Live Oak Blues What happens.

When I was teaching English, I’d have this clause in my syllabus that claimed plagiarism was worse than murder, or words to that effect. It was designed to deter, but taking someone’s handiwork and passing it off as one’s own really pissed me off, and still does. But if a student did something really cool like construct a paper based completely on relevant quotes that ended up making a cogent argument (this never happened, by the way), then I would have praised this student to the heavens.

Within this distinction is the difference between musical plagiarism and remix culture. This is why Girl Talk is a genius and Led Zeppelin are thieving, reprehensible…well, they were geniuses too. I love everything about (most of) remix culture: the cutting up, the piecing back together, the new art from old. But what Led Zeppelin did (for those who do not already know) was take a whole lotta songs and then stick their names on the credits. Some of these ended up in the courtroom, some didn’t. Anyway, I will be looking at these songs and other examples of musical plagiarism on my show, “Left Of The Dial,” this Monday, from 3 to 5 on Grow Radio.

Here’s the argument their defenders use: from the beginning, blues culture was all about reworking received songs. Who, for example, actually wrote “Walking Blues”? No one who knows blues believe Son House did. For that matter, did Bukka White write “Shake ‘Em On Down”? I do know that “Page/Plant” didn’t, as they claim on their “Custard Pie.” Tribute? Tell that to Jake Holmes, whose note-for-note “Dazed And Confused” came out in 1967, two years before Led Zeppelin I. There were no greater blues interpreters than Led Zeppelin (and on that I will brook no argument), so who’s to say?

Anyway, I won’t be Zepp bashing the whole time, so tune in.  And seriously, I really do still love Led Zeppelin.