the story was that he was supposed to have sent the card before he wrote Come As You Are, thus implying he was already a fan of the band, and thus implicating him in a forgery? Whereas what you're saying is that he actually wrote the card after Come As You Are was written. So surely your story somewhat disproves the forgery narrative?
Bands rip off other bands all the time. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. I’ve “written” songs before thinking, wow, this is great! Then a couple days later I’ll hear a song that’s been public for years and I’m like, oh shit. My song was just me subconsciously regurgitating another song I’ve heard many times in the past.
And video game composers uses music from other band. For instance ZUN used Iron Maiden's The Trooper for Sakuya's theme Flowering Night which was in Touhou 9. Hell Konami used Riding On The Wind by Judas Priest in Biker Mice For Mars 1993 and Goemon 3.
@@NealCamerlengo good point
Why not? I love plagerism. A bit of music done differently.
It’s ….intentional. ‘Usually’ 🧐
Most old punk rockers like myself absolutely love Killing Joke and The Damned . Of course Nirvana's heard them but that's rock n roll . Always has been
Yeah, but if you're more like PUNK music, try listening to HATEBREED SWORN ENEMY, TERROR, MISFITS & there's a lot more in the punk METAL era!!
And it’s always been theft.
Always has been what? Blatant plagiarism?
@@curly_wyn Na .. It's a simple riff .. and it's pretty obvious Killing Joke wasn't the first to do it ... besides... sometimes songwriters don't even intentionally do it .. music gets imbedded into people's subconscious and often bits and pieces are inadvertently nicked ... it happens, .. Killing Joke obviously knew it wasn't worth the battle. Those guys were total geniuses by the way ... much more interesting than Nirvana ever was. Still .. Those two songs really are completely different to my ears ... The riff is the same, .. but who gives a shit really.
Yep. Huge fan of KJ since the 80s. Definitely inspired if not copied, but this does happen a lot more than you think.
That Killing Joke album that Dave Grohl played on is a MONSTER. One of their very best.
Check out Five Eyes LP by Shihad. Jaz produced it/basically wrote the music. Super riff heavy like the KJ album.
I thought the Garden of Delight song sounded even closer. That being said, Killing Joke clearly didn't want to sue because they knew they were vulnerable. More often than not, I think it's unintentional. I remember one time trying to write a song and a riff kept going through my head. When I finally played it, I realized it was "Touch Me, I'm Sick." No harm, no foul, because I scrapped the song and probably wouldn't have done anything with it, anyway, but it's probably easier to do by accident if it's band that you like but not one you follow as closely.
And I think Mudhoney wrote Touch me I'm sick consciously knowing it was similar to the Yardbirds "happenings ten years time ago" and the Sonics "the witch."
Dude, I've written so many songs and had to change the sound just because of that reason. It pisses me off. Lol
@@timbrown1834 For sure it was Mudhoney, plus awesome cover by S.Youth.
After hearing the Garden of delight song it reminded me of Martha And The Muffins "Echo Beach" that was 1980
Nirvana's Rape Me sounds awfully similar to Mudhoney's Need.
0:03 "'Come as You Are' would be the final top 40 hit for Nirvana's career." Huh? Nirvana had 11 top 10 hits (including 5 at #1), and 8 of those peaked after "Come as You Are", the most recent being "You Know You're Right" which hit #1 on 10/25/02.
Came here to say this!
Maybe he meant to say on nevermind
thank you for saving me all that typing. these are the same people who say stupid crap like nirvana only got famous because he died... learning history is hard....
THANK YOU
This dude always drops some mistakes , most likely to generate comments such as this ……🤔🤷♂️
Kurt himself admitted it he was afraid to release "Come as You Are" as a single because of the similarities with Killing Joke's "Eighties". The video says that! The question is unnecessary.
But did he realize the similarity before or after writing the track? I've literally finished songs, only the hear a similarity to some song I've heard before, but didn't remember.
Him being scared of being accused of something does not mean he is guilty of that thing. The question is only unnecessary in that the two tracks really don't sound that alike. They have a completely different feel to them and aren't even the same notes. Garden of Delight's 22 Faces is much more similar to KJ's Eighties.
@@user-otzlixr My point was, all the others sound more similar to each other than CAYA sounds to any of them.
You can quite comfortably sing the word 'eighties' over both 22 Faces and Life Goes On as if it were the same track as Eighties. You can't do that with Come As You Are.
Similar, possibly heavily influenced by, but I wouldn't say ripped off, at least not in the same way Eighties was ripped from Life Goes On
@@user-otzlixr and as the video demonstrated there are no shortage of songs that use similar chord progressions. btw come as you are and killing joke do actually have slightly different arrangements you can hear the different notes if you actually listen to it. While the riff is iconic, the singing is really where the song gets it's life.
just like sweet child o mine by guns and roses. you will always recognize that opening riff but it's not the lifeblood of the song.
look at ice ice baby...there was a long and very expensive court battle brewing when they just decided to settle out of court. now sampling is completely acceptable...in that light vanilla ice kind of got screwed. Puff daddy made an entire career off of doing exactly what vanilla ice got in trouble for...that's kind of bullshit.
Funniest thing is even if it's true it's shouldn't be a question because it doesn't matter he made an entirely different piece oh wow you took some riffs like every song doesn't include some elemen of it. It's innovative not invention there are no new riffs really just innovative with what you mix em with.
damn. this is like the spiderman pointing meme of songs.
🤣
Nailed it
Spot on lmfao
A multi verse of the same 7 notes
💀
Some of those songs are more similar than others. Nirvana, Killing Joke and The Damn'd but The Equals is a bit of a stretch.
I was thinking the same thing.
For the Damns life goes on, it not really the same riff. It's more like the guitar is tuned exactly the same.
It may be that the Equals influenced the Damned and so on...not unlikely as The Damned covered Love's "Alone Again..." and it is the same notes in the same time signature...one thing...leads to another.
this reminds me of the Olivia Rodrigo/Paramore discourse happening now. I'd bet 99% of artists don't do this with malicious intention, it just happens, because music is art, and art is always influenced by other art.
It’s plagiarism and theft. Come up with something original or give credit where credit is earned and due.
@@gene8172 that is the mindset that gets art locked up to rot instead of being introduced in new forms to younger audiences. copyright law especially, in the US, is absurdly long (70 years?! Patents are only 20).
check out Tom Scott's video on copyright: czcams.com/video/1Jwo5qc78QU/video.html
and Adam Neely's video on whether Rodrigo stole from Paramore: czcams.com/video/qX7a2p5_JsM/video.html
@@blue_light_bot it’s not a “new” artists job or Perogative to “introduce” art to a younger audience. The new artist’s job is to create new art-something different than the old. If someone wants to use a portion of an existing copyrighted song, then give credit where credit is due and be prepared to pay if asked to do so. The old artists used their creative talents to create something new, and there is no reason for a new artist with equal talent to do the same. I’ve heard all the arguments. Make something new and give credit where credit is due. I’m okay with copyrights being as long as they are, but think patents should be longer, actually.
@@blue_light_bot point is moot, as Olivia added Paramore, and others, to her songs.
@@gene8172 You realize there are only a certain number of chords, right? There aren't an unlimited amount of options when it comes to writing guitar riffs, so to claim anything that sounds similar, no matter how vague the similarity is, is plagiarism and theft is absurd. Unless it's a carbon copy of the original (which is probably heavily inspired by something that sounds similar itself), it's not theft. Inspiration is not theft. Art is built upon other art. Art isn't some singular entity that exists in a vacuum.
They're audibly similar, but it's hardly a unique sound, as this video shows. The complete songs are pretty different (both excellent tracks) and I don't think the intent was to rip anyone off, really. The similarities between the Killing Joke riff and The Damned's track are probably more striking.
I was thinking the same thing, that Killing Joke and the Damned sounded more similar. The tempo on those songs are just different than 'Come as you are'. Different energy.
@Corby Dipsen Also, I agree the song by the Equals at 3:30 isn't even close to the same. However, nobody in this comments thread mentioned that song, so WTF are you talking about? You're mad at me that I agreed with the comment, but then talk about the random 3rd song, and tell me to shut up? Are you on your meds?
It’s like comparing every song that incorporates the 12 bar blues... if we start intentionally looking, it’s a rabbit hole you’ll never come out of.
I didn’t realise it was such a popular slightly altered riff used in so many songs mentioned.
Having said that, I don’t think it could be considered as outright plagiarism.
Well it's like the Gin Blossoms always said
"Hey Jealousy"😬
@@juicepick7131 🤣🤣🤣
That's not the point. The point is: if you are in a small band, you get destroyed by law suits. If you were NIRVANA, you could pretty much rip off whatever you liked, because no one would dare taking the band to court, given their huge popularity, and hence, financial power. This pretty much destroys the hippie, fluffy duffy, power to the people, image of Nirvana and Kurt Cobain.
Kurt himself admitted they were similar. He used ONE specifically song as reference, not an entire music gender. Your logic does not make sense.
But it’s different because Kurt himself said it sounded similar so I’m going to guess he got inspiration from the song
The main riff is a huge yes; they ripped Killing Joke off. I still like both songs.
It doesn’t and there, listen to smells like teen Spirit and then listen to Boston more than a feeling, if you got the year for it, you figured it out.
Both bands ripped off the "Damned". Killing joke has no room to cry plagiarism.
literally every form of rock music is ripped off from somebody else, get over it cuz nobody cares
@@brain4154 who are you telling to get over it? no one seems to be mad about it tho
@@jojohairee9987 And people win lawsuits over plagiarism all the time. It's not rock and roll. It's lazy no talent.
The riffs are very similar, to be sure, but other than that the two songs are completely different in terms of their songwriting structures, vocals, melodies, and overall “feel”. Kurt and Nirvana used the pattern of notes in that riff to form the backbone of a completely different sonic animal to that of Killing Joke’s “Eighties”. That’s what I hear, at least.
That makes sense
Yeah, Come As You Are is contemplative and moody, while Eighties is an upbeat dance-oriented song. Also, they are not 100% the same riff. If you look at the tabs for either one, you'll see what I'm talking about.
Nice. More Killing Joke & The Equals stories, please!
"Come As You Are" _sounds_ more like The Damned song (and moreso "So. Central Rain", to my ear) but, really, those variations of an Open E/A string riff came from the Goth scene, in general. Killing Joke just happened to do it better & more notably than anyone else up to that point. It's the kind of thing beginner guitarists come up with.
Geordie's riff is more complex & original (his unused riffs are better than most bands' hits) but they're all in the lineage of basic Post-Punk "guitar theory".
"It's the kind of thing beginner guitarists come up with."
Spot on!
Eighties sounds less like Come As You Are than the other songs.
I don't know if there's a Killing joke story worth a video in this chanel, but they were/are a killer band.
@@davidtingley9978 they still are. It's not as bad as Metallica covering their song "The Wait" and crediting it to the Misfits on the Garage Days EP, lol.
@@ericharmon7163 pretty sure they credited it to KJ. There was also a couple of Misfits (or a Misfits and a Samhain( song as well.
Who cares. There's a Quote that i wrote if someone does it better then leave it be. I know Jimi Hendrix had permission to blow Bob Dillon outta the water with ' All Along The Watchtower ' Now What !
Wow this is super interesting, Im a fairly big Killing Joke fan since 1984 and I knew of the Come as You are thing. Nirvana all but admitted it, you really can't imagine Kurt standing toe to toe with Jaz Coleman and arguing the toss. Have you seen Jaz Coleman he's one scray Mother!
There have been many discussions about it over the years, I seem to recall Jaz saying "look the guys dead, forget it I've moved on" or words to that effect.
But I didn't know about the similarity to the Equals track, you can definitely hear it, intentional or not.
I guess it just goes to prove what a great riff it is.
More Killing Joke please. I love them. Plus they're still relevant today in their 60's. And other than the late, great Paul Raven, they are all still alive.
there must be 10000 pigface videos he could make.
They even wrote a song called I Am The Virus five years before Covid.
@@davidtingley9978 Pylon is a great double album. I wonder if a "New Cold War" is on the way? Oh Oh.
Agreed, Killing Joke are as important and influential as SWANS or maybe more, unfortunately KJ are underrated
@@ilyas_elouchihi I think being underrated is a good thing. It means you keep trying, stay hungry, and appreciate the fans you do have. Plus if a band isn't mainstream it feels like they are YOUR band. And if you can turn someone you know onto them, mission accomplished. I do wish Geordie Walker was appreciated more when it comes to guitarist. He should be mentioned along with Johnny Marr, Keith Levene, and Billy Duffy. And Michael Gira is a visionary.
Killing Joke denied ever hearing the 1982 track from The Damned when they released Eighties 2 years later. Sure, that's pretty believable lol.
I love Killing Joke’s Eighties, But I don’t care if Nirvana ripped off it or Life goes on by The Damned, come as you are is a classic by its own right too. And the connection with the Killing Joke and The Damned songs makes me appreciate it even more.
it's not about your feelings
the riff is so simple tho, like its literally just going up and down 3 frets on 2 stings in a basic pattern.
No one ever said music had to be complicated.
@spzm Both.
@@rosssmith8481 its wasnt an insult im saying it to show how easy it is to discover the riff. copyrighting it would be dumb because its easy to come up organically
A simple riffs is a good riff, often enough,some of the best rock is real basic
Here is the list I have so far:
Nirvana - Come As You Are
Killing Joke - Eighties
The Damned - Life Goes On
Sigur Ros - Olsen Olsen
The Birthday Massacre - Remember Me
The Equals - Baby Come Back
Bauhaus - Hollow Hills
Garden Of Delight - 22 Faces
Kurt knew it and admitted it. Just like More Than A Feeling and Louie Louie with Teen Spirit. I've written songs that I didn't realize I was channeling from some subconscious place. Then realized it later..."son of a BITCH."
Don't you hate it when that happens? I have a song "Regret" that has a chorus similar to The Lawrence Arms "Paradise Shitty". It was an accident but seems blatant. I kept it anyway. I figure if I get sued I could really use the publicity.
Kurt was sampling it
@delreydavid “then why are you here ?” - Kurt
@delreydavid it’s Saturday ...go hop in your Honda Civic and play #LilHondaCivic 🏎🎶👨🏽💻
@delreydavid a what
I absolutely love Kurt Cobain and nirvana, but the song has been stolen multiple times, huge tipoff and kurt knew it..oh well play the game to win
But but Adam Steal brothers quay art da duhhhhhh
The 4 skins - on the streets
Zebra - don't walk away
@@andrepereira744 lol the zebra song, the verse also sounds like times like these by the foo fighters
I stumbled across “Life goes on” a few months back and kept thinking about how similar the riff was to “Come as you are.” Happy to see I’m not nuts!
I love Killing Joke but this seems minor than The Eagles "Hotel California" taking from Jethro Tull's "We Used To Know" as a lot of rock critics have said.
it’s the kind of riff more than one musician can come up with by noodling around. that is all
Im also a musician and songwriter and you gotta be careful to what you listen to before you go into a writing session, recording session, or jam with your band. You can end up writing a song so similar to what you just heard by accident. Its hilarious that even Killing Joke ripped off the guitar part and still blamed Nirvana. Thats why copyright can be so silly at times because in contemporary music, there is a finite set of chords. Interesting that the effects to this riff are the same throughout each version though! Lots of reverb and maybe a little phaser or chorus effect to add to the riff's gloominess. Great video as always! Keep on rockin in the free world and doo doddley doo doo...
Your absolutely right , if you writing a song and have to worry the whole time that you've been influenced by other music . You may as well give up do sport where you'll be praised for copying someone else's signature move .
Last year I accidentally wrote No Quarter. My band thought I was joking.
That is a big problem when most of "your" songs only have 2 diferent parts.
The 4 skins - on the streets
Zebra - don't walk away
And many more
They're both very different and both great songs in their own right.
I have more than a feeling that there were several inspirations that went into this song.
I see what ya did there
Yeah cuz it sounds like Massachusetts 🤘👹🤘
@@scottricci5063 Austin Massachusetts?
@@brianlehmkuhl8162 precisely or thereabouts
He took almost identical notes and did something completely different with them. As long as the songs feel and sound different, they are. Its the opposite effect as what Greta Van Fleet does.
Haha. I hate that band. No respect for them.
Greta van fleet is a good cover band I guess
@@mr.langustinos5808 butthurt that your favorite creatively bankrupt band was criticized?
@@mr.langustinos5808 I actually see a huge majority of people express hate for that ripoff hack band than I ever see people claim they're awesome.
Greta Van Fleet are just really popular cosplayers
It's such an easy riff to play, you'd think it would be pretty easy to write a similar one without knowing.
It's also so childlike idiotic barely anything musical about it to the point who on earth would even use that, only talentless idiots.
@@DJGodaryD86 sure
@@DJGodaryD86 you okay man?
@@Mickaahh Ask yourself that and stop replying to the wrong people.
@@DJGodaryD86 nah I was asking if you’re okay mate, you must be going through something judging by your comment
Kurt said himself that ripping of the pixies was the key to everything 😂😂😂
nice going covering all the bands who had this riff...i didnt know how many you were going to mention...nice job on this!
Thanks for the research and posting. What is more than interesting
when listening to your comparisons is that the notes are the same in the
progressions - Repeated at different speeds and variations but the same.
Kinda like Neil Young songs. I think it was on the "weld" live CD when some
fan yells up to Neil on stage and says, "Your songs all sound the same," To
which Neil answers, "That's because they're all one song." 😀
See also: "Life Goes On" by The Damned, and "22 Faces" by Garden of Delight.
EDIT: I posted this before finishing the video.
This. If anything, Killing Joke ripped off the song first.
Any punk/alternative band in the 80s, claiming that they never heard of The Damned are liars.
I also pointed this out before even watching the video... Then i rrad the comments to see who else knew there onions. 😉
@@beeragainsthumanity1420 Of course Killing Joke had heard of The Damned, doesn't necessarily mean they'd heard of a little known album track by them though.
I think before Kurt everbody played that riff wrong. The come as you are riff has a start, a middle section and an end. It sounds complete, melodic and great. Nobody played it this way before.
This.
BOOM!! Exactly. His melodic rhythm of the notes is amazing.
Damn! I didn't know how far down this rabbit hole went. I had no clue about the similarities between all the other bands. I just knew of the Nirvana and The Killing joke connection. Thanks for this video!
I remember hearing the song and thinking "that's Killing Joke!"
Its a very simple riff so its understandable that so many bands have made songs with a similar one but not exactly the same. I think both songs are great though and all the other songs with this similar riff. Its cool that the riff is like the torch you pass on.
I saw the guitarist from Killing Joke at the time and he was incredibly angry. He said something about sneaking into Kurt's home, blowing his head off with a shotgun and making it look like suicide but Courtney Love beat him to it.
This is the best conspiracy theory I've ever seen
Anything that involves three or four standard chords should not be able to be copyrighted. There are only so many combinations of those chords you can put together and some are going to sound like each other.
As a musician sometimes you play/record something similar to what you have heard at some point, but usually not consciously. Someone may point it out to you at a later date, and you go, ya, it does sound like that. Rock has only so many riffs. Let's called it "Influenced by".
there's a thin line between inspiration and rip off. however i think bands should take it as a complement instead of getting butt hurt
Most bands don't make much money, so when they see a bigger band making a fortune from an inspiration/rip-off of their music, I bet it hurts a lot. I would personally feel sick if someone made lots of money off their creations that were extremely similar to my creations that came first.
I think the bands using it consciously should state that it is a citation or homage, not the other band suddenly finding out.
Or just be like Noel Gallagher, "I ripped off, so what" kind of attitude, it sounds more like a homage than trying to hide it and you can sue him at the same time lol
@@HermeticWorlds Exactly!
Cobain admitted to stealing the riff. He didn’t expect it to be some huge hit when he wrote it. Their first album sold less than 5000 copies. Had nevermind sold as expected, the similarities wouldnt have been an issue.
How? If the two riffs are in no way the same if you look at how they're played and the notes used, the only similarity would be the main effect used.
@@Deaf_Notes The melody is the same and that is what wins lawsuits. Tom Petty got the rights of a huge song recently because the melody was the same as I wont back down
He didn't admit that, he said that he was afraid they sounded similar. Obviously from that you can infer that he was worried that people would accuse him of that. That doesn't mean he directly ripped it off. Personally I think 'Come As You Are' sounds distinct and unique and it's actually Garden of Delight's '22 Faces' and KJ's 'Eighties' that sound identical to each other. That being said, songs will always sound like other songs as there's only a finite amount of pleasing note arrangements available. And artists will always emulate their influences. Same in every other industry
@@ringtail1401 Funny how some artist go entire multimillion record selling careers without plagiarizing a single song, though…..
@@ringtail1401 of course you’d think Come As You Are is completely unique because it’s Nirvana. 😒
God interesting listening to those other bands guitar intros they are almost identical in notes. Good video and super informative fair play Boys 😉🇮🇪🙋♂️
As a musician, I know that sometimes subconsciously you might really like a song and or have it in your mind and when you, yourself are writing a song. The influence pops up unintentionally. I do find it funny tho and maybe too much of a coincidence that both songs have an overuse of the flanger effect lol. Oh well. Art influences art and I don't think Kurt did it with the purpose of "ripping someone off".
I don't think there's any question Nirvana drew inspiration from the Killing Joke riff.. it's not a full blown rip off, tho, it's an homage. It's ridiculous and petty they whined about it, and WAY more so after I'm now hearing that Damned riff. The Killing Joke guitar line is actually way closer to the Damned line than Nirvana's to Killing Joke's.
Interesting, but Kurt also built a hands down AMAZING song around that one riff. Took it to another level.
Did you listened Eighties? This song is wonderful, even better than come as you are!
I love come as you are, but Eighties was “on another level” already
@@raphaelcalado4335 u trippin
@@raphaelcalado4335 matter of opinions, I like Come as you are better than Eighties
@@JR-hs9nt ok my brother, I never intended to say one is better than other, I just think that both have their qualities!
@@raphaelcalado4335 fr
I connected these two songs recently, wondering if this was the case. Of course CZcams brought me your video. Thanks for the in depth review of the topic.
Kurt Cobain actually thought of himself as a lazy lyric writer. Most of the lyrics of the songs from Nevermind came from little poems/songs he had scribbled in his journal. Butch Vig also had to pull teeth to get him to record more than one take. The way he was finally able to convince him was he told them "Even the Beatles recorded multiple takes" and he's like "Oh they did? OK".
People take riffs from each other. This goes all the way back to the Beatles. I don't fault Nirvana for doing what essentially every rock band has ever done
The Beatles!? Ever see Amadeus?
Led zeppelin stole lyrics and music
@@aarondoodles3380 ...again, I refer you to Beethoven.
@@benjamingamache6441 Everybody stole off him!
@@aarondoodles3380 and he basically stole from salieri.
Cobain's vocal melody was light years beyond the vocal melodies that accompanied the other songs. The vocal melody on top of the riff was what set Come As You Are apart. He was definitely influenced by those riffs though. It's a grey area.
Exactly. The main riff is essentially just a chord change. The melody is a much more distinctive element that would be grounds for claiming somebody copied something.
@Neil Toddie always preferred AIC..hope they didn't plagiarise too :(
Whining, screaming and not being able to sing are not called vocals nor melodies especially not singing. Whoever listens to this garbage should have a surgery or hearing aid.
@@cago5512 what kind of music do you listen to?
@@cago5512 Kurt vocals is very soulful, feels real like he meant it, angry and full of energy, suited for his style of rebellious music. Kurt vocals is so punk, that is feels more true punk than the real punk music like Sex Pistols vocals. And Nirvana is a very rare bands that performing live is much better than on the records. That's why many tries to cover Nirvana and failed miserably. I prefer Kurt than all others singer that wrote songs just for the sake of making money, fake.
I taught myself guitar, the day I chose to play guitar is the day I accidentally played come as you are as its on the (E string and 1st and second fret, not really but for me it was) so clearly this is a very cool sounding but easy riff, thats why it was so common
Here is another suspicious riff that Nirvana may have lifted:
Search up “The Big Lounge Scene” by the Minutemen and tell me the intro doesn’t sound very similar to another song.
Or Smells Like Teen Spirit vs U-Mass by the Pixies
These guys claiming they didn't know who The Damned were is the joke.
But is it killing?
@@cholling1
Killing their credibility for me anyway.
KJ was unfamiliar with the track, not the band. It's clearly stated in the video. This is prior to the internet, it's entirely possible that KJ wasn't paying attention to The Damned's Pop lp.
Devo took the riff of the song Oh, Pretty Woman by Roy Orbison for their song Whip It! All that they did was speed up the beat a little bit and then added a drum snare twice. Phil Collins used the opening tempo and pitch for Prince's song 1999 for his song Sussudio. People borrow from other people all of the time. Musicians and singers are inspired by other musical artists and remember, every popular song that people like over the last 40 + years only sold well because they all pretty much basically have exactly the same four chords no matter what the song. So it's also a subconscious, subliminal, psychosomatic reaction type of thing just as well as a popularity thing.
and even if they werent inspired/ never heard of other bands there is only 12 notes in bar and literally houndreds of thousends of songs. at some point some riffs will resemble others, so what? come as you are may have similar riff to eightis , but sounds nothing alike as a song
In the pre-rock n roll Delta blues scene of the 1930s guys 'borrowed' each others' material so frequently it can be hard to ascertain who even wrote some standards in the first place. There's a good chapter about this in John Leland's Hip: A History.
Kurt was aware it sounded like "Eighties", come on! The case with Devo is that Gerald V. Casale himself acknowledged that in public.
Phil Collins did not denied the similarity, too, and he said he listened to "1999" frequently while on tour.
That's the difference! If the artist wants to sue them or not, it's their decision. Kurt was aware and he chose not to say anything, it was nothing unconscious.
@@christophermerlot3366 You know there's a "blues scale" in music to correctly justify your wrong comparison? There's not a "Killing Joke scale" because the entire Delta Blues era is a landmark in music History, it influenced everyone. It's not just a band and a riff. Your sense of proportion is way out of it, it diminishes a period of music that changed the world.
Fantastic video. Thank you. I didn't know that it was a rip off of another song. I'm a huge Nirvana fan and I had no idea.
You and me both I'm now finna check out the eighties song just cause I'm that curious
this reminds me of the Stairway to Heaven intro debacle . Very similar parts but also in Zeppelin's case, that guitar part wasnt even the main part of the song. Stairway denied!
It's almost like you can't copyright a chord progression. It's almost like western music follows a format. It's almost like half the songs are Pachelbel.
Because the hook brings you back.
I'll have to give a nod to the Damned, It's their riff, If I was Mr Sensible I'd be suing Killing Joke & Nirvana.
Every year that goes by, a billion more songs get added to history's song pile, leaving an almost zero chance that someone can come up with a new simple riff. Similarly, this saturation of songs makes it just as impossible to know if you've come up with a new simple riff or not.
Bauhaus "hollow hills" (1981)
The Damned "life goes on" (1982)
Garden Of Delight "22 faces" (1984)
Killing Joke "eighties" (1985)
Nirvana "come as you are" (1991)
Always thought that "Radio friendly unit shifter" was a bigger Killing Joke rip off 🤔
Nan, RFUS is more from PIL song annalisa.
Also you can try The 4 skins - on the streets
Zebra - don't walk away
@@andrepereira744 Annalisa sounds nothing like RFUS, other than the drum beat is similar. The chord progression from On the Streets does sound a lot like the New Wave version of Polly, so that's a point, but they were a tiny Oi band, so would Kurt have ever heard them? Possibly, but I'm not convinced. The initial riff from Don't Walk Away sounds a bit like Been a Son, but not exactly the same. Not sure there's enough there tbh
@@ringtail1401 "a bit". There are many more but ok, whatever.
@@andrepereira744 There's plenty of songs by plenty of artists that sound a bit like other songs. It's impossible to be 100% original, that's not how life works. You say there's many more so name them..
@@ringtail1401 100% original? Maybe not, but thats no reason to be 50% or less original.
If you choose to write songs with 1 or 2, 3 diferent parts max, that will happen for sure.
Look at Mastodon or Meshuggah for example. 100% original? Maybe not, but close enough.
The thing is, Cobain is not that original genius most people portray.
As for more songs, do yourself your homework.
Misfits’ “Fiend Club” has a somewhat similar riff too.
Same with Life Goes On by The Damned.
@@thedaddypatty5192 have you watched the whole video lmao
@@droideca88 At the time I wrote that comment, no. I was watching as I was commenting.
All of them are awesome songs! Great episode.
The moral of the story all artists steal from other artists whether they get permission or they don't get permission.
Yes. Yes they did.
Come as your are was the final top 40? Heart shaped box didn’t?
He's talking about US releases. Nirvana released Heart Shaped Box as a single in the UK, Europe and elsewhere, but not in the US. Same with All Apologies/Rape Me single. Something to do with the record company fearing the American crowd would neglect to buy the album in favour of the more poppier singles
Honestly the fact that there is SO MUCH MUSIC out there in the world. Every real Music artist wants every song they produce to have a different sound. There is no doubt that there are songs that sound very similar to previous songs. There's just so many notes you can use in different songs. One notable song I can think of off the type of my head that sounds similar to each other is Lana Del Rey's "Hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have" where the opening notes sound similar to Chris Isaak's "Wicked Games". For me I don't even mind that some music sounds similar to others. As long as it's a good song. But the thing is people should at least notice the songs that also sound similar so that the new song doesn't get overshadowed by the song that gets unnoticed before.
That riff was apparently passed around for a few decades . Thanks for another interesting and informative video
Multiple bands thought up a simple, catchy rock riff.
Wow who woulda thought.
As a musician that writes,. I'll say this...There is nothing new under the sun,. every song,. riff, or lyric is inspired by something or someone else. I hear similarities in everything from commercial jingles, to the latest pop tunes,. If you walk this Earth long enough,. You will see repetition in nearly everything........
It’s all chord patterns...
Only so many combinations out there really 👍
Especially because most music is actually really simplistic, repetitive and rigid in it's structure... And it's one of the main reasons I dig classical, jazz and progressive music.
The melodic structure of the opening riff is very common in popular music. Finding the root of it through the forest of plagiarism would be very hard indeed imo..
Korn - Blind uses pretty much the same intro to Too Many Puppies by Primus
I've been writing music for about 4 years and I remember being extremely worried early on about the whole "ripping off" thing, everytime I wrote something I used to squeeze my brain to make sure I wasn't just playing something I overheard previously... thank god I moved away from that... I've come to a point where I don't give a shit about it anymore for the simple reason that basically every single chord progression and combined arrangement of guitar riffs/licks, vocal harmonies and time signatures have been wrote some way or another. At least this goes for the simple songwriting that's required for alt rock (the genre I mostly play), you can still find unexplored territories in jazz and more technical genres, but at what cost? For a songwriter like me that focuses on catchy 4/4 stuff it would make no sense to get technical and it's not my thing...
So all this to say that people should not take this whole "ripping off" so strictly... unless the two songs are identical under every aspect (riff, vocal harmony, chord progression) or the artist intentionally stole an entire arrangement section it's entirely possible that it was a casual coincidence and you should not feel guilty with yourself because of it... there are only so many chord progressions and harmonies, it's nearly impossible to create a new one, especially if you keep your riffs simple like Kurt did with Come as you are...
This said and having heard life goes on and eighties I hear very little similarities between one another since they all evolve into different progressions and have different vocal harmonies and styles... I can totally get around the idea that none of them heard eachother and it was coincidence
When I visited Edgar Allan Poe's grave I wore a Damned shirt. One of the best bands ever.
The riff is a visual pattern. If you can play this on the guitar, you may kinda what I mean. Impossible that these bands were the only ones to try that collection of notes out.
Haha thanks for the video
Great video. I had heard or seen something before of the controversy but I didn't know or remember any real details. You gave us all the details here and more!!!! 👍🏻👍🏻
The similarities between "Come As You Are" and "Eighties" are blatantly obvious. But so are the similarities between "Life Goes On" and both songs, and so Killing Joke seems a tad hypocritical here. 🤷🏻♂️ I definitely don't hear much similarity in that 1960s song with any of the above, though.
I just want to say that I have noticed a BIG improvement in the quality of your videos within an the past month or so. 👍🏻👍🏻 You really took our constructive criticisms to heart. I'd already been subscribed to you for at least a couple of years now, so obviously even with the iffy quality of some of your previous videos I still felt it was worth remaining subscribed to you, especially for info on the bands I love the most, such as Alice in Chains. That being said, though, your work has markedly improved, so I'm going to watch your videos with even more zeal now. You're rocking this!!!!
You've already covered this
Seriously Everytime he posts a "new video" first thing I do is search the title of the video and no joke about 90% of the time you will see the same exact video from him about a year apart about the same exact topic. Sometimes even titled with almost the same exact sentence lol. This one he did pretty sneaky though and last year's video he did about this is named "nirvana: the complicated history of come as you are". I always scroll through just to see if anyone notices it too and you are the winner. Your cash prize is in the mail.
Exactly!! This dude is milking the cow like crazy!!
Not to mention the "thousands" of videos talking exactly about the same out there, but whatever.....I guess most people have a golden fish memory (7 seconnds)
@@marksantory4405 Nan, you deserve half of that prize money, for wasting your time in that, to save us from attencion grabers!! Well done Sir!
@@andrepereira744 haha cheers!
Great song, regardless of whether or not they "ripped off" the riff.
I've long since come to the conclusion that I don't care how "original" a piece of music is -- if I like it, then that's that, and nobody can tell me otherwise.
Excelent video! Didn t about The Damned song and the other goth band and 60s group. Only the Killing Joke song , huge fan of them. Please post more of this type of material. It s awesome.
The Path of inspiration! The Equals - Baby Come Back (1968)...Bauhaus - Hollow Hills (1981)....The Damned - "Life goes on" (82')....Garden Of Delight "22 Faces" (84')....Killing Joke - Eighties (85')....Nirvana - come as you are (91')....Sigur Ros - Olsen Olsen (99')
Why didn't Killing Joke sue Nirvana?
KJ's punk ethos is: Money is not our God. It's even one of their song titles.
"Why didn't Killing Joke sue Nirvana?"
The same reason why The Damned (Life Goes On) and Garden of Delight (22 Faces) didn't sue Killing Joke.
I assume you were talking about Smells like teen spirit. Nirvana took the opening riff from ‘Daughters of the Northern Coast’ by Australian Crawl. It’s the worst kept secret in music.
Someone else has just said that its 'definitely' More Than A Feeling by Boston. Or could it be that Teen Spirit is simply an original song by Nirvana. You people are insane. The riff from DotNC sounds nothing at all like Teen Spirit, and neither does MTAF
Have a listen to Sideways by Men Without Hats. Did they steal all of these songs for Teen Spirit? czcams.com/video/bLAQEssYNjA/video.html
I remember reading in an interview with Mike Mills talking about Nirvana's success. He noted that every 10 years a band comes along and does something different with the same 3 chords. I guess in this case it's with the same riff.
I've been a killing joke fan since my early teens the 80's , but I failed to pick up on the similarity . Kurt made something completely different out of it so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt .
even if he copied, its not a big deal because he made it his own
But Kurt himself saw that the tracks were very similar. I’m not saying he copied anything either
Furthermore, Killing Joke claiming they never heard The Damned's song is just as absurd as Nirvana allegedly claiming they never heard Killing Joke's song.
Both The Damned and Killing Joke are two of the most influential punk/post-punk/goth bands of all time and they frequented many of the same circles.
It’s basically the same song, are you serious
@@willnill7946 The guitar riff has one different note , the tempo is not the same . And the melody of the singing is completely different , and eighties is a way better song .
🎸
You are very good at researching. Good job man
I subscribed to this channel because of your nice cool logo such a perfect logo for a rock n roll stuff.
Borrowed is the word. KJ wrote 80’s and Nirvana wrote Come as you are… simples.Everybody takes inspiration from other bands.
I’ll go with inspired, they made there own song and I don’t think they should return it either 😀
Kurt even admitted that he stole the song and didn't want it to be used because he never meant it to released, but the suits pressured him to release it.
Agreed
When it was pointed out on Twitter that Olivia Rodrigo's "Brutal" sounded like Elvis Costello's "Pump It Up" Costello said it was fine with him and pointed out that he lifted his song from Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues."
i actually find that Rodrigo's song "Brutal" sounds a lot like the Foo Fighters song "My Poor Brain" :)
@Christopher Bingham Costello pointed out in the same tweet that it all came from Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business."
Love your work my friend!! js…BOOM
Good deep dive on this video. I almost skipped it 'cuz there are so many 'did so-and-so band steal blah-blah song from this-other-band' musings out there. I'm glad I didn't skip it, though, since this vid uncovered just how easy and often 'similar songs' emerge over the years; intentional or not.
I also find it kind of funny when a band member talks about 'I wrote this song after being inspired by this other band's song', and the two sound nothing alike! 😄