We heard this a few months ago. "Stairway to heaven", the legendary song by Led Zepellin is back in the courts. Frankly, I thought that the issue had been settle but not so fast.
According to the BBC, the group Taurus claims that Robert Plant & Jimmy Page heard the melody when both groups were in tour circa 1969:
The trial has been scheduled for 10 May.Stairway to Heaven, released in 1971, is widely seen as one of the greatest rock compositions of all time.The copyright infringement action has been brought by Michael Skidmore, a trustee for the late Spirit guitarist Randy Wolfe, who played on the same bill as Led Zeppelin in the 1960s, and claims he should be given a writing credit on the track.Led Zeppelin guitarist Page and lead singer Plant are reputed to have written Stairway to Heaven in a remote cottage in Wales.However, Mr Skidmore has suggested the song came about after the band heard Spirit perform the instrumental Taurus while the bands toured together in 1968 and 1969.US district judge Gary Klausner said a jury could find "substantial" similarity between the first two minutes of Stairway and Taurus."While it is true that a descending chromatic four-chord progression is a common convention that abounds in the music industry, the similarities here transcend this core structure," Judge Klausner ruled."What remains is a subjective assessment of the 'concept and feel' of two works... a task no more suitable for a judge than for a jury."He also said the trustee can get only 50% of any damages awarded, citing a 1967 contract Wolfe signed.
We will see. I've heard both songs and there is indeed a similarity. At the same time, my guess is that there will be a settlement out of court and both sides will go home happy.
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President Clinton is out there campaigning for Mrs. Clinton. However, he is also finding out that this is a very different party from the one he moved to the center in the 1990s. I found this article by Tory Newmyer rather interesting:
But for the 42nd president, so long the irrepressible Big Dog of the political scene, the moment must have offered some deeper catharsis. He’s spent the better part of a year holding himself in check while Hillary Clinton has disavowed much of his record, piece by piece. The Democratic Party she seeks to lead is rediscovering lefty instincts he banished a generation ago as the young tribune of an ascendant centrism, and she is adjusting accordingly.
Candidate Hillary now talks up the need for criminal justice reform to undo the 1994 crime bill her husband championed; decries the wages on American workers of NAFTA and subsequent free-trade deals he ushered in; and calls for cracking down on a financial sector he helped deregulate. Her evolution appears aimed at least in part at keeping faith with younger Democrats, a bloc that’s nevertheless rejecting her, en masse, in favor of a septuagenerian with a ‘60s vintage message. (In Wisconsin on Tuesday, Bernie Sanders won a whopping 82% of voters under 30.) So Bill could be forgiven if he’s feeling a bit lost in the party he once defined.
I would add that this tilt to the left, or rejection of the Clinton presidency, really began in 2000, when 4 million voted for Ralph Nader.
It continued in 2008, when candidate Senator Obama decried NAFTA and then-senator Clinton was forced to dance around the agreement.
It has come full circle with Senator Sanders's supporters, who did not get the memo about Mrs. Clinton's coronation.
It must be tough for the narcissist Bill Clinton. He's been thrown under the bus, in much the same way that he threw the left under the bus back in 1996.
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